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The struggle with 3DS Max


DasFrodo

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On 10/8/2020 at 3:43 AM, hvanderwegen said:

One thing Max has going for it is the sheer brutal performance of its viewport. Great for archviz in this regard.

That's what I was told as well. While the viewport might have a bit more FPS in complex scenes (though I don't feel like it does), the rest of the program is so clunky and slow that it really doesn't save it overall.

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I was using 3dsmax/vray for about 10 years and i did a ton of heavy commercial stuff in a range of 3 years.
The software is s...t  
If i wanted to write scripts, i d be a programmer. Cause thats the power of 3dsmax. Other than that, doesnt even compare with c4d.

I wont say anything else other than corrupted files + constant crashes. When i started using c4d which DOESNT CRASH unless u do something very wrong or u use plugins, it was a surprise to my cg life lol. I wont even mention how smooth and logically c4d operates in most stuff. Aint perfect but good enough for a small studio like me to boost my carrier without having to worry anymore about what the project is. I know that most of the times is just doable easy inside c4d.

Long story short, Vray and now tyflow keep max floating between freelancers. Other than that is an incomplete piece of software since max 4.2 that i started out. Only big studios can take proper advantage of it, since they have a lot of scripting geniuses + technical guys.

Stay away buddy 🙂  thats my 2cents on this one, i couldnt resist writing something haha 

 

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On 10/10/2020 at 6:44 PM, thanulee said:

I was using 3dsmax/vray for about 10 years and i did a ton of heavy commercial stuff in a range of 3 years.
The software is s...t  
If i wanted to write scripts, i d be a programmer. Cause thats the power of 3dsmax. Other than that, doesnt even compare with c4d.

I wont say anything else other than corrupted files + constant crashes. When i started using c4d which DOESNT CRASH unless u do something very wrong or u use plugins, it was a surprise to my cg life lol. I wont even mention how smooth and logically c4d operates in most stuff. Aint perfect but good enough for a small studio like me to boost my carrier without having to worry anymore about what the project is. I know that most of the times is just doable easy inside c4d.

Long story short, Vray and now tyflow keep max floating between freelancers. Other than that is an incomplete piece of software since max 4.2 that i started out. Only big studios can take proper advantage of it, since they have a lot of scripting geniuses + technical guys.

Stay away buddy 🙂  thats my 2cents on this one, i couldnt resist writing something haha 

 

Hey, thanks for posting!

 

I haven't encountered a corrupted file yet, but I've only been working with it for a bit over a week now. Any tips on avoiding that except turning on autosave / making backups? I've had my fair share of crashes already lol. I think it already crashed more in a week than C4D crashed in a year for me (excluding plugins).

 

How is V-Ray keeping Max alive though? I mean yeah, it's a great engine but it's also available for most other programs, including C4D.

 

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dont break his spirit, he just started...lets hope he finds his path to the light side again. 

My spirit with Max already broke after two days, don't worry about it 😉

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Well, I give max another 5 years untill it is finally replaced by Maya.

 

Learn Maya if you want to broaden your skills. It is the most powerful tool off the shelve.It is the tool that needs the least of external plugins because most of the stuff is there already. But yes it can be painful.

 

If we only had proper simulation tools in C4D....

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6 hours ago, DasFrodo said:

 

How is V-Ray keeping Max alive though? I mean yeah, it's a great engine but it's also available for most other programs, including C4D.

Well, most of the archviz community is around this engine and specifically in 3dsmax. And ofc corona which was acquired by chaosgroup 2-3 years ago to eliminate competition.
Vray works great there, better than any other app so thats why there are not many archviz artists in c4d world. 

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2 hours ago, thanulee said:

Well, most of the archviz community is around this engine and specifically in 3dsmax. And ofc corona which was acquired by chaosgroup 2-3 years ago to eliminate competition.
Vray works great there, better than any other app so thats why there are not many archviz artists in c4d world. 

I personally have 4 freelance colleagues who all do Archviz and all use C4D. Maybe it is a German thing but there are quite a lot of people here doing Archviz in C4D. And I see it frequently in job descriptions.

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  • The UI is a convoluted, ugly mess of different looking interfaces, popups that lock you out of the main window of the software until you press cancel or ok. Many things are in completely different areas multiple times. A shitton of tools don't even have icons.

I don't like icons. I guess it is preference.

  • It's slow as hell. The bootup, even without plugins, takes ages. After it's opened up it freezes for a couple of seconds until you're able to use it. Even in simple scenes, many tools and windows take multiple seconds to even open up.

you may check your workstation. I have tons of plugin. It took about 40s. There are some tools takes 1-2 sec to open. But, mostly It opens quick here.

  • There is almost zero feedback on what tool you have active or what is actually happening at any given moment. I've lost count on how many times I didn't know which tool I have active, forcing me to use it, just to undo and select the correct tool.

I'm not sure why you need to know what tool you have active. Modify panel shows what you selected. It also indicate if you are in sub-object or not.

  • It's buggy as hell. Freezes and crashes constantly. I've used 2018 and 2020 so far. Both seem to be equally bad.

Again check your hw. I rarely got crash with millions of polys.

