3ds Max 2012 New Features

More new features of 3ds Max 2012 from Autodesk's website:

Sculpting and Painting Enhancements
Enjoy greater control over brushstrokes and their effects on geometry, thanks to new sculpting and painting workflows. Useful in topology reduction workflows, the new Conform brush guides geometry towards another surface, with the degree of the conforming effect varying from softly approaching to shrink-wrapping. Modelers can slide vertices along target surfaces with the new transform brushes: Move, Rotate, Scale, and Relax. In addition, Paint Deform brushstrokes—for tools such as Push, Flatten, and Exaggerate—can be constrained to a spline, enabling it to be used as a guide or ruler, or to easily repeat freehand strokes.

Stylistic Rendering
Create a variety of non-photorealistic (NPR) effects that help simulate artistic styles, with the new ability to render stylized images in the viewport and with the Quicksilver renderer. The looser, more abstract style of NPR imagery helps designers and architects more effectively communicate their core design intent while deemphasizing distracting or incomplete design details

ProOptimizer Enhancements
You can now optimize models faster, more efficiently, and with better results, using the enhanced ProOptimizer feature. ProOptimizer now offers normal and UV interpolation, together with the ability to keep high-resolution normals on the low-resolution result.

3ds Max Design Only
Civil View Feature Set
Turn complex civil design geometry into precise and compelling 3D design visualizations faster and more efficiently with the 3ds Max Design Civil View feature set. With simple, style-driven functionality and an extensive library of parametric civil-oriented objects and materials, Civil View helps civil engineers achieve stunning results, even those with little or no detailed knowledge of 3ds Max Design. Civil View dynamically links to data from AutoCAD Civil 3D civil engineering software and other software products such as Bentley MXROAD software. When design changes occur, design visualizations are more easily refreshed, enabling them to evolve in tandem. Civil View now offers enhanced support for the new iray and Quicksilver rendering solutions for faster results and simplified setup

3ds Max 2012 New Features

More new features of 3ds max 2012 from the Autodesk website:

Single-Step Suites Interoperability
Take advantage of the focused toolsets in the Autodesk 3ds Max Entertainment Creation Suites 2012, with new single-step interoperability between 3ds Max and Autodesk Mudbox 2012 software, Autodesk MotionBuilder 2012 software, and Autodesk Softimage 2012 software. Export 3ds Max scenes to Mudbox to add sculpted and painted details, and then update the scene in 3ds Max in one simple step. Take a 3ds Max scene to MotionBuilder to access the animation toolset, without having to think about file format details. And tap into the power of the Softimage ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) particle system directly from your 3ds Max scene.

Autodesk Alias Products Interoperability
Enjoy smoother interoperability with Autodesk Alias Design software for industrial design, with the ability to import .WIRE files natively into 3ds Max Design and 3ds Max as Bodies objects, preserving object names, hierarchies, layers, and material names. Designers can now interactively adjust tessellation results inside 3ds Max Design and 3ds Max to help fine-tune their visualization, and add sculpted details on top of Alias Design reference data using the intuitive Graphite polygon modeling toolset in 3ds Max Design and 3ds Max

Enhanced UVW Unwrapping
Create better UVW maps in less time, with a new Least Squares Conformal Mapping (LSCM) method, enhancements to existing tools, and more streamlined workflows. The LSCM method preserves local angles of the mesh faces in order to help minimize texture distortion. Employed in a new ‘Peel’ tool, the new method produces unwrapped UVWs from cut seams with a single click.

Vector Displacement Map Support
With new support for Vector Displacement Maps (VDMs) in 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design, you can use mental ray renderer or iray to render complex high-resolution details created in Autodesk Mudbox software or certain other packages on low-resolution geometry. VDMs can represent directional displacements that do not simply follow the normal: for example, forms with appendages, undercuts, folds, and bulges.

