More on Introducing the New 3ds Max Features

State Sets Found on the Rendering menu, state sets provide you with a way to keep and

interact with different states of scenes you are editing. State sets also directly integrate with

Adobe After Effects CS4 (32-bit) and CS5.x (64-bit only) so that you can send your 3ds Max

2013 scene to After Effects, make modifi cations, and then have those updates applied back to

3ds Max.

Viewport Layouts The Viewport Layouts toolbar appears on the 3ds Max 2013 interface

vertically along the left edge, and it allows you to store and quickly access different viewport

confi gurations set up in the scene.

Skylights Skylights in 3ds Max 2013 have been updated with Sky Color Maps that can use

HDR images, which can then be used to render illumination in all renderers and also cast

light and shadows in the Nitrous viewports.

Viewport Gradient Background The Nitrous viewports now use a default gradient as the

background of Perspective viewports. You will see this in the screen captures throughout

this book. The gradient colors can be changed in the Customize User Interface dialog box.

Nitrous Viewports The Nitrous viewports have been improved. The Perspective viewport

now has a gradient background that you can customize; performance on large scenes has

been improved; support for image-based lighting using the Skylight enhancements, viewport

depth of fi eld, and new Facets and Clay shading modes have been added.

Slate Material Editor The interface for the Slate Material Editor has been improved. The

nodes that are displayed in the Parameter Editor now have a dotted line surrounding them

in the View windows; context menus work with multiple items selected. You can now get

the materials from a selected object brought to the active View window, using the Get From

Selected feature of the Material menu. There are new options that make working with material

libraries much easier.

Render Setup Dialog The Render Setup dialog has been improved with a drop-down

menu that allows you to quickly select among Production, Iterative, ActiveShade, and

Network Rendering.

iray Renderer The NVIDIA iray renderer for 3ds Max 2013 has been upgraded to iray 2.1.

mental ray Renderer The NVIDIA mental ray rendering engine has been updated to mental

ray 3.10.

FBX File Link Enhancements The File Link Manager is now capable of directly linking

Revit Architecture (RVT) fi les, and new Link options can be found by going to Application

menu ‚ Import.

Improved Geometry Support 3ds Max 2013 takes advantage of Autodesk DirectConnect to

support importing many different data formats into 3ds Max 2013 as Body objects, including

STEP fi les, SolidWorks, Pro/E, CATIA (v4 and v5), and IGES fi les (which no longer come in as

NURBS objects).

Send To Menu The new Send To feature on the Application menu allows you to send fi les

directly to Maya, AutodeskR SoftimageR, AutodeskR MotionBuilderR, AutodeskR MudboxR,

and AutodeskR Infrastructure Modeler software if you are running one of the Autodesk

suites.

Maya Interaction Mode For 3ds Max 2013 users who are accustomed to using Autodesk

Maya, the new Maya Interaction mode adjusts 3ds Max 2013 to work with viewport controls

and keyboard shortcuts from Maya.

Lightscape Compatibility Removed If you are a previous user of 3ds Max, 3ds Max

Design, or 3ds VIZ and Lightscape, be aware that all Lightscape compatibility, utility, and

material features have been removed from 3ds Max 2013.

Product Updates 3ds Max 2013 also ushers in a new update scheme. Instead of having

confusingly numbered Hot Fixes and service packs that you have to make sure to install in

the correct order for 3ds Max to function properly, fi xes for 3ds Max will now come out as

sequentially numbered Product Updates. These Product Updates are easy to install in the

right order and will ensure that 3ds Max is working properly. Make sure that your installation

of 3ds Max 2013 has all available Product Updates installed before proceeding with the

exercises in this book.

For more information about the new features and improvements in 3ds Max, go to the

“What’s New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2013” section of the Help system. You can also fi nd information

on the Autodesk website or the Autodesk media and entertainment forums called the Area

(area.autodesk.com).