Architectural Improvements

Multi-threaded/Multi-processing ~ Ensures the most power for the dollar

The 3D Studio MAX Renderer queries Windows NT to see how many processors are installed and then automatically launches a thread for each processor, giving each thread a scanline to process. This provides a speed boost of up to 1.9x when using a second Pentium Pro processor - almost double the speed! (note that multiple processor improvements are far better with the Pentium Pro than the Pentium) Dual and quad Pentium Pro systems are easily the most cost effective rendering option for our users since the cost of adding extra processors is far less than adding additional systems.

Plug-In Renderers Now Possible ~ MAX's Renderer is just the first

The 3D Studio MAX Rendering API allows developers to create alternative renderers and make them available to the user as a plug-in option (See Preferences/Rendering/Current Renderer/Assign). This means that while the 3D Studio MAX Renderer is a vast improvement on its DOS predecessor, it is just the first of others to come.

Rendering Speed ~ We're still the fastest

At this time the 3D Studio MAX Renderer is still being optimised and unfortunately neither meaningful or quotable benchmarks can not be conducted. It should be noted however that even without optimisation, the MAX Renderer is just slightly slower in speed to the DOS Renderer on the same (single processor) system - this means that once optimised, the MAX Renderer should be at least as fast as it ever was while being of better quality and having significantly more abilities. The 3D Studio R4 Renderer was ranked the fastest production renderer on the PC and we should be able to make that claim again with MAX.

Rendering Shading Modes ~A bit different

3D Studio R4 provided incremental rendering modes (Flat, Gouraud, Phong, Metal) with the lower modes providing speed and the higher modes quality. In reality these were actually separate renderers, with Flat and Gouraud having optimised tables and procedures for their calculation (that's why they were faster). In contrast, 3D Studio MAX provides three options (Constant, Phong, Metal) that are part of the same renderer. The Constant rendering mode (formally known as Flat) is thus not optimised for speed and renderers in the same amount of time as Phong or Metal modes (Constant was included primarily for the Games Industry that often requires a consistently rendered surfaces without shading.) There is no longer a Gouraud rendering option since it doesn't provide an user value if not optimised for speed (user inquiries have shown it was rarely used in 3D Studio R4 since users did not see the time saved as an equal trade off for the lower quality rendering provided with Gouraud. In addition, ray traced shadows, automatic reflections, and bump maps were not available with Gouraud)

Animate Anything

Every Parameter is Animateable ~MAX makes animation easy

As with everything else in 3D Studio MAX, nearly any parameter can be animated. Animating a material in 3D Studio R4 meant having a morph target or co-ordinating with a series of image files for the few possible parameters. With MAX, any parameter can be animated by simply pressing the animate button and adjusting the desired value. Animating mapping co-ordinates was simply not possible in 3D Studio R4 while in MAX the mapping offset values can be animated or easier yet, the mapping can be treated like an object with its own position, rotation, and scale like any other object. Other 3DSR4 impossibilities now made trivial in MAX include animating atmospheres, lighting attenuation, shadow values, and camera ranges.

Of course, all animation is function-curve-controllable in MAX, and the expression controller lets you set up relationships between material parameters, mapping co-ordinates, lighting values, or atmospherics qualities with any other Animateable track in the scene.

Extensive Material Enhancements

Material Shader-Trees ~ Texture1 & Texture2 were just a hint in 3DSR4.

Shader Trees are similar to the Renderman method of having hierarchies of materials and maps. These trees provide the building blocks for complex shaders that artists can assemble into infinite varieties of new material types. Unlike Renderman, this is done easily in the standard UI without any user programming.

Materials, and even elements within them, can be copied, instanced, or referenced just like any other object in 3D Studio MAX. There is also no limit to the number of materials that may be within any given scene (3D Studio R4 had a limit of 255 materials per scene that was sometimes an obstacle).

Materials Types ~ You're not limited to one type of material anymore!