3ds Max 2012 New Features

Autodesk has announced some of the new features of 3ds Max 2012:

Nitrous Accelerated Graphics Core

A top priority of the Excalibur (XBR) initiative to restructure 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design was to introduce a new viewport system engineered to help provide dramatic improvements in performance and visual quality. The new Nitrous core leverages GPUs and multi-core workstations to enable you to iterate faster and handle larger data sets with more interactivity. Advanced scene management techniques, together with multithreaded viewport scene traversal and material evaluation, result in a smoother, more responsive workflow. Furthermore, Nitrous provides a render-quality display environment that supports unlimited lights, soft shadows, screen-space ambient occlusion, tone-mapping, and higher-quality transparency

Substance Procedural Textures
Achieve a vast range of look variations with a new library of 80 Substance procedural textures. These dynamic, resolution-independent textures have a tiny disk space footprint, and can be exported to certain games engines via the Substance Air middleware offering (available separately from Allegorithmic SAS). Alternatively, textures can be quickly converted to bitmaps for rendering. Some examples of dynamically editable and animatable parameters are: brick distribution, surface aging, and mortar thickness in a brick wall; and the age, roughness, curb borders, and lane markings of a street texture.

mRigids Rigid-Body Dynamics
3ds Max 2012 and 3ds Max Design 2012 introduce the MassFX unified system of simulation solvers, and deliver the first module: mRigids rigid-body dynamics. With mRigids, you can leverage the multi-threaded NVIDIA PhysX engine to create compelling, dynamic rigid-body simulations directly in the 3ds Max viewport. mRigids supports static, dynamic, and kinematic rigid bodies (the latter for rag doll simulations), and a number of constraints: Rigid, Slide, Hinge, Twist, Universal, Ball & Socket, and Gear.

iray Renderer
Creating realistic images has never been easier with 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design, using the newly incorporated iray rendering technology from mental images. Get more predictable, photo-real results that more accurately portray the physical world without worrying about rendering settings— similar to a ‘point-and-shoot’ camera. Focus on your creative vision and intuitively use real world materials, lighting, and settings to more accurately portray the physical world; iray progressively refines the image until the desired level of detail is achieved. iray works with standard multi-core CPUs, however, NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPU hardware will significantly accelerate the rendering process.

3ds Max 2012 System Requirements - 64 Bit

64-Bit 3ds Max 2012 or 3ds Max Design 2012 for Windows:

Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional x64, Microsoft Windows Vista Business x64 (SP2 or higher), or Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 (SP3 or higher)

For general animation and rendering (typically fewer than 1,000 objects or 100,000 polygons):
Intel 64 or AMD64 processor with SSE2 technology
4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended)
4 GB swap space (8 GB recommended)
3 GB free hard drive space
Direct3D 10, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL-capable graphics card (256 MB or higher video card memory, 1 GB recommended)
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 or higher or Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or higher browser
Internet connection for web downloads and Autodesk Subscription-aware access

For large scenes and complex data sets (typically more than 1,000 objects or 100,000 polygons):
Intel 64 or AMD64 processor with SSE2 technology
8 GB RAM
8 GB swap space
3 GB free hard drive space
Direct3D 10, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL-capable graphics card (1 GB or higher video card memory)
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 or higher or Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or higher browser
Internet connection for web downloads and Autodesk Subscription-aware access

3ds Max 2012 System Requirements - 32 Bit

32-Bit 3ds Max 2012 or 3ds Max Design 2012 for Windows:

Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional operating system, Microsoft Windows Vista Business operating system (SP2 or higher), or Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system (SP3 or higher)

For general animation and rendering (typically fewer than 1,000 objects or 100,000 polygons):
Intel Pentium 4 1.4 GHz or equivalent AMD processor with SSE2 technology
2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)
2 GB swap space (4 GB recommended)
3 GB free hard drive space
Direct3D 10 technology, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL-capable graphics card (256 MB or higher video card memory, 1 GB or higher recommended)
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 internet browser or higher or Mozilla Firefox 3.0 internet browser or higher
Internet connection for web downloads and Autodesk Subscription-aware access

3ds Max 2011 Announced

Autodesk has announced some of the new features of 3ds Max 2011:

http://news.autodesk.com/portal/site/autodesk/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100309005318&newsLang=en

http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/3ds_max_2011_announced

Slate Material Editor
Easily visualize and edit material component relationships with Slate, a new node-based material editor that helps significantly improve workflow and productivity for artists creating and editing complex material networks. The intuitive schematic framework is engineered to handle the vast numbers of materials required by today’s demanding productions.

Quicksilver Hardware Renderer
Create high-fidelity pre-visualizations, animatics, and games-related marketing materials in less time with Quicksilver, an innovative new hardware renderer that helps produce high-quality images at incredible speeds. This new multi-threaded rendering engine utilizes both the CPU and the GPU, and supports alpha and z-buffer render elements; depth-of-field; motion blur; dynamic reflections; area, photometric, ambient occlusion, and indirect lighting effects along with precision adaptive shadow maps; and the ability to render at larger-than-screen resolutions.

