3ds Max release history

was officially announced at Siggraph 1995 and shipped to users in April 1996. At the same time, the Autodesk Multimedia Division was rebranded as Kinetix, a division of Autodesk. Thus the full name of the official product was Kinetix 3D Studio MAX. The product contained about the same feature set as 3D Studio DOS R4 but implemented all tools using a completely new object-oriented, procedural modeling paradigm featuring the Modifier Stack, an easier to use linear version of the Prisms/Houdini procedural pipeline. Some elements like the Material Editor and the animation controller system were largely enhanced compared to the DOS version, and the render subsystem allowed for volumetric effects and 3rd party plug-in renderers (which started appearing shortly after the first release - RayStudio and RayMax being the first two available). Release 1.0 required Windows NT 3.51 and supported the first 3D Labs GLiNT hardware accelerator cards available for the PC via custom Heidi drivers.

There were two point updates - 1.1 and 1.2. The SDK shipped with 1.1. 1.2 was an update to support WinNT 4 which featured the Windows95-style UI.

was officially announced as Siggraph 1997 and included over thousand new features and workflow improvements. The most notable additions were:

• Ray-tracing in the Scanline renderer via Raytrace materials and maps developed by Blur Studio's Steven Blackmon and Scott Kirvan (who later split to form Splutterfish and develop another popular renderer - the Brazil r/s).
• Lens Effects Post Effects licensed from Digimation
• NURBS modeling tools
• MAXScript built-in programming language
• OpenGL support.

There was one point release - 2.5. It was the first and only non-free point release in the history of 3D Studio and included among other enhancements NURBS additions (support for Trims) and VRML import support.

was announced at the Game Developers Conference 1999 and was released in June 1999. It was the last version to be published under the Kinetix logo, although the division was already merged with Discreet Logic but had no Corporate Identity design yet. The core of the program was largely rewritten to allow better integration of MAXScript and the Scanline Renderer was enhanced with support for pluggable Anti-Alias filters and Supersamplers. The User Interface was redesigned to support larger true-color icons on customizable tabbed toolbars where custom MacroScripts could be placed by the user.

The point update to 3.1 is considered by many the most stable version of the software in its history.

was initially announced at Siggraph 2000 in New Orleans in an early technology demo. It featured among many other things:

• a new IK system
• QuadMenus context menus and a unified ActionItems UI customization system
• ActiveShade render preview mode
• a redesigned Modifier Stack (Stack View) with support for Drag And Drop
• new Editable Poly modeling toolset
• DirectX Shader support in viewports
• ActiveX support in scripted rollouts
• MultiRes mesh optimization based on Intel technology

There were two point releases to individual customers - 4.1 and 4.2, and a special 4.3 update which was for Educational users (schools, universities) only.

was the first release ever to support the plug-in format of the previous version. Plug-ins developed for 3dsmax 4 could be used in 5 without a recompile, while both 2 and 3 required completely new versions. The biggest addition to 3dsmax 5 were a 3rd party renderer - mental ray - and the Advanced Lighting sub-system of the Scanline Renderer where two new plug-ins were introduced - a brute-force Global Illumination module called Light Tracer and a Radiosity module based on further research by the developers of Lightscape. (Historical note: Lightscape was acquired by Discreet Logic a couple of years before the Autodesk acquisition.) This also incl. Photometric and Day lights support. Further additions were:

• the inclusion of Reactor (previously a separate plug-in published by Discreet based on the HAVOK dynamics engine)
• Set Key animation mode
• a refactored Track View with Curve Editor and Dope Sheet modes
• an enhanced UVW Unwrap editor
• Render To Texture feature
• New Named Selection Sets editor
• New Transform gizmos
• Character Assembly and Bone Tools
• Spline IK
• Gimbal rotation mode
• Auto-Tangent interpolation
• Improved Skin Modifier with Weight Table
• Improved HSDS modifier UI
• Support for Layers (taken from 3ds VIZ)
• Ink'n'Paint Material
• Translucent shader

On the human resources side, it is interesting to note that the product was developed under Chris Ford, previously senior Maya product manager who moved to Discreet when Alias dropped Wavefront. (He is now PRman business director at Pixar). Other related 3D Trivia: Bob Bennett, previously product manager for 3d Studio DOS, was Maya Development Manager for many years until the Alias acquisition by Autodesk - he is now with Luxology.

