In the promo video above, senior software developer Christopher Diggins describes MCG as a “very bold” alternative to traditional “black box” modifiers.
Instead, MCG enables users to create their own custom tools by wiring together operator nodes. “With creation graphs, any artist can look at a tool, open it up … and rewire it,” says Diggins.ĭespite the obvious similarities, MCG isn’t an implementation of Softimage’s ICE visual programming toolset within 3ds Max: an issue discussed by Diggins in a blog post on Autodesk’s AREA community site. Instead, the set of available operator nodes seems to be primarily geometry-related, with the examples shown in the video covering the creation of procedural geometry and scattering objects across a surface. The graphs themselves can be packaged for export and shared with other Max users, opening up the possibility for many more users to create and distribute their own custom tools. Changes made in the source file will automatically be inherited in their local scene.” The XRef system for referencing objects from other 3ds Max scenes has also been updated, improving stability and adding support for “non-destructive animation workflow”, as shown in the video above.Īccording to 3ds Max product manager Eddie Perlberg, a referenced character could be “running in one file, jogging in another. Users can also publish animatable parameters, for quick access directly in the modifier stack. In the rendering toolset, 3ds Max 2016 introduces a new physical camera, co-developed with V-Ray creators Chaos Group, including standard options such as Shutter Speed, Aperture, Depth of Field, and Exposure.
The built-in iray and mental ray renderers have also been updated, with iray getting a new irradiance render element for rapid feedback on illumination levels in a scene, and support for iray section planes. Iray’s Light Path Expressions have also been extended to enable users to isolate objects and lights into render elements based on their layer name. Mental ray gets a new GPU-accelerated ambient occlusion render element, and support for Light Importance Sampling, for cleaner results on complex scenes.Īnd like AutoCAD and Revit, 3ds Max 2016 also includes built-in cloud rendering via Autodesk’s A360 platform.