Local Edits to Containers
Collaborate more efficiently with significantly enhanced workflows for Containers that enable users to layer local edits non-destructively on top of referenced content. Meet tight deadlines by working in parallel: while one user iteratively edits unlocked aspects of the container, another can continue to refine the underlying data. Multiple users can contribute changes to different elements of the same container at once, while simultaneous edits to the same component are prevented.

Modeling and Texturing Enhancements
Accelerate modeling and texturing tasks with new tools that extend the Graphite modeling and Viewport Canvas toolsets: a revised toolset for 3D painting and editing textures within the viewport; the ability to paint with object brushes to create geometry within a scene; a new brush interface for editing UVW coordinates; and an interactive tool for extending edge loops.

Viewport Display of 3ds Max Materials
Develop and refine scenes in a high-fidelity interactive display environment—without the constant need to re-render— with the new ability to view most 3ds Max texture maps and materials in the viewport. Modelers and animators can make interactive decisions in a context that more closely matches the final output, helping reduce errors and enhance the creative storytelling process.

3ds Max Composite
Enhance rendered passes and incorporate them into live action footage with 3ds Max Composite: a fully-featured, high-performance, HDR-capable compositor, based on technology from Autodesk Toxik software. The 3ds Max Composite toolset incorporates keying, color correction, tracking, camera mapping, raster and vector paint, spline-based warping, motion blur, depth of field, and tools to support stereoscopic productions.

In-Context Direct Manipulation UI
Save time when modeling and maintain focus on the creative task at hand with a new in-context user interface (UI) for polygon modeling tools that eliminates unnecessary mouse movement away from the model. Modelers can interactively manipulate properties, enter values directly at the point of interest in the viewport, and preview results prior to committing changes.

CAT Integration
More easily create and manage characters, and layer, load, save, remap, and mirror animations with the Character Animation Toolkit (CAT). Now fully integrated into 3ds Max, CAT provides an out-of-the-box advanced rigging and animation system. With its approachable, flexible toolset, animators can use default settings in CAT to help achieve high-quality results in less time—or completely customize rigs to include arbitrary morphology, embedded custom behaviors, and procedural controllers for more demanding character set-ups.

Ribbon Customization
Maximize the usable workspace and focus on the features that matter most for specialized workflows with customizable Ribbon layouts. Create and store personalized UI configurations that include frequently-used action items and macro scripts, and toggle the display of these configurations with the touch of a hotkey or button.

mental ray 2011
The latest version of mental ray renderer included with 3ds Max offers enhanced performance and stability.

Updated OpenEXR Image IO Plug-in
An updated OpenEXR plug-in supports unlimited layers in one EXR file and automatically stores Render Elements and G-Buffer channels to EXR layers.

Save to Previous Release
Manage the transition to 3ds Max 2011 with the option to save scene files in a format compatible with 3ds Max 2010.

Windows 7 Support
3ds Max 2011 adds Windows 7 operating system as a supported platform.

FBX File Link with Autodesk Revit
Receive and manage updates to a file imported from Autodesk Revit Architecture software using the new FBX File Link.

Native Solids Import/Export
Non-destructively transfer trimmed surfaces, solids models, and assemblies between 3ds Max and certain other CAD applications that support SAT files.

Autodesk Material Library
Choose from up to 1,200 material templates, and more accurately exchange materials with other supporting Autodesk applications.

Google SketchUp Importer
Efficiently import Google SketchUp sketching software (SKP) version 6 and 7 files into 3ds Max.

Inventor Import Improvements
Import Autodesk Inventor software files into 3ds Max without the requirement for Inventor to be installed on the same machine. Plus, get better results when importing solids objects, materials, surfaces, and composites.

3ds Max 2010 Design New UI Features

User Interface Refresh
The 3ds Max Design user interface has been updated to allow for task‐based workflows. As a result, key functionality becomes much more accessible when it’s needed most through context sensitive user interface components.

Adobe Photoshop Interoperability
Artists can now assign a Microsoft DirectX software material to an object and reference individual layers in Adobe Photoshop .psd files as a texture input, for enhanced interoperability with Photoshop. Additionally, the Viewport Canvas also offers support for Photoshop blending modes and quick updating of textures on 3ds Max Design models.

