Product Description

Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 software brings a fresh approach to 3D modeling, animation, visual effects, and rendering. With innovative new and enhanced tools for crowd generation and particle animation; support for Microsoft DirectX 11 shaders; and new Perspective Match and Vector Map tools, 3ds Max 2014 helps artists extend their creative capabilities.

From the Manufacturer

Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 software brings a fresh approach to 3D modeling, animation, and rendering for motion graphics, visual effects, design visualization, and game development. With the innovative new Populate feature set for automatic crowd generation, a significantly augmented Particle Flow toolset, and a performance-enhanced viewport that now supports Microsoft DirectX 11 shaders, 3ds Max 2014 embraces concepts and technology required by today’s modern pipelines. And, with new Perspective Match and Vector Map tools that cross the 2D/3D divide, 3ds Max 2014 provides new ways of working that can help artists extend their creative capabilities and take on a wider range of projects.

Top Features and Benefits

Out-of-the-Box Productivity

Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 software offers powerful, easy-to-use, out-of-the-box capabilities for creating professional quality 3D animation. With Graphite modeling, CAT advanced character rigging, and the powerful Particle Flow system, 3ds Max helps you focus on creativity. Meanwhile, customizable workspaces and tabbed layouts make it easy to configure and switch between interfaces that are optimized for the way you work. Moreover, the Nitrous accelerated graphics core with new support for Microsoft DirectX 11 shaders offers dramatic improvements in performance and visual quality—so you can handle larger data sets, iterate faster, and make better creative decisions in context.

Robust Modeling/Texturing Tools

Well known for its extensive polygon modeling and texturing toolset, 3ds Max features Graphite, an extensive 3D modeling toolset. Graphite combines freeform sculpting, texture painting, and advanced polygonal modeling with a highly efficient user interface. Powerful tools provide parametric replication of objects in a scene while model optimization is made easy with ProOptimizer.

A Material Advantage

When every pixel matters, professionals turn to the powerful tools in 3ds Max for lighting, shading, and rendering. What’s more, creating and editing complex materials is as simple as drag-and-drop with the intuitive Slate schematic material editor, while new support for vector maps adds PDF animated page transitions, Adobe Illustrator software files, and AutoCAD software PAT Hatch Pattern files to the range of texturing possibilities.

Compelling Dynamics and Effects

Now artists can quickly block out and mark up animation directly within the 3D scene using one of the most natural tools available—the Grease Pencil. With the powerful, customizable, event-based Particle Flow system, and the integrated Hair, Fur, and Cloth systems, 3ds Max helps you bring more realistic dynamic motion to your scenes. Moreover, with the new Populate crowd animation feature set you can quickly and easily generate moving or idle crowds to bring worlds to life in a few simple steps.

A Rendering Revolution

With the integrated mental ray photorealistic raytracer and the iray “point-and-shoot” rendering technology both from NVIDIA; a traditional scan-line renderer; and the Quicksilver GPU renderer, you can choose the best suited tool for the job at hand. Moreover, with new ActiveShade support for iray, you can iterate more effectively using an interactive rendering session that constantly updates as changes are made to cameras, lighting, materials, and geometry. For even more options, choose from an evolving list of third-party rendering plug-ins.

Animation Made Easy

Creating sophisticated, believable, character animation is easier with 3ds Max. You can rig characters more quickly with CAT and use CAT Muscle and the Skin modifier for more precise control of realistic body deformations. Animate CAT, Biped, and 3ds Max objects using layered motion capture data while preserving the underlying animation keyframes. And creatively sequence, blend, and mix animation clips using the intuitive NLA system, MotionMixer, with biped or certain other animated object types.

Flexible Pipelines with Smart Data

With the 3ds Max Smart Data initiative, you can adopt a flexible, efficient, nonlinear approach to working with both 2D and 3D assets. With single-step 3D data exchange, and bidirectional 2D/3D workflows, working with other creative tools is now easier.

Make it Your Own

With the MAXScript built-in scripting language, you can customize modeling, animation, materials, rendering, and certain other aspects of your 3ds Max toolset with ease. Create custom import/export tools using the built-in file I/O and write procedural controllers that can access the entire state of a scene, or build batch-processing tools – the possibilities are many. And for more low-level customization and extension of your pipeline, take advantage of powerful development tools, C# and .NET.

System Requirements

Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 software is supported on the following 64-bit operating systems and at a minimum, requires a system with the following 64-bit hardware:

Software

• Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows 8 Professional operating system

Web browser

Autodesk recommends the latest version of the following web browsers for access to online supplemental content:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser
• Apple Safari web browser
• Mozilla Firefox web browser

Hardware

• 64-bit Intel or AMD multi-core processor
• 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)
• 4.5GB of free disk space for install
• Three-button mouse

Subscriptions

Learn more about the benefits of Autodesk subscriptions. (PDF)