http://www.autodesk.com/products/3ds-max/features/new
Seems pretty underwhelming… Again!!
UVW improvements look pretty good but apart from that..nope, yet another year gone by where nothing much has improved. How far is 2017 away from 2014…apart from MCG I don’t think there is that much extra. Glad I bought 3 years subscription.
Eddie has written a comprehensive list of updates for 3dsmax 2017. If you’re disappointed here are some highlights worth the upgrade.
Speed – My benchmark scene… I tested this and yes that’s a real improvement.
CAD 3256 Objects – 9,000,000 polys:
3ds Max 2014
6-10fps
3ds Max 2016
20-30fps
3ds Max 2017
80-130fps
Python – We get proper Python implementation, import pymxs – Huge news for game developers, pipeline TDs, implementing Max into VFX house pipelines etc.
UDIMS in MAX!!! Finally!
UV Editor – Now actually fast!
Sub-object selection – massively faster!
Allembic Cache any object! I’ll make a video about this!
HiDPI – QT Skin – 3dsmax may not look that different but it is a massive change. This isn’t just icon changes again, this is completely different UI, there’s over 6000 icons and 4000 dialog boxes in 3dsmax! Making it work on 4K monitors safeguards the future of 3dsmax and show they are committed to the long-term. I expect a lot more updates to come in the next versions now they’ve converted max to QT. I cannot begin to imagine how much of a huge amount of work this was to do to modern the tech under the hood of max. I could say more but I’d get in trouble… I’m hopeful for the next release.
Lots of plugins will be able to use QT and Python for their interfaces so expect a massive improvement to how plugins look and how consistent they are between Max and Maya.
And if you notice closely you’ll see that Mental Ray is now an optional component…. I wonder why… Must have be a pain to remove something so ingrained into the software. I wonder what they are planning to replace it with….
Not bad.
lol, didn’t that look underwhelming, until it shows the 120mil polys… 
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/therenderingalliance/what039s-new-for-rendering-in-3ds-max-2017
Whoops..
“The Physical Material works in Scanline, Quicksilver, ART, V-Ray and mental ray at the moment.”
Weird. Is editing a post not allowed here?
Uh ok if that viewport improvement is true, then im impressed. Now i wonder which graphics card he used? Also i read somewhere that now you can copy/paste modifiers with several selected objects!! Such a small thing but it’s very useful. Also UV distortion map and Move/Relax Brush…
Also Python didn’t knew about that… It means it’s closer to full python like maya? Can we start using Python interfaces in max?
edit: I feel like for max it wasn’t so much the number of polygons, but rather the number of objects… Try having like 30k geo particles in the viewport… hehe.
No way!!! Max installed fully in like 40 seconds?!?!? WHAT BLASPHEMY IS THIS? In the past it used to take 30 min or so 
Best feature so far no doubt!
V-Ray will support the physical material natively, yes.
Weird. Is editing a post not allowed here?You should be able to edit your posts.
Best regards,
Vlado
In admittedly quick testing this does not seem to be the case for me. A in progress scene with about 900,000 polys averages about 70-80fps in 2016 (using the shaded mode) and about 30-40 in 2017 (using the performance display mode which I think is the equivalent). Anyone else?
EDIT: This is on a GTX 970
Well, I guess that sounds a bit better after a deeper explanation. What kind of things could Python do to make max more powerful. I’m not really a programmer but it would be interesting to know.
If most users are like me, how many less times will I crash in a day? If I can go a day without crashing, I’m excited. The other stuff, at least for me, is irrelevant in my daily workflow.
Is that the same physical materials as in Revit? If so, are there any advantage/reason to use VRmats?
I think this is more of an individual case. From personal experience even in heavy scenes with lots of plugins interacting. My max 2016 crashes maybe once every 4-5 days and just when I am especially mean and try to force things when max is obviously still trying to process some stuff.
What I am interested in if objects will stop disappearing in the viewport for no reason. For example you’re working on a mesh and you zoom in and suddenly the object visually disappears and you have to rotate your camera until you find an angle or distance that makes it reappear.
Awww now I am way less excited 
Isn’t it called the new “Infinite Zoom” feature? So far from what i’ve tested the object doesn’t dissapear anymore BUT the zoom stills slows down a lot… Also now there’s a green ball everytime u zoom… Dunno what the purpose for it is.
If it fixes that I am happy. But the disappearing bug could also occur while looking at the object from a medium range.
There was python support before. There is a whole new python module named pymxs that is not a wrapper around the SDK and more like maxscript and pretty similar to the blur python integration.
It also allows for importing python modules as maxscript objects. This is very nice if you have maxscript tools that should interact with python code. A common example would be having maxscript tools that use ftrack’s or shotgun’s python api modules.
What it can do? Similar to maxscript, with full qt support and being a more common and (generally speaking) a better language. It’s not done, but has come quite far, and the new implementation makes me consider it as a target for all production code here.
Cheers,
Thorsten
We’re a small place with one sloppy coder (me) so a basic shotgun implementation out of the box would be perfect for me and as you say it’s full python and not a wrapper so it’s a good opportunity to convert everything over to a more universal language!
That’s strange, Autodesk would be interested to analyse your scene if you’re able to share it??