max 5 to 7. Is it worth?

[Gizmo]

Hallo guys.

Here at studio we are wondering if upgrading to max7 (maybe 6?) would be a good investment.

All of our project (and plugins) are in max4 and 5.

Most of the works (5 years) are architectural stuff. We do a lot of import/exort from ACAD2002/Rhino2/Max5.

Any comment is appreciated

Cheers

[gafl]

Hi Gizmo !

Your pseudo is the same as a dog's friend !
Sorry it's funny.

Well, about your question, I would give a stupid answer :
it's often or allways better to get the last version of a software...

For instance:
Layers are better
Dwg and Dxf import are a lot better than in max5
where you had to wait sometimes a very long time to import
a scene.
You have a wall creator to make houses easier and faster with
different parametric objects like windows, doors , stairs etc.

etc, etc.

It depends on what you do of course and your budget.
I discovered recently that Carrara did propose a software with (a special plugin)
parametric elements to build in architecture as easy and fast as in Max.
A very good renderer with global illumination and everything you
find now in a modern renderer like Vray.

I didn't test it but it seems very interesting for an architect that
needn't a big solution like Max.
I don't remember exactly the price, it should be about 1000 euros
the software and the architectural plugin.

I think if it had existed sooner, maybe I would have tested it, and maybe
bought it.
It is also able to make animations like Max.

I follow it's improvment
But I like Max.
Bye !
Gael

[Gizmo]

Hi Gael,

in general I agree with you. Having the last version will reduce the learning curve but, I had to say, in the last times
some software marketing strategies looks like cars marketing.

Every 6 month a new release is the last revolution...

We upgraded to max5 very late only to stay with the others (studios) .
IMHO the improvment from r4 to r5 were not so pushed.
And what about r6 or ACAD2004? How many months they stayed on the market?
It seems that upgrades are disappeared...only new releases.

Anyaway it seems that switching to r7 is the worth, even if on discreete forums they are talkin' about max8!

I'll have a look to this Carrara
Thx for your impressions.


Any other comments?

Bau bau

[dellis]

I have to say that for me...its the most stable release by far. On top of that....the dwg importer is sooooooooo much better then in 5. There are a tonne of great things about MAX 7 that i won't even get into....but we upgraded both of our seats of MAX here and are extremely glad we did.

We do forensic animation so there is lots of back and forth between autocad and its alot easier now.

My 2 cents.

[dellis]

...and now they are adding ClothFX to those on the subscription program for free.

[Robert]

They do everything to make taking the Subscription... and it's worth it.

We have every Workplace equiped with the Subscription, meaning we get the updates really fast.

In production we wait 2 month after an update before taking it. There are always some crazy late time bugs and a servicepack need at least 3 month to come.

Max 7 went a little crazy at the biging shooting down all nvidia driver with WinXP Sp2 (no prob. with Ati). Max 7 has some nice feature if you do character animation, else it's like Max 5 & 6 a really weak update. What I dislike is that we paying more and more for the fast updates and get less from the software, anyhow looking at my Maya and XSI frends I see that the software doesn't improve to much but get's cheaper.

robert