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Games Entertainment

Free Stripped-Down 3D Studio Max 163

Posted by timothy from the introduce-me-to-some-models-please dept.
mikpos writes: "A division of Autodesk is apparently going to be releasing a free (speech) stripped-down version of 3D Studio Max, geared towards game developers and users. The product is going to be called gMax, and Autodesk might be licencing some customised versions of it to specific game companies." Sounds like there might be a spate of "genuine free-speech" 3-D modelers in the works, with the release of Blender 2.0 as well. Update: 07/31 05:35 PM by S : Seems to have moved link.
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Free Stripped-Down 3D Studio Max More

Free Stripped-Down 3D Studio Max

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  • it's not like they're gonna lose any money on it, those who need more functions will buy the full version and they gain an active userbase who else would not have afford it and would get an illegal copy or choose another product. Great news anyway! Thanks Discreet!
  • The 3DS R3 for DOS crack had severe problems, I've experienced them too.

    I've had cracked versions of all MAX versions - from 1.0 through 1.2 and 2.0 to 3.1 now. And none of them had dongle / crack problems... guess it depends on which group cracked it :)

    3ds MAX is quite different from the good ol' DOS versions. But I find MAX 3.1 to be a breeze, much better than MAX 1 & 2... after one gets used to it.
  • (I know, Unreal papa Tim Sweeny has a Max->Unreal translator inside Unrealed, but I have yet to meet a programmer who can figure out how he did it :)

    Are you kidding me?? That's an extremely simple algorithm - at the simplest level, all it takes is subdividing all the polygons until everything is a triangle - problem solved. A triangle can't be concave.

    That said, I've never used Unrealed, but I'm guessing this is how it does it (or partially, anyway - it can stop subdividing into triangles if the polygon it's subdividing is now convex).
    --
  • Walk among the vast line of the gamers out there and ask them if this really makes a difference? As the article pointed out "What a brilliant idea. Half the world's Mod makers are probably using illegal full versions of 3D Studio MAX already, so it's not as if Autodesk is going to lose any money on the deal." I guess not, they only have thoughts of making some, and so be it. They have to make their money, but don't let them think i'm going to appreciate something that they should have been doing in the first place. No, there just trying to get in the good graces of the gaming community by offering a half-version of it and saying it is "free". woohoo! "Is Autodesk trying to put the software pirates out of business or something? Nope, there's a simple explanation, but a surprising one", the article goes on to say. They claim that, and get this:), "this free, cut-down version of 3D Studio MAX is for game players". Well, leave it to me to express my gratitude.
  • AutoDesk is just sitting on tons of cool software.

    Yeah... I always thought Autodesk Animator Pro was great... wish they could make a new release of that one...

  • If you define using it right as putting it all back in the cardboard box, then using it as a paperweight, then maybe

    Score:2 (Insightful?)

    Purlease, give me strength. Here's a refrain I'd like to here more people saying:

    "Linux is great"
    "Windows NT/2000 is great"
    "Linux crashes"
    "Windows NT/2000 crashes"
    "Linux is right for some tasks"
    "Windows NT/2000 is right for some tasks"
    "Blender runs brilliantly in Windows NT/2000"
    "Blender runs brilliantly in Linux"

    There is no difference to the end user between Linux and Windows NT/2000. Us nerds may get heated about Microsoft, but at root, both OSes are pretty good, and we could easily use either to get an honest days work done.

    I write this from a Windows 2000 PC that has not blue-screened since installation (Day one of CD going to select customers) and which runs Povray/Blender/gimp/ssh etc. all day without complaint (gimp crashes, but it's not exactly a mainstream Windows NT app, and the crashes have dropped since the latest release). My home machine runs RH6.2 in much the same way.

    Your mileage may vary, but telling us about third-hand experience of a troublesome installation doesn't really advance the discussion, does it?

    Rob.
  • The critical thing is indeed the license. Open Source still means something quite different to publicity agents than to programmers. If it were something like the MPL, that would indeed be reason to cheer. And GPL even more so.