The user is no longer limited to a fixed set of options. In MAX, a Material Type is a Plug-In that can define nearly anything. Most users will use the "Standard" material type the majority of the time, although there are several others to choose from for special situations and developers are sure to add more quickly. Each Material Type can use hierarchical "shader trees" and even reference each other in the tree. Materials are plug-ins, so virtually any type of material/illumination model can be plugged into the MAX Renderer in the form of a material type. The following types are currently in MAX:

Standard Standard high-level material with 11 mapping channels capable of infinite hierarchical branching of map types.
Multi/Sub-Object Allows a material to be a composite of any number of other materials (this is the method to assign different materials to selections of faces). Material assignments are no longer necessarily linked to specific faces since selections can be volumetric in their definition (they do not have to be along exact faces).
Top/Bottom A simpler version of Multi for times when a dual material will suffice.
Blend Blends any two complete shader trees with each other. This means that two completely-different sets of n-level materials/map trees can be animated through each other (3DSR4's Texture 1 & Texture 2 were basic examples of this).
Double-Sided Puts one material tree on the outward-facing side of the object, and a completely different material tree on the inward-facing side. This means that each face can have two materials - a big wish for those trying to conserve geometry.
Matte/Shadow This material reveals the environment/background shader behind it, and can receive shadows cast upon it to simulate shadows being cast on the background (for rotoscoping work) - the latter a major wish list item for compositing.

3D Studio MAX does not currently have the 3D Studio R4 ability to use cubic reflection maps (often called CUB's). This would be a material type consisting of 6 maptree channels for the 6 sides of the reflection cube. This is a feature that will be available very soon after FCS.

Map Types ~ Never just a bitmap.

Currently included with MAX are 11 Map Type (Plug-Ins) which can be assigned to any of the 11 Map Channels within the Standard Material to create infinitely variable 'shader trees'. These shader trees can be composed of any number of maps within maps within maps... .. You can choose any Map Type whenever a map is an option within any Material Plug-In.

As with everything else, all map parameters can be animated over time just by turning on the Animate button and clicking on a spinner. These parameters can then be edited as function curves in the TrackView, and they can be used as variables in expressions that link material parameters to any other object animation parameters.

Bitmap Includes UVW (mapping) offset, tiling (repeat), mirroring, rotation, multiple blur parameters, and the ability to add animated noise to any bitmap - 13 parameters per bitmap are animateable. Additional controls include pyramidal (mip-map) and summed-area table filtering, output level control, inversion, and offset, and the ability to synch up animated maps to arbitrary timing conditions.
Mask Takes a map tree and a mask tree and uses them to create a masked output tree, providing complete mask control at any level (perfect for even the most complex composites.)
RGB Tint Takes the output of a map tree and provides animated tinting control on the result.
Checker Anti-aliased procedural checkerboard (with animateable parameters of course), including the ability to take a complete map tree for either of its colours.
Mix Takes two map trees as input and mixes them together using either another map tree or an animateable mixing curve.
Marble Procedural 3D Marble, with animateable size, vein width, and XYZ/UVW parameters. Each of the marble colours can be replaced with an entire map tree.
Noise Procedural 3D noise, with animateable fractal parameters, turbulence, etc. Each of the primary noise colours can be replaced with an entire map tree.
Reflect/Refract Provides an automatic cubic reflection for the Reflection and/or Refraction map channels. This can now be softened by any arbitrary (animateable) amount..
Flat Reflection Provides automatic flat reflection maps for the Reflection and/or Refraction map channels. This can now be softened by any arbitrary (animateable) amount..
Gradient Provides procedural linear and radial gradient control, with animateable (thresholdable) fractal noise. The gradient colours can each contain an entire shader tree of other maps, which are then blended together in the gradient itself.
Composite Take any number of bitmaps and composites them together using their alpha. This allows n-level composited bitmaps on any of the 11 Map Channels.

Map Channels ~ Just the first step in the hierarchy

Map Channels are what used to be known in 3D Studio R4 as Map Types (3DSR1& 2 had four and R3&4 had seven different types). Map Channels are fundamentally different because they are just the first level in what could be a very deep shader tree. MAX's standard material provides 11 mappable channels, with each channel capable of having an infinitely deep tree of plug-in effects assigned to it:

Ambient New with MAX and similar in use to Diffuse, Ambient allows artists to give darker colours to maps.
Diffuse Similar to 3D Studio R4 Texture 1&2 Map Types.
Specular Similar to 3D Studio R4 Specular Map Type
Shininess Similar to 3D Studio R4 Shininess Map Type
Shininess Strength New with MAX, SS allows artists to control the qualities of shine across a surface and not just the intensity.
Self-Illumination Similar to 3D Studio R4 Self-Illumination Map Type
Opacity Similar to 3D Studio R4 Opacity Map Type
Filter Colour New with MAX, this is the light transmission colour, or the colour of light as it passes through a transparent object (such as a stained glass window for example)
Bump Similar to 3D Studio R4 Bump Map Type, this version allows negative values thus allowing an bump values to animate from ridges to creases.
Reflection Similar to 3D Studio R4 Reflection Map Type
Refraction New with MAX, this is a great method to simulate light bending through a transparent material (similar to Digimation's 3DSR4 Refraction Plug-In)

