max 9

EBOLII

I will never be able to afford it but am curious anyways

anyone running it? how does it compare? I don't have a 64b system so am curious as to what the hoopla is

think it will run a mac as lightwave 9 is now boasting? Max on a mac would work for me....anyone?

EBOLII

Oh and I did read the text release so am not interested in links but opinions

[Deleted User]

When I delete polys and am looking at the inside of a shape, where the normals are facing away from me, I can still see those polys. I saw this and said to myself...hmmm...this is interesting, is this thing generating normals going in both directions? So I tried selecting one...no joy. So I'm fig'ing that this is just a graphical aid...and I like it.

I did a boolean last night. Only a single attempt which means that I don't have enough data to be able to confirm a pattern however, I FELT like the boolean came out a lot cleaner than any Max boolean I've seen before. The cleaner the boolean, the greater the time savings in clean-up so that is totally badass...

punchface

EBOLII

I am running 8 with the pro boolean plugin I recall reading that is now a integrated standard feature in max9
the boolean errors in previous versions have been my largest complaint

of course I only had 3 of the how many versions...[max3+max5+max8] I would have never replaced max5 but the fire[2005] took care of that so I got max8 with one plug in

sad thing is here of late I don't open it much---it is a mental desire thing

[Deleted User]

We haven't upgraded at work yet so I don't really have much seat time on 9, but I have played around at home with the 32 bit version a little bit.

The inclusion of Power Booleans is nice, but biggest, mostest awesomist thing to me is the polygon speed upgrade. You can now paint deformations on a dense polygon mesh and it updates in real time! You can rotate it in the viewport and it doesn't stutter and chug!!!11! No more converting to a mesh just to get a speed boost.

There is some other stuff that's nice too. Like being able to style hair and fur in the viewport and a Mental Ray upgrade and new MR shaders, but the poly speed tweak is the big thing for me.

I would call it more of a version 8.5, but Autodesk never asked me.

One down side I've heard about is that the version of Backburner shipping with 9 is kind of flaky. On the Area boards people have posted that render jobs haven't restarted properly after being paused and some other issues. Not a big deal if you don't have a render farm, but we are holding off on the upgrades until we hear more about what's going on there.

MadKoiFish

Ohh I would HATE that doubled faces thing. I use the fact I cannot see the backfacing to help with debugging errors doubled verts or open edges. Guess I wont consider max9 and try to find a old copy of 8 instead.
Though a lot of the added things that they list sounds like it might outweigh it. Maybe theres a option to turn off the backfacing.

[Deleted User]

The backfaces are really easy to see given that they are a lot darker than whatever your normal side looks like. I haven't viewed anything with a map showing in the viewport so I don't know if the backfaces are always really dark or not but I'd bet it's the same deal.

I don't know if this would change anything for you or not, Madkoifish.

punchface

EBOLII

so what about the 32b or 64b operating system. Is it worth it? I doubt I will upgrade I am running a dual p3 1000mhz system and a p4 244mhz laptop networked

Viper

Heh, backfaces should be the least of your worries. MAX 9 is probably the best update so far IMO. I always liked the shader system from Mental Ray, but not only does MR 3.5 has better shaders, but it's also a lot faster than previous versions, making it a real pleasure to work with. Plus, the Arch Mat is really awsome. You can probably only use it and forget all the other shaders, unless you need advanced stuff like Absorption and Dispersion done physically correct. Boolean? Haven't test it yet...but then again, everything I do is Poly+Sub-D anyway, and that area is extremely good too. I've also found MAX9 to be a lot more stable than MAX8. Whenever I reached 2+ million polies in a scene, MAX8 would crash when exiting...doesn't happen anymore with MAX9.

Anyway, bottom line: MAX9 stopped me short of switching to XSI, which is another great App.

LennO

MadKoiFish wrote: »

Ohh I would HATE that doubled faces thing. I use the fact I cannot see the backfacing to help with debugging errors doubled verts or open edges. Guess I wont consider max9 and try to find a old copy of 8 instead.