    If they just mean that they are displaying the source code, that's quite nice, but nothing to get too excited about. The crucial questions are "Can you distribute altered versions of the code?", and (if so) "What restrictions are placed on redistributing the code?" I like to get code with the "just don't sue us" restriction, but even most individuals don't like it much when they're releasing code. The scholastic tradition prefers the BSD style license: "See what I've done!" (aka publish or perish). Individuals frequently like the GPL (gamer's license): "I can build the best widget! See! Try and top that!" With it's mixed elements of competition and cooperation. I find that I am unable to speak fairly about the motives behind some of the other licenses.

  • Oops.... sorry to rain on your parade, but I was at siggraph and got to play with gMax first hand.

    I can't wait to get my hands on it. I think it will greatly bolster those in the 3d community who want to learn 3D Studio Max.

    I have been a registered 3D Studio User since 1992. Recently I have been looking for an alternative such as blender to teach at a local university. I wanted a free program so students wouldn't have to go borke trying to learn the basics. Now gMax gives me the opportunity to not have to learn a new interface and 3D paradigm.

    Sorry if I sound like a nut, but I've also used Softimage, Maya, Houdini, and Lightwave. I find that interface is what holds people back in 3d. Maya is my next logical step in 3D, while Houdini is way above my head. Softimage and Lightwave, while impressive, seem to dialogue-box you to death for no apparent reason. Text based gui's have no place in my workflow, so for now at least 3D Studio Max is where I stay... Until Maya lowers their cost of entry.

    "This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper."

  • Hopefully not TOO off-topic... Moonlight 3D was free (beer, at least - not sure about the speech...) but it's gone after a cryptic message on their site a few months ago. Anyone know what happened? It was a promising 3D app for Linux...

    ---

  • Are you guys nuts??? That POS crashes all the time. I used R3 for the F.I.R.S.T Autodesk Animation Competition this year at my school. Sure it was a pretty good program, but you would think that they could work some bugs out of it. After all, it retails for about $3000 a copy. I ran it on a Win98 machine that (unfortunately) had 64MB RAM. However, I added another 64 later and it was just as unstable. I also had a TNT2 and DirectX 6.1.
  • I've read it before, over and over, and it is something that I believe. Most "warez sites/warez kiddies" don't really care what software they have/carry. It's more of a competition to see who can be the first to carry the latest program - which most of them will never use.

    I seriously doubt that a low-cost/free alternative would cut down on warez trafficing of the full blown version.
  • Actually, Kinetix/AutoDesk have been saying for years that they don't mind you using a warez-copy of 3DSMAX as long as you don't use it commercially (quite a sensible attitude, btw).

    They probably make most of their money from things like support and training anyways, so why should they really care about giving away their software (also the same principle by which a number of linux companies make their money, btw)?

    As an added bonus, a lot of people who end up working in the games industry nowadays start out by making player models and building levels for their own enjoyment. Once they join a certain company, it's in AutoDesk's best interest to have them be familiar with 3DSMAX, as it's always easier to use software your employers already know (that's the way WordPerfect made it big in the 80's, remember?)


    This is not a .sig
  • it's always easier to use software your employees already know, of course. Damn.


    This is not a .sig
  • > Don't get me started on Carrara. OK, it's a nice app, can do most things
    > reasonably well, but it is not half of what 3DS or Maya is... some of us actually
    > need some of the more advanced functions in MAX. But for a quick fun
    > experimental scene or something, Carrara is great...

    Of course you're right about that--Carrara wasn't designed to be a professional 3D app, it was meant more as an enthusiast/light work sort of thing. But like I said, for the uses most people would use something like 3D Studio for, Carrara really shines. If you want to do 3D work but for fun not as a real 3D artist, Carrara is definitely the way to go. Very few people need MAX's more advanced features for light work like modelling for games, so the whole ease-of-use and intuitiveness of Carrara's interface is an attractive feature in that market segment.

