Max 2010 or Max Design 2010

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

Hello all,

Someone would start this sooner or later, i thought it might be a good thing for people to pick up ideas which one to choose...

here r my 2 cents:

I think since Vray RT will be out soon, that will make the lighting analysis tool quite irelevant

so my pick is MAX 2010

How about yourselves?

regards

[rmejia]

I don't think the lighting analysis tools and the VRay RT are really related or similar. The RT will help set up lights and materials in 3d scenes inside Max (link to recent comments on this). It is closer in comparison (not the same though) to the viewport enhancements with Mental Mill but those come in both new Max flavors.

The lighting analysis tools are for daylight and artificial lighting studies for designing actual buildings to specify the lights and things like window shading devices. For 3d visualization they are useless. They are useful for construction documents, LEED, Electrical consultants, etc... The lighting tools are relevant to architects and engineers, people who use 3ds Max software in conjunction with other Autodesk programs like Revit (BIM) and AutoCAD for example.

The way I see it, and from what I have read:
Architects & Engineers = 3ds Max Design
Visualization artists and Gaming (Media & Entertainment) = 3ds Max

[Morne]

Hello all,

Someone would start this sooner or later, i thought it might be a good thing for people to pick up ideas which one to choose...

here r my 2 cents:

I think since Vray RT will be out soon, that will make the lighting analysis tool quite irelevant

so my pick is MAX 2010

How about yourselves?

regards

There's already a number of posts here from different threads discussing the same issue. But ok your thread title is a bit more "official"

Vray RT or not, lighting analysis or not. My pick is also MAX 2010. Can't help but think that choosing Design will come back later and bite you, eventually...

[beestee]

Vray RT or not, lighting analysis or not. My pick is also MAX 2010. Can't help but think that choosing Design will come back later and bite you, eventually...

I agree 100%

Seems something sinister is at work deep within the decision to start making us pay for the crossgrade between the two. I would rather not get stuck on the outside looking in again as I did with VIZ.

[rmejia]

Now you guys are making me paranoid

There's some discussion in The Area, where Autodesk representative Ken Pimentel gives some more clues to the split:
http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/f...wreply/104578/

Unfortunately he does not give more information about Autodesk's future plans... what will happen in 5 years with the split.... who knows, they can't tell.... so, good luck to us and the choices we make.

[RErender]

I agree 100%

Seems something sinister is at work deep within the decision to start making us pay for the crossgrade between the two. I would rather not get stuck on the outside looking in again as I did with VIZ.

Just as likely, imo, that this time regular Max will be discontinued and a crossgrade offered to Maya or XSI, grr, why are they doing this again...

[andrewjohn81]

I think what they are really doing is trying to find out who is developing their own tools and who isn't.
If they offered a crossgrade to Maya from max I'd definitely be interested.....if the files were all compatible. But what? they aren't. I guess I'm stuck with animating in max then. IMO it all depends on how you like to work. For me, I had much more control (for the way my thinking process works) in Maya. Although, i may be a little out of touch with that soft now.

Anyway, I don't think there's really much sinister going on as of yet. It wouldn't surprise me if they wanted to create a dumbed down version for the design version, but I doubt they would just switch everyone automatically without giving warning of doing that.

[RErender]

The thing that does not compute for me is that the difference is insignificant, really just a few plug-ins included or not, why bother? Really can't fathom the reasoning...except that they are planning something much more significant in the future. If so the decision now is a weighty one with very little info to base it on.

[beestee]

Just as likely, imo, that this time regular Max will be discontinued and a crossgrade offered to Maya or XSI, grr, why are they doing this again...

This brings up an interesting point. What prevents Autodesk from looking at the numbers once everyone has chosen the flavor they will "stick" with, and then focusing feature development on the version with the minority of users?

I don't care how they try to justify it, there are just far too many ways that this benefits them far more than their customers.

[andrewjohn81]

I just wish they would tell us.
Because you might actually want to choose the Design one if they are going to give some nice features other than just some lighting stuff that may or may not be useful to lots of people.

I just want to use whatever is more supported by all the plugins I use if the software ends up being any different. Why split it at all? They need to out the info pretty soon, or at least before they start making any real changes, if any.
It does seem like kind of a waste to have it on two discs anyway if the differences are subtle.

[jacksc02]

i think max should become a modular system, you have your base application and if you want the lighting analysis tools then that is a seperate module. Then that would keep the base max product a clean (maybe) and fast option for most users.

[rmejia]

It seems Autodesk just loves to split up stuff. Maybe it's easier to program that way.

Revit for example, started out as 1 program, now it has 3 different flavors (Arch, MEP & Structure). They all have the same base code but different features and options specific to each. I have the arch version, and could use some of the features in MEP and Structure, but am screwed because they split up the programs and I won't be purchasing the others because that would be way too expensive.

Right now the difference between Design and plain Max is probably less than 1%, but this will definately change; how much, who knows (they probably do, but aren't saying). I don't think they will make any flavor less feature rich than the other, but they will most probably have different features relative to their intended audience, like they did with Revit.

I personally hate the split in Max as I hate the split in Revit. I don't see how any of this benefits the user.

[samuel_bubat]

What needs to happen that Chaosgroup would start it´s own
full scale 3D Application ?

[re:FORM]

Hopefully I've not misunderstood the maxDesgin features list, but I thought all the features released so far for Design 2010 will be the same in Max 2010, its just that they haven't finalised the featurelist for 2010 yet (which I assume will have all that Design has, minus the LEED exposure tools).

Or am I mistaken?

[Neilg]

Hopefully I've not misunderstood the maxDesgin features list, but I thought all the features released so far for Design 2010 will be the same in Max 2010, its just that they haven't finalised the featurelist for 2010 yet (which I assume will have all that Design has, minus the LEED exposure tools).

Or am I mistaken?

You are correct. Brings up the whole 'whats the point' factor.

Looking forward to seeing next years feature lists though, now we have to pick and it costs £300 to switch versions....