There were three point updates - 5.1, 5.1SP1 and 5.5 (the latter was the extended version with the Particle Flow extensions).

once again required recompiled plug-ins (which later would be usable in 7 and 8). The main new features were:

• Particle Flow (previously shipped as an Extension to 5 for users on subscription),
• a refactored Schematic View
• Shell modifier
• new Vertex Paint
• Reactor 2 dynamics
• network support for Render To Texture

was an evolutionary update on top of the 3dsmax 6 core. Main new features were:

• new Editable Poly tools incl. Bridge, Deform and Relax painting, Soft Selections Painting, Preserve UVs option etc.
• new Edit Poly modifier which was supposed to ship as Extension to 6 but made it into 7.
• Support for Normal mapping generation and rendering
• mental ray 3.3, incl. Sub-Surface Scattering and Ambient Occlusion shaders and Render To Texture support
• Per-Pixel camera mapping
• Flat shaded view
• Character Studio 4.3 included in the base package
• SkinMorph and SkinWrap modifiers
• TurboSmooth modifier
• Parameter Collector
• Refactored Reaction controller (formerly known as Reactor controller)
• Walk-Thru mode for First Person navigation in the viewports.

was published in the Fall of 2005 and was the first release in the history of the product not to break the SDK compatibility in a 3rd major update - in other words, plug-ins from 6 and 7 could be used in 8 without the need for a recompile. Main new features were:

• Asset Tracking with support for 3rd party solutions and Autodesk Vault shipping with the package.
• Enhanced XRefs
• MAXScript Debugger
• Support for Scene States
• Hair and Fur (shipped as Extension to 7 earlier that year, based on Joe Alter's Shave & Haircut)
• Cloth (also available as Extension to 7, based on Size8's ClothFX, formerly known as Stitch)
• Editable Poly enhancements - Shift Ring and Loop, better Bridge and Edge Connect, Open Chamfers option, clean removal of edges.
• Enhanced Skin tools incl. Grow and Shrink, Loop and Ring, Weight Tool
• Enhanced Unwrap UVW with Pelt Mapping support, better Relax options and Render Template tool
• Sweep modifier and enhanced spline options incl. rectangular cross-sections
• Brush Presets
• Real-world map scale
• Motion Mixer support for non-biped objects

was the first release to include both 32 bit and 64 bit builds of the software. It shipped to customers in October 2006 and required once again recompiled plug-ins due to the switch to a newer Visual Studio compiler and because the MaxSDK6 was getting old and was in need for an update to fix long-standing bugs. Major new features:

• Project Path support incl. support for relative paths
• Proxy Textures Manager
• .NET support in MAXScript incl. classes, objects and UI controls.
• ProBoolean and ProCutter (shipped as Extension to 8, based on PowerBooleans 3rd party plug-in), enhanced in this version with MAXScript exposure of ProCutter.
• HAVOK 3 engine support in addition to the existing 2
• better mental ray 3.5 integration with support for Physical sky and sun, Arch.&Design shaders and more.
• Faster screen redraws in Direct3D mode incl. incremental D3D Mesh cache updates, faster spline redraws and more
• Viewport Stats option for all viewports.
• New Hidden Line viewport shading mode
• Support for CG shaders
• Animation Layers
• Hair styling in the viewport, support for reflections
• Updated PointCache incl. interoperability with Maya 8 (which uses the same cache format)
• Better interoperability via FBX

The first release to fully support the Windows Vista operating system.

Major new features:

• Core Performance Optimizations with large number of objects
• New Adaprive Degradation system with view-dependent per-object culling
• Scene Explorer Scene Management
• Working Pivot mode and Keyboard Shortcut Overrides
• Selection Preview in EPoly mode
• Review: Shadows and Per-Pixel Lighting in the Viewports
• Review: mental ray Arch&Design Shader preview in the Viewports
• Review: mental ray Sun and Sky Shader preview in the Viewports
• mental ray: Sky Portals and Photographic Exposure Control
• MAXScript ProEditor - based on the open source Scintilla control and SciTE editor
• MAXScript Extension - integrating the complete Avguard Extensions feature set
• Support for file-per-frame Point Cache format common with Autodesk Maya

Major new features:

• Spline UVW Mapping tool
• Reveal™ Iterative Rendering
• ProMaterials™: A set of new flexible mental ray materials
• Photometric Lights
• ViewCube™ and the SteeringWheels™ viewport navigation tools
• ForeFeet option for quadrupedal skeletons
• Rearranged UI