What's New in 3ds Max 2019

As you proceed through the documentation, keep an eye out for the icon, indicating a new feature, and the icon, indicating a change to an existing feature. You can also search for information about new or changed features. For topics that describe new program features, search for "new feature". For changes in existing features, search for "changed feature".

Highlights
Advanced Wood Map:
  • Advanced Wood is a new procedural map.
  • Highly customizable way to generate wood textures.
  • Includes presets for maple, cherry and oak.
  • Designed to work closely with the Physical Material, with outputs that can be used directly in the material such as Roughness and Bump.
  • Available for Arnold and Scanline renderers.
OSL Map and Open Shading Language:
  • You can now take advantage of Open Shading Language in 3ds Max by using the new category of OSL maps that contains a variety of preset maps, the OSL map, or developing your own OSL map.
  • Allows you to write your own shaders.
  • Lets you download and use existing OSL shaders.
  • You can see dynamic updates to both the UI and resulting map in ActiveShade.
Shape Booleans:
  • Shape Booleans let you combine splines into new shapes using Boolean operations.
  • Similar UI to 3D Booleans.
  • Dynamic chamfer/fillets for created vertices.
  • Works on closed and open shapes.
  • Useful for creating floor plans, motions graphics, and any objects/workflows that use splines as a starting primitive.
Shared Views:
  • Shared Views lets you share your models anyone online, and receive their feedback.
  • Publish an entire model or a selection directly from 3ds Max.
  • Easily view and share designs in your browser.
  • Collaborators use a URL, they don't need to install software.
  • Print out views that are important to you.
  • Capture screenshots to use in emails and presentations.
  • Access collaboration feedback directly in 3ds Max or through your web browser.
3ds Max Interactive:
  • VR editing is now possible with the new Level Viewport VR, letting you use your VR headset to enter and edit your level in virtual reality.
  • Smart Placement tool provides you with a new and intuitive way to place objects precisely when working in the Level Viewport or editing your scene in VR.
  • Live Transform Tracking mode syncs transform controls between 3ds Max and 3ds Max Interactive.
  • Photometric lights from 3ds Max are now imported as Physical Lights in 3ds Max Interactive. Any associated IES files are also imported.
  • The new and flexible VR Desktop template can be used with either Oculus or HTC Vive systems.

Enhancements and Changes

Alembic file import and export Improvements to Alembic files include being able to preserve various channel data between 3ds Max and other DCC tools when importing and exporting static or animated geometry, version 1.5.5 support, defects have been fixed, and support for layer names, material names, object properties, vertex colors, and velocity data.
Extrude and bevel enhancement Extruding and beveling polygons (polymesh) now respects the normal of the selected face when multiple faces with shared edges are at different angles. In addition, the extrude angle is now a parameter you can adjust between the new and legacy behavior.
Renderable Spline Modifier Renderable Spline Modifier now lets you correct twists created between the first and last vertices after adjusting bezier handles on closed splines and control capping; including quad cap, number of segments, and rounding the caps.
Project folders You are now able to create a new project folder based on recent projects, create a standard project folder using the default structure, or create an empty project with no existing structure or hierarchies. Additionally, the current project folder is displayed in the Project submenu, and you can no longer set the active project folder from the Configure User Paths dialog.
Software security Executable code and MAXScript files have been signed with digital signatures for improved software security. In addition, you can improve your software security by following our best practices and verifying signed scripts.

What was new in 2018.4 Update

3ds Max Interactive updates 3ds Max Interactive updates include: physically-based lights use data from real-world lights, clear coat is not more energy conserving, new shading environment property to disable default tone mapping and extend tone mapping through a plug-in, add frequently used assets or folders as favorites in the Asset Browser, Capture Frames tool supports PNG format and more, the Deployer supports bundling a project in a self-extracting zip file, updated Project Manager, and a project's Lua code can be debugged from Visual Studio Code Editor.
Fluid simulation updates Fluid simulation updates include: new Liquid Parameter Presets, the Initial State feature to start a new simulation based on the state of an existing simulation on a particular frame, you can truncate a simulation by deleting all simulation files after a specified frame, UV projection, and you can export .prt files for liquid and/or foam directly from the solver's context menu.
3ds Max Batch updates 3ds Max Batch is now a stand-alone executable with updates including: pass string and numeric data to the executing script from the command line, configurable verbosity levels, errors logged to the console an log files, scene files can be loaded via the batch script, and additional MAXScript commands allow scripts to specify custom exit codes and send custom messages to the log file.
Scene Converter updates Scene Converter can now easily remove missing legacy assets from scenes, and shows dependencies. New options are also available in MAXScript.