    I've used MAX and Maya--on an, ahem, unofficial trial basis--and although I'm by no means a slouch when it came to learning them, Carrara just won me over instantly for the sort of enthusiast work I do. What can I say, MetaCreations knows how to make a crisp and intuitive GUI; ever since Kai's Power Tools, I've fallen in love with their software. And for the work I've done on--no, I'm not kidding--box covers for adult videos, KPT Goo is the ultimate tool. Nothing restores the perkiness of breasts that are flattened by horizontal positions so easily as a little supple stretching with Kai's Goo... ;-)

    But, I digress. For pro 3D work, I'd imagine that Maya 3 would be the ideal, especially since Pixar's RenderMan interfaces with it to speed up and distribute rendering across a network. Any opinions on MAX versus Maya?
  • Are you kidding me?? That's an extremely simple algorithm

    No, he is not kidding. He is speaking of convex polyhedra, you are speaking about convex polygons.

    Even making polygons convex is difficult if you want things like holes etc. Actually there doesnt seem to be robust, open source code to do this. The Mesa people have great difficulties with this, Brian is thinking about dropping all his GLU routines because of it!
  • I use 3DS MAX to model things and create videos for school projects. Unfortunately, I have to use the school's copy because it is out of the price range of somebody who works in the summer on minimum wage. If I could own my own copy, I would have something to use when I stop going to school.

    Since it's open source, it had better not crash as much as MAX R3 does, which barely runs on my system with 128M of ram. And it will run in Linux, because almost all open source programs do.

    Kinetix should be congratulated for this excellent effort at bringing excellent 3D animation and modeling to the common man.

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • I think the el-cheapo version (!) doesn't is missing some cool plugins like the cloth thingy...
  • The press release seemed to imply that gMAX will be released for the same platforms that Studio Max is already, which I believe would leave Linux out of the loop. Though if they pick a good licence, it hopefully won't take long to port over.
  • Almost certainly not. I don't think Discreet itself is going to be doing any porting, only feature-stripping, so seeing as 3D Studio Max is not available for Linux, gMax probably won't be either.

    As I mentioned before, though, I'm sure there will be hundreds (or more) Linux people itching to port it over themselves, so it's all a matter of whether they like the licence or not.
  • Complete is indeed the complete package. You are allowed to run it on one (1) cpu.

    Unlimited contains the same package, but you are allowed to run it on 9999 cpu's.

    ---
  • I'm tired of these crappy limitation of the English language that is not able to specify when something is free-GRATIS or free-LIBERTY. Why don't we start using gratis?
  • Yes, thats true for the average program may be, BUT 3D Stupid MAX is a VERY expensive program. So only the professionals buy it anyways, end of story.
  • As a company, you're going to want individuals to get exposure to your product so that they'll request it from the present or future companies that they work for.

    Now, as that company, which exposure would you rather an individual have? A nicely packaged download version with a certain amount of limited support and documentation, or a warez version which is often missing files to conserve download time, lacking in documentation or other support, and with the possibility of virus and trojan "extras".

    Much better PR, this.

  • "There are too many crappy animators out there who don't know how to do anything but linear motion with no timing."

    There are also too many crappy animators out there who have so many tools up their butt they don't know which one to vibrate first.

    Tools aren't art. Sure, they help. But the competition will get fiercer as more and more people get their hands on the tools. Any tools.

    There are people out there who can be more artistic with a pencil than Gee Whiz Joe with his IRIX, Stereoscopic glasses, and ergonomic swivel chair can dream of. I can't wait to see what these people do as professional quality tools become more readily available.

    Gee Whiz Joe's world is going to become a lot more competitive in the not-so-distant future. (And not just in the world of animation.) You better hope you have real artistic talent under your belt, not just a bigger budget.
  • Blender is actually Open Source (GPL) as of version 2.0, its only real problem is a lack of import/export vectors.

  • "Half the world's mod-makers are using illegal version of 3D Studio Max anyway"

    And half of the world's working 3D modelers learned on illegal versions of software. I got Maya from a company that went under. They threw it into the dumpster. I ain't proud.

