and happy with it ?
max 9 and not really happy with it…will have to try to upgrade to 2009 and buy the damn subscription and pray that they gonna do some sort of miracle with their next version 
2008, and nearly happy with it.
havn’t found a big reason for switching to 2009 yet.
Same, happy to stay put for now
We’ve just had our reminder through to pay for the subscription renewals. Really not sure what to do this time. We are on Max 2009 64bit, AutoDesk Architecture 2009 and good old Vray 1.5 SP2. I honestly don’t see the point in upgrading as we don’t really use any of the ‘high-end’ featureset of Max (or ADT for that matter), and one of the main reasons we went to Max 2009 (from Max9 32bit) was to keep current with the latest versions of Vray.
It really is a dilemma.
Max 2008 and ok with it; though IT keeps asking why I don’t use the 2009 copy that came in.
We use Max Design 2009 and are content with it. The transition took a while for us to get used to, but things are running pretty smoothly now.
1. Figure out how much an upgrade will cost vs continued subscription cost.
2. Figure out how many realeases you would have to wait for the money you would save on cancelling subsctiption to pay for an upgrade.
3. Determine whether or not you will be able to wait that long to forgoe any possible updates and new features.
My suggestion would be to go one more round with your subscription to see what autodesk is planning for this whole Max Design idea.
Software
3DS MAX Design 2009. I don’t know anything else so I have nothing to compare it with. I did do several days worth of training on lynda.com and now that I know what I am doing, after 10 years, things got a whole lot easier.
just switched over to max design 2009 from viz 2008.
bit too early to tell yet how much time it’s going to take to get used to…
ok ok ok. dont laugh at me. im using max8
2009 - Because I’m on subscription, and tend to think newer is better (unless we’re talking about compatibility, where older is better ;))
Im still using MAX 9… ive got both 2008 and 2009 sitting on a shelf beside me but Ive just never gotten around to installing them
Are there any new great improvements in the latest versions that makes them worth installing? Ive read about splinemapping and I can see that could be really useful, but other than that - what am I missing?
We have 2008 and 2009 here too but we use Max9 on production.
Splinemap is pretty cool, on our last project I did map a road in 2009 and exported back to Max9 just to use splinemapping, thats all I’ve used from Max 2009 so far…
I use 2008 only for scripting, MUCH better environnement than older versions.
2009
bugs in hair and fur driving me nuts
otherwise no worries
thanks for replies
@codi: why u specially use max9 for production? is more stable than 2008 and 2009 ?
2009 64bit - sp1
dude you have the best avatar I’ve ever seen, totally tricked me!
I’m on max 9, and have 2008, 2009 and 2009 design still unopened in their boxes. Is it that different compared to older versions? Are there big interface changes or something?
What are the main features you would upgrade to 2009? And if so, design or normal version? I’m doing mainly product viz, but also small animation stuff for advertising, for which I use all kind of stuff like particles, reactor, etc…
thanks,
wouter
Probably the best version of max i’ve ever used.
We’re on 2008 and I hate it. Feels slower and more unreliable than 9 and there are more weird inexplicable bugs in this version than ever before. Undo’s just forgetting everything and not working until a restart, camera animation twitching at rendertime, loads of things that almost look as if they were put in on purpose because it worked fine before.
I want to go back to 8 or 9. 2009 might be ok if theyve fixed it, but i’ve not heard anyone saying that yet.
We haven’t tested throughly other Max versions, and we don’t need any of the new features (except for some very special cases…), so we keep using what we know better
We moved from VIZ, so we have had to adjust to the problems that come with all of the additional features Max has. We are better off for it, but if Max 9 is working for you, I really don’t think there have been any major improvements aside from Mental Ray and a few odds and ends like viewport shading, spline mapping, and some selection speed enhancements. There have also been a good deal of bugs to come with some of the new features. A lot of them have been worked out through the Service Pack 1. There is also a Creativity Extension available for subscribers that you might want to look at before making your decision.
As far as design vs standard, there is only 1 difference so far, and it wouldn’t affect you one way or the other I imagine. I do mostly arch vis, but I don’t work on any projects that need LEED certification yet, so the feature doesn’t affect me either.
My suggestion would be to at least wait for the 2010 release since you are comfortable working with Max 9, it can’t be more than a few months away knowing autodesk. My cousin/workmate who is a programmer is a member of the autodesk developer network. He says that AutoCAD 2010 is going to be a major release, and from what he has gathered autodesk has some big plans for their entire 2010 rollout. I imagine that the distinction between design vs standard will become more evident once their plans for Max 2010 are announced.