just tried max 2010.
what i didn’t expect is how well the new viewport shading works with vray lights.
the vray domelight works perfectly with realtime ambient occlusion (something i didn’t manage to achieve with mr/max lights).
even the vray sun works nicely.
good job on the integration!
(now if only the vray material fog color would be considered for viewport refraction ;))
also the new hair and fur integration is very nice!
doing architecture i have limited use for it, but it rocks anyway 
Nice to see some positive initial feedback on the new max for once -- thanks for that, Marc. We only partially migrated to 2009 because of plugin issues, but it’s gotten to be a huge headache being a version removed on some projects. Have you had time to test other third party plugins you use to see if they’re behaving normally? Will every plugin require a recompiled version for 2010, or do 2009 versions still work?
Thanks!
Shaun
Hopefully it will get even better 
Best regards,
Vlado
Hi Shaun,
actually i’m just getting started with it. vray and colorcorrect seem to work fine.
plugins have to be recompiled…
i opened & rendered my last 2009 project, it rendered just fine, although slightly slower (known autodesk bug?).
the ribbon is strange, but i don’t hate it. probably a step in the right direction. the dark ui looks nice, very much like after effects. the light ui only comes with the colorful icons (which i hate). the black icons for the light ui are gone.
i don’t know where they are heading with the ribbon interface, it will only make sense if the command panel goes away, but there is still a long way. probably max 2011/12 really will be like after effects, with those layer panels, instead of the command panel with the modifier stack. who knows.
i’m going to check out the new container system now…
Plastic,
Thaks for the feedback. Just some more questions.
How stable is it?
Does viewport shading work under DirectX or OpenGL?
How fast (or responsive) is the new interface?
Thanks
zoran
i opened & rendered my last 2009 project, it rendered just fine, although slightly slower (known autodesk bug?)
http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/26109/
Thats the reason i havent switched yet, 1 1/2 minute doesnt seems too much for a still, but for an animation it adds up…
Damn. Teaser!
can you show screenshots of vray viewport previews, so I know if I will ever ugrade from 2009
it didn’t crash on me yet, but it’s too early to tell…
viewport effects only work with directx. i’ve been using directx with max for a long time now, since max 6 or something. opengl in max is pretty much dead.
i can’t tell much about the interface performance, because i got a very fast computer (i7, 3.8ghz), it runs fine here, no lag. but even photoshop cs4 runs smoothly on my system
not so on my previous one. it’s possible that the ribbon interface is a bit laggy on older computers. other parts of the UI didn’t really change, technically. (only new icons and new system font).
ok, check this out:
this is rendered with vray (using my ambient occlusion script)
--------------------------------------
these are all viewport captures:
a vray domelight and realtime ambient occlusion, using the same radius settings as the render above.
(old style, that’s how it looks without hardware shading)
vray domelight + vray sun (disabled)
vray domelight + vray sun
vray domelight + vray sun (only sun position changed from the last image, nothing else)
area shadows!!
all this stuff runs very smoothly in the viewport with my radeon 3870. this scene is running at 130fps (although the max fps stats display is a bit fishy)
the hardware shading has potential to be used on fully fledged scenes, for pre-viz or something…maybe not just a gimmick. in any case, it’s great fun
Great Marc! Thanks for the screenshots - very illuminating ;).
Holy cow! Thanks for posting those, Marc. A real shame about the render slowdown -- it probably won’t prevent us from migrating, but we’ll have to plan on more time for rendering animations. Gonna have to take a weekend soon to get 2010 installed and thoroughly test it myself!
Thanks,
Shaun
Nice, impressive, a bit shame that there is ambient occlusion in the direct light zone, though not in all images. I bet the vray implementation works better than mental delays implementation lol.
Very nice, works great with standard material, but I can’t get the viewport shading to work with VRayMtl. Is this a known “bug” or maybe im doin’ it wrong?
VRayMtl does not support the Hardware viewport preview option. However it will work with the standard one.
Best regards,
Vlado
That stinks to say the least. though I suppose its not vray’s fault.
i want to see hair renders. lots of them
i saw a while back you will be able to do realtime rendering is this with max 2010 or is it with a future vray?
Looks great. Do you have to use AO in order to get decent viewport results?