  • Oh wait, no, I was wrong, kinda, significant parts of it appear to be going open source (rendering daemon and other bits), but not entirely OS yet it seems.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I buy that logic for certain pieces of software, like WordPerfect or OnTrack or something like Adobe Illustrator.

    But 3D Studio MAX or Maya are the most expensive pieces of normal end-user software you can find, and I'm sure a good number of Warez sites carry it just to show how elite they are.

  • I have a theory about this... (Score:5)

    by mav[LAG] ( 31387 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @03:25PM (#893596)
    It's only a theory mind you since I was 10 000 miles away from Siggraph. Here it is: Some Autodesk execs went to the Blender 2.0 launch and basically crapped in their pants when they saw the new modeller/gaming support.

    My (completely conspiratorial and possibly completely incorrect) reasoning for this conclusion:

    • gMax is just an announcement at the moment - no .tar.gz or .zip files to download - if it was a real announcement, the site would be /.'ed already
    • gMax will only be available after the winter release of the next Max - plenty of time to get a source release bashed out after a knee-jerk announcement
    • Blender has gone from 0-100mph in a frightening amount of time - and it's free. In a year's time it could start eating into non-free competitors' profits
    • plenty of modellers are sick of Windows crashes
    • Linux is just starting to become a viable modelling/rendering platform for commercial 3d games
    Put it all together and it's an interesting hypothesis. Unless an Autodesk exec can show me an internal e-mail from weeks before the show :)

    As I said, it's only a theory. I have another theory - ahem ahem....

  • The article says it's going to be open-source.
  • "plenty of modellers are sick of Windows crashes"

    Windows doesnt crash if you use it right.

    Besides, only the idiot developers would be using Windows 9x to do critical modeling - they all use NT or 2000, which *gasp* is stable.
  • It's not being ported to Linux. It's being open sourced. There's a difference.
  • it does not appear to curently run on Linux, but if it's open source, then you can bet it will be ported asap.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Sorry, kiddies, but this is not going to be a thing you can just download and play with. You have to be a game developer, and I mean a professional studio to get this. I seriously doubt that individual developers will be able to legally get a copy of this. My guess is that there's probably other strings attached as well. A company like Autodesk ain't just gonna let this thing go for nothing to whoever wants it.

    I get demo CD of 3D Studio MAX frequently - not demos of the program, but basically a nice Director-made ad for it. Autodesk puts it out to all prospective clients. (I can't even remember asking for it...) It's rather nice, but I'm a LightWave man, and I detest the MAX interface. (Although its got some very nice features.)

    So, this announcement really doesn't mean a whole lot from what I understand. Only a select few developers (probably companies that either are on the fence about MAX or use another package like Maya or LightWave) will get the free version. If you want a free (as in beer) 3D package that actually is capable of some high-end stuff, use Blender.
  • The press release straight from the horse's mouth can be found right here. [discreet.com]

    Seems to me, they're saying that you have to prove yourself worthy in order to get one of these licenses, plus pay a whole lot of money. So, even though they seem to say that they're open sourcing it, they're really just loosening the reigns a little on a still closed source program.

  • it's actually 10pooplatex

    ----
  • http://www.blender.nl/
  • Blender has gone from 0-100mph in a frightening amount of time - and it's free. In a year's time it could start eating into non-free competitors' profits

    While I agree Blender has come a long way, it is still difficult for beginners. It relies heavily on keypresses just as lightwave. It was pretty amazing to be able to move around in 3d with game blender though. It looked almost better than Ultima:Ascension, and this was at a res of 1280x1024. It ran faster too, and it didn't have to do all that IDish map compiling. Everything was defined as sectors, like the old doom games, but instead of 2d sectors, these sectors are three dimesional in nature.

    Even though blender is heavy on the keyboard, it is nowhere near as bad as 3D Studio Max. While I've admittedly not used it since 1.5, its interface left a lot to be desired, like shortucts, and usable scrollers. This was the first program to ever give me RSI individually. Haven't touched it since then.

