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
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
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…
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.
Now you guys are making me paranoid :roll:
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/forums/viewreply/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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What needs to happen that Chaosgroup would start it´s own
full scale 3D Application ?
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…
This is definetely the scheme to suck up more money from users. Autodesk saturated the market with their products to such an extent that they don’t have any new revenue from new users. Solution is to take more money from exissting ones.(Hence the subscription schemes etc..)
Let’s say I decide to go with the Standard version. Next year, when people started posting images of light analysys, my clients will want the same thing. So my ONLY option is to by additional licence for Max Design or loose the client. Autodesk wing again. I’m lighter for $8000 AUD.
This happened to me when I bought Viz long time ago and later had to switch to max. So, yes, I’ve seen it already.
Are they going to merge some products? I don’t think so. Since they have absolute monopoly on the market they don’t spend much on development and the more product = more subscriptions. It’d be financially irrisponsible on their part to merge for example Maya and XSI int XSMay and collect only $500 for subscription instead of $1000 for both.
All of Autodesk’s products will become more specialised and we’ll need to buy all of them to be able to stay competitive on the market and that’s Autodesk holy grail: every user must have all their products. Soon we will find an e-mail with the offer to buy Autodesk 3D Office, like Microsoft did 15 years ago. After this ther shell be world domination, we shell all be slaves etc..
Joke on the side, it’s all about greed and money and we’ll dance to the tune because we don’t have much options to choose
Just my 2c
Zoran
I can see the 2011 roster of versions…
Autodesk 3ds max Design Residential (comes with some sofa models and all interior lighting calcs are limited to rooms of maximum 20’x20’, no real lighting analysis tools, no SDK)
Autodesk 3ds max Design Commercial (unlimited room size, free lighting anaylsis tools, includes SDK)
Autodesk 3ds max Design Hospitality (ONly does hospital rooms, for the lobbies, hallways and waiting areas the Commercial version is required)
Autodesk 3ds max Design Exteriors (only exteriors to 6 stories, no lighting anaylsis, but includes the SDK for some reason)
Autodesk 3ds max Design Highrise (unlimited height buildings but does not include the SDK)
Autodesk 3ds max Design Historic (Includes a pallete of historic colors as well as period lights, no SDK, no lighting analysis)
Autodesk 3ds max Design Complete (Includes the Commercial, Highrise, and Historic versions)
Autodesk 3ds max Design Unlimited (Inlcudes everything - except the SDK)
Autodesk 3ds max Design Unlmited Pro (Includes everything inlcuding the SDK but file linking is disabled (why would you need that anyways)
and lastly…
Autodesk 3ds max Design Unlimited MAX (everything. Really everything).
Now decide which one you need. Think fast.
In 4 years time they’ll cull them all down into this version (charging everyone who went with the others an upgrade price) and remove the ‘design unlimited’ tag from it so we can start over again.
We got this from our rep, looks good if you have network licenses.
Q. Will my plug‐ins from the previous version of 3ds Max work with 3ds Max Design 2010?
A. No. Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 and earlier versions of plug‐ins will need to be recompiled with Microsoft Visual C++®,
Service Pack 1 in order to be compatible with 3ds Max 2010 or 3ds Max Design 2010. In order for plug‐ins to work with
the 64‐bit versions, they will require porting to that operating system.
Q: I have floating licenses of 3ds Max, how will things work?
A: You will have a single license that can work with either 3ds Max or 3ds Max Design. For example, if you have a pool of
five floating 3ds Max licenses, you can use any combination of 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design with these five licenses
without any special configuration or modifications.
Q: Can I run 3ds Max Design and 3ds Max side‐by‐side?
A: Yes, it is now possible to have both 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design on the same computer. As both of these applications
are nearly identical in features and functionality, most customers will not have a need for side‐by‐side installs.
Q: Can I use both products in a production environment?
A: Yes. Since 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design are based on the same binary, data moves seamlessly between them and
both can be used together in a Backburner rendering network.
Q: Will my MAXScripts work in both products?
A: Unless you have written a script that requires the Exposure lighting analysis feature to be present, there are no
known differences between running a script created in 3ds Max on 3ds Max Design.
I think I’m finally starting to understand the reason for the split.
It’s not really about the feature set, it’s really all about Autodesk being able to go to architecture companies and say “Hey we have this program that is specifically made for your needs”, rather then how it is now where customers might go “but this is the program that’s used for movies and stuff… isn’t that too complex for us?”.
So even if it’s pretty much the same program they can advertise it as being made for that specific subset of customers.
It’s a kinda dirty move, but I guess they figure it’ll work?