 

  • You cannot do simple calculations inside any of the numerical fields. If you, for example, try to move your object 20cm up you can't just enter "+20cm" at the end of the Y (in Max Z) coordinate. Nope, gotta calculate that in your head or with a calculator and then copy paste it. Have fun calculating "2.175 * 4" instead of just entering "*4" and pressing enter.

CTRL+N

  • Many of the tools I've used so far are more or less destructive in nature.

Not sure why it is destructive.

  • The material editor is horrible. Every single material in the scene shares the same node window. You can manually open up more tabs, but why would I ever need ALL my materials in the same window?

Why you need ALL material in a tab? As you said, you can put in each tab if you want.

  • The "object manager" (I don't know what it's called in Max) is probably my biggest gripe. It's pretty much unusable outside of specific circumstances. This is probably my biggest issue since I'm so used to doing everything with the object manager in C4D. It seems like you have no overview of what the scene contains or how it's built.

When you use Max you mostlyl manage scene with layer. I'm not sure what is issue here.

 

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23 hours ago, anuser said:
  • It's slow as hell. The bootup, even without plugins, takes ages. After it's opened up it freezes for a couple of seconds until you're able to use it. Even in simple scenes, many tools and windows take multiple seconds to even open up.

you may check your workstation. I have tons of plugin. It took about 40s. There are some tools takes 1-2 sec to open. But, mostly It opens quick here.

  • It's buggy as hell. Freezes and crashes constantly. I've used 2018 and 2020 so far. Both seem to be equally bad.

Again check your hw. I rarely got crash with millions of polys.

 

- 3ds max being the crashiest 3d software on this universe is a mere fact. Nothing to do with hardware. 
- The fact that max takes ages to open... I have a pretty beefy setup here and 2020 without any plugin does more than a minute, while c4d without plugins does 3 sec?

- Also max is more destructive than any other software. The word "procedural" (unless u write code), is unknown for any 3dsmax user.

i mean i understand, either you never used other software, or u work at autodesk 🙂 cheers
 

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1 hour ago, thanulee said:

Also max is more destructive than any other software. The word "procedural" (unless u write code), is unknown for any 3dsmax user.

 

I would name Lightwave here - which is far more destructive in workflow than any other current DCC.

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@anuser Did you seriously just register to post that? That's some dedication, respect!

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  • The UI is a convoluted, ugly mess of different looking interfaces, popups that lock you out of the main window of the software until you press cancel or ok. Many things are in completely different areas multiple times. A shitton of tools don't even have icons.

I don't like icons. I guess it is preference.

 

 

Well, I like icons. That's not the only thing I criticized though.

 

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  • It's slow as hell. The bootup, even without plugins, takes ages. After it's opened up it freezes for a couple of seconds until you're able to use it. Even in simple scenes, many tools and windows take multiple seconds to even open up.

you may check your workstation. I have tons of plugin. It took about 40s. There are some tools takes 1-2 sec to open. But, mostly It opens quick here.

 

 

It consistently has a sh** bootup time on all our machines, as it does on my home machine. It's not the computers.

 

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  • There is almost zero feedback on what tool you have active or what is actually happening at any given moment. I've lost count on how many times I didn't know which tool I have active, forcing me to use it, just to undo and select the correct tool.

I'm not sure why you need to know what tool you have active. Modify panel shows what you selected. It also indicate if you are in sub-object or not.

 

 

Because it's convenient, and convenience never hurts. Only makes your life easier.

 

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  • It's buggy as hell. Freezes and crashes constantly. I've used 2018 and 2020 so far. Both seem to be equally bad.

Again check your hw. I rarely got crash with millions of polys.

 

Again, same result on every machine. Everybody complains about it, not only in the office.

 

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  • You cannot do simple calculations inside any of the numerical fields. If you, for example, try to move your object 20cm up you can't just enter "+20cm" at the end of the Y (in Max Z) coordinate. Nope, gotta calculate that in your head or with a calculator and then copy paste it. Have fun calculating "2.175 * 4" instead of just entering "*4" and pressing enter.

CTRL+N

 

I don't know what that does for you, but for me it opens up a new file.

 

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  • Many of the tools I've used so far are more or less destructive in nature.

Not sure why it is destructive.

 

 

The Spacing Tool, for example. It does what the C4D cloner does, except it has less options and once you've clicked apply you're ******* if you want to change something. You have to delete every single clone and redo the entire process.

 

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  • The material editor is horrible. Every single material in the scene shares the same node window. You can manually open up more tabs, but why would I ever need ALL my materials in the same window?

Why you need ALL material in a tab? As you said, you can put in each tab if you want.

 

I don't. Question is, why is that even an option since a single nodespace for every material does make way more sense than everything in one window.

 

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  • The "object manager" (I don't know what it's called in Max) is probably my biggest gripe. It's pretty much unusable outside of specific circumstances. This is probably my biggest issue since I'm so used to doing everything with the object manager in C4D. It seems like you have no overview of what the scene contains or how it's built.

When you use Max you mostlyl manage scene with layer. I'm not sure what is issue here.

 

The issue is that, as far as I can tell, the layer system is really damn basic and weird to use. The layer window also does some weird stuff from time to time.

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