    Blender, OTOH, works great, and you gotta like the fact that it is free. They are going to open up parts of the source as well.

  • Well, you have the opensource programs that are crap, and the free Blender that is very good and very comprable to the commercial programs. It comes close to lightwave and looks somewhat like video toaster at times. And while it's true that free!=bugfree, $$$!=bugfree either. Who patches quicker would probably be the better indicator of quality. There is one and only one really good free(beer) editor out there, and that's blender. The BMRT is excellent, free(speech), and compatible with renderman files. The problem is you have to get a renderman interface to create the data files. Pov-Ray is a strong example of an excellent "product" save for its interface. So far Blender is top of the heap in the free(both) world.

  • I think we need to be careful about what you consider a "port". For instance, if I remember correctly only Maya's rendering engine was ported to linux. This means you still need a bunch of SGIs to actually do the artistic stuff on, but you can just set up a linux rendering farm once you have the scenes finished.

  • Why can't you just appreciate that they're actually doing this? So what it's something they "should have been doing in the first place?" Better late than never, I say. I think it does make a difference - although it's not as though I've never downloaded warez, I would much rather use a decent free version than an illegal full version. I realize that I don't speak for members of the "warez community," but in my eyes it makes them a more friendly company. Even if they are just trying to make a little more money, wouldn't you rather they do this than prosecute people with illegal copies?
  • "They sell tons of plugins for MAX (that's what Discreet did before they merged with ktx)" No we don't. We release Inferno, Fire, Flame, Smoke, Flint, Effect o2 and Combustion.
  • The Polish Martini

    1 1/2 oz. Belvedere Vodka
    1/2 oz. Martini & Rossi Dry Vermouth

    Pour over ice in shaker. Shake. Strain into coctail glass. Garnish with an olive.

    Brent put down the hardback book he had bought at Barnes and Noble. It was a great book, really, describing all sorts of mixed drinks. He was lucky to have found it on the sale rack. It was thin, what some would call a "coffee table book" - it had a drink and a picture on each page.

    Brent had bought it for more than a coffe table ornament, though. He was teaching himself how to make all sorts of drinks, so that soon he could invite Sharon over and impress her.

    Brent had never been a big drinker, really. He had done his mandatory drinking during college, but that had mostly been light beer, and he only ever had enough to give him courage to approach girls. Once or twice, he had actually spoken to a female partygoer, but had never scored.

    Now he was an adult, a great big member of the working world. He was in marketing. Sharon was in advertising, and they were working together on a project for two short weeks. This was his chance to make an impression, to stand out, to show someone in the world that he was worth something, and not just another marketoid with no real future.

    Sharon was a real prize, too. Giant red curls bouncing down the back of her neck, and a beautiful, pert chest that a man would give anything to touch. Brent was determined to touch it. But, of course, he wasn't about to try sober.

    And so, he mixed the martini according to the directions in the book, and took a gulp. He nearly coughed his lunch up then and there! Being a retired light beer drinker, he wasn't ready for the potency of the vodka. Hopefully Sharon didn't like martinis.. He didn't know if he could get one down...

  • The thing I've always loved about MetaCreations is that their user interfaces are not only eye candy...

    It also manages to degrade a useable CPU to a decrepit CPU - which is hardly surprising when they bolt another layer on top of everything. Would be nice with a "normal" interface version of their programs as well...

