3D Studio Max

The latest software release, 3D Studio Max, is not so much an upgrade as a completely new program. The five separate modules which converted a model from 2D to 3D and transformed them into animations, have been replaced by a single unified environment. A Windows NT only version has also now replaced the DOS version which had inherent display and driver problems.

This has had the consequence that hardware requirements have been increased. As with all Autodesk’s recommendations for hardware, these should be treated as a minimum. For serious work, software should be run on the fastest machine available. In real terms, the minimum should be a Pentium 166MHz with 64Mb RAM and for serious work a Pentium 200 with 128Mb, or ideally a DEC Alpha.

Superficially, the 3D Studio Max screen layout looks similar to the old DOS version, with four viewports and a number of controls in the bottom left corner of the screen. On closer inspection, there appears to be a plethora of icons and menus. Further use reveals them to be logically placed and easy to use. The viewports can be configured to display a real time rendered view (with a choice of quality from flat shading to phong, according to the speed of machine). One of the major advances for architectural use is the greatly increased accuracy that is available. A modal dialog section of the menu area allows the direct keying in of object sizes in any combination during or after the creation of the object.

One of the problems with the DOS version of 3D Studio was the lack of a decent ‘undo’ facility should a change to any part of the model be required. This has now been remedied by the provision of a ‘modifier stack’. This allows you to view the sequence of operations and modifiers that have been applied to an object and alter any of them in any order.

With version 1.2 of 3D Studio Max, the requirement to export drawings from AutoCAD in DXF format becomes a thing of the past. 3D Studio Max can read in an AutoCAD Release 12 or 13 drawing directly. Release 13 can also save a file as a 3D Studio file. In line with Autodesk’s increased interest in the Internet, 3D Studio Max can also save files in VRML format. Kinetix, the multimedia division of Autodesk, have a VRML browser, Topper, which not unsurprisingly, works best with files created in 3D Studio Max.

The materials editor works in much the same way as in the previous version, but in a much more user friendly manner. There is still the perennial problem of applying mapping to objects but then, there is always a price to pay for flexibility.

The lighting routines in 3D Studio Max have benefited from the addition of volumetric lighting which resembles a spotlight shining through a smoky room. This is very useful for depicting moody interiors and atmospheric night shots.

Rendering is still accomplished by pseudo raytracing, i.e. the lighting is ray traced to give accurate shadows, but reflectance is approximated. For most situations, such as animations, this is more than adequate, but for high resolution still renderings, it may not give sufficiently high quality results. For this reason, 3D Studio Max has an open architecture that allows third party developers to write add-ins. One such add-in planned for impending release is the radiosity renderer from Lightscape which should give very impressive results.

Using the multi-tasking facilities of Windows NT, the program has full network rendering. A slave workstation does not require a separate program to be installed, but merely the slave rendering files. An animation can then be distributed around a network to take full advantage of idle machines. This is fine in theory, but not the easiest thing to set up!

It is customary that Autodesk products have software locking, but 3D Studio Max takes this to new levels of absurdity. Not only does it have a dongle, but it also requires a personalisation disk to be used to install from the CD-ROM. Following installation, a registration program has to be run in order to generate a code which is then faxed back to the dealer. Finally an appropriate registration code is despatched which enables the program to run!

It is really not possible in a short review to do justice to a program like 3D Studio Max. There are a whole host of features which have not been covered here. I have however come to the conclusion that if 3D Studio Max had a facility to produce plots, as opposed to images, and a method of dimensioning models, I would stop using AutoCAD and work in 3D Studio Max completely.