3ds Max Design 2010 Animation Features

Support for Locked Tracks
3ds Max Design 2010 supports the locking of any parameter that can be animated, including those with animation layers. Wires, expressions and scripts will still evaluate when locked, but they will not be editable. Vital for people working in teams, this toolset enables users to prevent team members from editing specific tracks.

Link Constraint
Support for a new Link constraint enables users to quickly animate the links between objects using the standard 3ds Max Design keyframe animation UI. The tool lets them quickly see their constrained frame numbers and access linked keyframes in the Trackbar, Dope Sheet and Curve Editor.

3ds Max Design 2010 Advanced Effects Features

PFlowAdvanced
PFlowAdvanced lets users incorporate sophisticated particle effects into their scenes - perfect for creating water features, fireplaces, or other elements. It includes 14 operators new to 3ds Max Design including new precision Painting tools (for precise particle placement), the Shape Plus operator (for defining the shape of particles) and a wide range of Grouping operators (for creating subsets of particles). It also extends and optimizes the previous PFlow functionality while reducing user interface (UI) complexity, resulting in vastly improved performance and a streamlined, thoroughly 3ds Max Design workflow.

Cloth
A whole new range of cloth effects is now available to 3ds Max Design users. The cloth toolset now supports pressure settings for simulating inflated, enclosed cloth surfaces (e.g. cushions, balloons) and cloth can now be torn with variable strength and timing (e.g. cutting, tearing and unzipping cloth). Collision objects can even be set to cut cloth when they collide. Finally, a new Inherit Velocity tool blends a new simulation with one from previous frames to create a smooth transition for staged simulations.

Hair
The 3ds Max Design Hair toolset has now been enhanced to give visualization specialists more precise control over the styling and animation of hair (often used for grass). A new Spline Deform feature enables them to add splines to a set of hairs which act as control guides so that the hairs can be posed, keyed or assigned a dynamic target - with the hair following.

ProSound
Add a new level of professionalism to presentations by adding musical scores, ambient sound and narration with the new ProSound multi‐track audio system. The new 3ds Max Design ProSound toolset enables users to add up to 100 audio tracks to their scenes and animate the volume of each track. The technology supports both PCM and compressed audio in AVI and WAV format with up to six output channels.

3ds Max Design 2010 Data and Scene Management Features

Containers
The addition of the Containers toolset to 3ds Max Design facilitates collaboration and flexible workflows by enabling users to collect multiple objects into a single container when dealing with complex scenes. Related objects (e.g. sections of a city) can be placed in a container and treated as a single element. Opening the container exposes the content while closing the container externalizes the data. Containers can be temporarily unloaded from the scene, toggling data in and out as needed to manage complexity. Such workflows can save memory, increase viewport performance and decrease load and save times. Container nodes can be translated, deleted, copied, or saved - affecting everything in the container. Containers also override object properties - so users can organize scene display using container properties without affecting layer organization (similar to a nested layer workflow). Multiple containers created by others can be referenced into a single scene ‐ enabling users to work in‐context with each other. Accessing and editing each other’s container is managed with permissions on the container - allowing flexible workflows while also imposing constraints on what can be edited.

Enhanced Scene Explorer
With 3ds Max Design 2010, Autodesk continues to expand the functionality of the Scene Explorer and increase its level of integration with the rest of the software. This powerful scene management toolset now works with viewports, Track View, as well as the Material Explorer. Additionally, Scene Explorer now offers improved management tools - making it easier to navigate, inspect and modify the properties of objects in a scene.

OBJ Import Improvements
Improved OBJ plug‐in performance and expanded support for the OBJ file format facilitate the importing and exporting of model data between Mudbox software and 3ds Max Design - as well as other third‐party 3D digital sculpting applications. Users will now be able to see if their OBJ files contain texture coordinates and smoothing groups. They will also have options for triangulating polygons on import, choosing how normals are imported and for saving presets for normal and polygon import, for future use.

Flight Studio Support
A new 3ds Max Design plug‐in enables users to import and export OpenFlight format scenes (FLT files). Users can now load, edit and export OpenFlight scene graphs and databases from within 3ds Max Design - while retaining scene graph structure and attributes. Instead of translating and losing data, 3ds Max Design can be used as an OpenFlight editor.

3ds Max Design 2010 Additional Rendering Features

Real‐Time Photometric Lighting and Viewport Exposure Control
For the architect who wishes to experiment with advanced lighting effects in their viewport, 3ds Max Design 2010 delivers real-time photometric lighting and exposure control. Not only do these features support timesaving, iterative workflows, exposure control can improve the accuracy of final renderings.