Dude…you know you can turn on/off backface culling in ANY app? And so you can in max9. Finally not having to set double sided flags is a real workflow improvement, and if you need backface cull, just turn it on (I do loads of modelling and very seldomly need backface culling). And backface culling won't help you with doubled verts or faces really. Anyone who's got the money (or support contract) who does NOT switch to max9 misses out on THE single one most useful max update in years.

Yes, the workflow (for me) is still awkward, I still hate the UI and the underlying concept, but max9 is a huge improvement. During beta you could see that autodesk was going the right direction. Speaking of performace (in almost all contexts but especially polygons, viewport and the single most important point of all: stability) max9 really can't be compared to older versions. 8 pales in comparison.

With mental ray 3.5, as Viper already said, you get one of _the_ best mental ray updates in years. Not only the rendering and shading department have been improved, but animation in max has improved a lot, too. Layering is awesome, really.

If you're a max user – by all means, go with 9. It's the best thing to happen to max. Not much to say about 64 bit support except that it works, and the app hasn't crashed any more then you'd expect. I don't use the 64bit version myself though.

Conclusion: max9 not only is faster, it actually feels a lot faster in many aspects of the app. if you've ever used Max in a production pipeline or loaded it with complex scenes, you know how SLOW max actually used to be, not to speak about how TOTALLY UNSTABLE the viewport was. This has been resolved to a great extent.
I still hate it. It's become less frustrating to work with max though ;>

LennO

EBOLII wrote: »

so what about the 32b or 64b operating system. Is it worth it? I doubt I will upgrade I am running a dual p3 1000mhz system and a p4 244mhz laptop networked

OuchA…thatA…must be slow.

Really, without updating hardware any new max version won't do much for you. What you got really can't be considered any kind of suitable 3d workstation by todays standards.

As for 64bit versus 32. Well if you've got the hardware, the Os and the software sure it's worth it, if your renderscenes are pretty complex. If you never touch the limits of your current system (which i highly doubt) 64bit won't do anything for you. There can be performance gains under 64bit, and slowdowns, depending on the task and it's management. The single main thing is RAM, and how much can be adressed. If your renderings are swapping a lot, you will profit from 64bit and more RAM. if not you won't gain anything.

Of course, for you 64bit would mean: Buy new (expensive) hardware (incl. enough ram), get new OS (Xp64), get 64bit max. So, it's worth it only if you really need it.

EBOLII

slow? no

in fact I have not noticed anything different vs p4 laptop most likely becouse of the 2gb mem and 256mb video card so I have not seen anything cause me to think about upgrading the cpu speeds

besides.....everything I do is hobby....anyways like everyone who dreams of working in the industry would be sweet yet unatainable as far as my situation is concerned after all I have not recovered from the last lose that has caused be to be lost...no really

I am not inclined to run out and purchase the new shiny coin that becomes obsolete after 6 months or so......everything about max9 seems to be a plus

it takes money.......and a bunch of it for the program and the hardware

[Deleted User]

You can buy Max now and upgrade your hardware later to soften the blow to your pocket book. It ships with both the 32 and 64 bit versions.

MadKoiFish

LennO wrote: »

DudeA…you know you can turn on/off backface culling in ANY app?

I was thinking it was some other feature other than backface cull. I tend t wait on updates, still using max 7 mostly for compatability of files. Faster viewports would be nice with some of the prj I am doing now.

Starship

With a trial version, I runned a shapemerge test. Appears that the old problems wasn´t solved... To many verts.
I lost the polygon count too... I can´t find that thing in max 9.
By otherside, Power booleans is a great addition.

Anyway, it´s expensive for a hobby, and won´t buy it.

Viper

You shouldn't really have to use shapemerge anyways. With Mental Ray, just use a displacement map. Of if you really like to go the hard way use Power Boolean.