Shader Tree Navigator ~ Makes sense of complex materials

The Materials Editor can spawn its own Material/Map Navigator to track and select within the possibly complex hierarchy of Materials, Channels, and Maps. The Navigator is a modeless hierarchical list that is similar to Track View and allows the user to graphically traverse the materials. Just click on a map name in the navigator (no matter how deep in the tree) and the materials editor instantly updates to display the parameters for that map.

Mapping Improvements

Mapping as Objects and Parameters ~ Mapping just got a lot easier

There are several improvements to mapping co-ordinates - a subject that most used to find difficult to master. MAX correctly displays texture maps in real-time for any part of a material and dynamically adjusts the display as the material and/or its mapping co-ordinates are adjusted (while a texture can be shown for every material in the scene, only one texture per material can be seen at one time).

Lighting Enhancements

3D Studio MAX has increased the possibilities of lighting substantially:

Atmospheric Advancements

Environmental Maps ~ No longer limited to static bitmaps

Backgrounds in MAX are much more sophisticated than just the bitmaps allowed in 3D Studio R4 (and most other programs). The Rendering/Environment/Background dialogue allows you to specify a Environment Map channel. This channel is similar to those used by materials (and are in fact edited within the Materials Editor), and just like material channels, can branch into as deep of a hierarchy of bitmaps and procedural maps as the user needs. This allows an n-level-deep tree of maps to be applied to the environment and with multiple projections (screen, spherical, shrink-wrap, and cylindrical). Environmental projections allows procedural backgrounds to track with the camera like a real environment. These mappings also allow the environment to encompass the scene, giving feedback to reflections from every direction - something that was only possible with geometry (sky domes and horizon cylinders) in previous releases. This ability allows the background environment to "travel" with a panning camera, unlike a bitmap that remains static.

Atmospheres ~ Fast rendering Volumetrics sets MAX apart

While 3D Studio R4 had atmospheres (Fog, Distance Cue, and Layered Fog) they were very basic since they were simply a cohesive colour overlay that could not be animated. Nothing so limited will be found in MAX. The Rendering/Environment/Atmosphere dialogue is a Plug-In UI that allows developers to add an infinite number of atmospheric plug-ins for custom environment effects. Most important to realise is that these effects are now volumetric - they can be constrained to a space and interact with other objects in that space. (A simple example is a smoke filled beam of light that has streaked rays caused by an open hand being placed within its beam.) The second most important thing is that MAX's volumetric lighting is fast compared to the standard methods now employed in the market. The Atmospheric Effects shipping with MAX include:

Network Rendering

TCP/IP-based WAN network rendering

Rendering Options

Everything is Up Front

There is no longer a static list of options buried in an external 3DS.SET file. All parameters affecting the Renderer are available within the scene at any time - you do not have to edit an extra file.

Motion Blur

Object Motion Blur has been enhanced to allow a higher sampling rate, producing smoother blur effects. Scene Motion Blur has been enhanced to allow 'shutter-speed control' over the sample.

Smart Bitmap Management

A new (and much more powerful) plug-in interface to Bitmap I/O filters is built into 3D Studio MAX . In addition to the bitmap types traditional to 3D Studio R4, MAX currently supports YUV and AVI (with user-selectable codecs).

The Bitmap manager is also much more memory efficient in requiring only the RAM appropriate to bitmaps colour depth (3D Studio R4 treated all images as if they were 24-bit, while MAX will only use the RAM necessary the image's colour depth). It also allows Plug-Ins to request and process discreet portions of an image rather than having to digest the entire image buffer (something that was a huge RAM cost in 3D Studio R4).

G-Buffer Allows Incredible Post Effects

The renderer can now output an extensive G- Buffer (G stands for Geometry) of geometry related information that can be used by filtering effects in Video Post. While the A-Buffer outputs an alpha channel of transparency information, and the Z-Buffer outputs the z-depth distance of geometry from the camera, the G-Buffer outputs object position, material, mapping, and face normal information. This previously unavailable information will provide the foundation for powerful post process effects that were simply impossible before.