Support for High Resolution Render Output
Enhancements to the 3ds Max Design automatic memory management feature enables architects and designers to render out large, print resolution images with 32-bit systems.

Multi‐Map Shader: mental ray
A new 3ds Max Design Multi‐Map Shader for mental ray lets users purposely assign specific color variations to a set of objects that otherwise share the same material. It can also be used to quickly randomize or assign colors to multiple objects/maps based on object IDs or Material IDs. This new capability could be used to randomize the colors of trees, leaves, crowds, or anything repetitive that could benefit from a degree of color variation.

Animation Flicker Reduction: mental ray
3ds Max Design 2010 enables users to render animation sequences in mental ray with indirect illumination calculations (Final Gather), greatly reducing or eliminating traditional flickering issues. The ability to use the Final Gather cache, and render animation sequences faster has also been improved.

Final Gather Progressive Rendering
Progressive feedback has now been added for mental ray Final Gather, helping artists to more quickly evaluate their rendering results.

Render Surface Map
3ds Max Design 2010 enables architects and designers to generate bitmaps based on the surface of the geometry (Density maps, Dust maps, SubSurface maps, and Cavity maps) that can be used as masks to blend textures. Maps can also be generated from subobject selections and wrapped textures that are generated automatically with blended seams. These provide a good starting point for painting or layering details in bitmaps. For example, an architect might generate a Cavity grayscale bitmap where the crevices on the object are darkest, use this as a mask to blend dirt, rust, or emphasize contours with shading.

Linear Color Space Workflow
Gamma correction has been improved to correctly handle images and textures for a physically accurate rendering workflow where color consistency is critical. Gamma settings now load correctly with files and propagate correctly on network rendering solutions.

3ds Max Design 2010 New Rendering Features

mental mill/MetaSL Support
3ds Max Design 2010 is the first animation package to integrate the mental images powerful mental mill technology. This means that 3ds Max Design users will be able to develop, test and maintain shaders and complex shader graphs for hardware and software rendering with real‐time visual feedback - no programming skills required. MetaSL shaders can be created using the included mental mill Artist Edition software. These shaders are completely hardware agnostic, meaning they do not need to be re-authored for different target platforms. mental mill supports CgFX, HLSL, and GLSL, as well as C++ for mental ray technology and RealityServer; plus, the mental mill application programming interface (API) enables third parties to develop back‐end plug-ins for other targets, including special purpose processors and other software renderers.

Review Enhancements
Representing a major leap forward in viewport display, Review 3 helps take the guesswork out of rendering. It offers support for ambient occlusion, HDRI-based lighting, soft shadows, hardware anti-aliasing, interactive exposure control, and the revolutionary mental mill shader technology from mental images. Combined with prior abilities for textures, bump maps and photometric area lights - viewports give you live feedback like never before. The Viewport menu system has also been re-designed to significantly improve the user experience. For example, you can now take advantage of the Layer Manager to control groups of lights (light banks) to quickly turn on and off lights in the viewport, similar to what you can do with the 3ds Max Design software renderer.

Exposure Lighting Analysis Improvements
Simulate the lighting in your designs with confidence - Exposure lighting analysis technology has been validated by the National Research Council Canada (NRC), Canada’s leading organization for scientific research and development, and the same organization that has conducted validation studies on Radiance for lighting simulation. A feature unique to 3ds Max Design 2010, Exposure enables you to achieve more sustainable designs by analyzing how sun, sky, and artificial lighting interact with your design and exploring direct lighting effects right in the viewport. Load complex designs and watch lighting levels adjust in the scene as colors.

Interactive Lighting Analysis
A unique and new feature of 3ds Max Design 2010 lets you analytically explore direct lighting effects with interactive results right in the viewport using the new real‐time pseudo‐color exposure control. You can use the exposure control to establish color gradations for different light levels and then interactively adjust your lights until they give the necessary coverage. You can then use Exposure to validate the results and to factor in the impact of indirect lighting effects.

Global Quality Knobs: mental ray
Architects familiar with Revit will appreciate the addition of global quality knobs to the 3ds Max Design mental ray toolset. This new feature can be used to quickly dial up or down quality settings for shadows, glossy refractions and reflections along with image antialiasing and indirect illumination quality.