    --

  • I don't know about that. My experience in running a perfectly legal, licensed, and registered copy of Max (2.0, and 2.5) on NT hasn't been pretty. The machine crashed so frequently it wasn't funny. And it wasn't a wimpy machine either. It was a P2 450, w/ 128 megs of ram, and a video card that is supposed to work just fine (a TNT card).
  • I just read about gMax in the August issue Game Developer Magazine. Now, a magazine usually has a 2 month lead time (or Byte's editors claimed) from when it is finished to when it is shipped, so that means that gMax wasn't just pulled out of thin air. Making it free might be new though, since GDM didn't say anything about that.
  • As far as I remember, this thing STILL is Windows-only. Since it is going Opensource, it might be possible to port gMax to Linux, but I doubt the OSS version is going to be one usable for "real" 3D artists designing games. What most likely will happen, is that someone will take the OSS gMax code, port it to Linux (which makes for a pretty easy port to BeOS I might add) and then Kinetix will use that code to port the rest of 3D Studio over to compete at the lower end of the high end 3D modelers on Linux. Quite clever, really, let the OSS community do the port for you without actually releasing important code. Of course this is good for both parties. Kinetix gets a linux port without expending much effor (since any of the other stuff in 3D Studio MAX will probably be high level stuff dependant on the lower already-ported layers rather than on the OS) and the OSS community gets a 3D modeler that doesn't have a braindead interface. Say what you will for the "efficiency" of Blender, 3D Studio MAX has a nice interface, great workflow, AND an assload of hotkeys.
  • People who don't want to pay Microsoft twice for an Operating system that finally doesn't crash (as much) as their other failures.

  • 3rd paragraph, second page...
    (http://www2.discreet.com/events/siggraph2000/pdf/ gmax.pdf)

    "When the first set of supported game packs is released, Discreet plans to have no charge downloads of 3D Studio gMax available to consumers."

    You can also gleen, that while Discreet is giving gMax away, they will be licensing and distributing Game Packs (the set of specific tools for extending a specific game?). I wonder how the mostly free mod community feels about this?

    jim

  • Price isn't everything. One of the reasons these packages can cost so much is that software purchaces are 100% tax deductible. Microsoft et al. lobbied HARD for that one. Because it's not amortized over time, companies really get a bonus here. So to a company making a couple million a year, a hundred grand worth of software after deductions is almost free.

    Also, to (badly) quote AutoCAD for Dummies (tm): "If you made the cost of the software back in a month, you're probably not using it right". Artists for the most part aren't the target here. It's engineering and design companies. You think 3D Studio is freaking expensive, check out a commercial liscence for AutoCAD 2000, unfortunately only available on Windows (after decades on Linux). BLETCH. My GF is in Mechanical Engineering and bitches about Windows constantly, but it's got AutoCAD and Linux doesn't. :(

  • POV-Ray [povray.org] is a freeware opensource ray tracer. It is very well supported in the community as there are many different patches that inhance POV-Ray in itself. Not only is this program open source and freeware, it's on every damn operating system I can think of (Very short list hehe) But you'll find it for Windows, Linux, Macs, Amiga, DOS, etc.

    There are several others such as, sPatch (kind if dead, but if you can find it you'll love it. It's a modeller that lets you export to POV-Ray or export DXF files.)

    Another fun little program which I haven't had the time to play with is Blue Moon Rendering Tools [bmrt.org]. Read this [bmrt.org] for more info on BMRT.

    Finally there is Radiance [lbl.gov]. I haven't had time to mess with this program, but it can make stunningly realistic images through the programs usage of realistic lighting. This is only for UNIX users at the moment. There is no known port (that I know about) that is in the works.

    Well that's just a list of some 3d goodies. I've wanted to toy around with 3ds Max for a while. Sure I could have warezed it off, but I've given up on that. Now I can play around with a free stripped down version of 3dsmax. Yippie skippy or something.

    -PovRayMan
  • Don't forget this 3d app is free too. The free version is stripped down as well, lacking booleans and other stuff. But this is the 3d modeller that made Myst, dontchaknow.
  • MilkShape disables the save functions after thirty days if it's not registered. It is fairly inexpensive, though, at US$20, and is supposed to be pretty good for making models for Quake-type games. I think MilkShape may have started out as freeware some time in the distant past...
  • Well, it looks like I was *way* off on that one. The press release I had made it looks as though this would be only released to game companies, not for public use.

    Evidently what Autodesk/Discreet are really doing is seeding the market. The same people who make a quick-and-dirty model in Quake today could be graphic designers and MAX onsumers tomorrow. It's basically acknowledging that a lot of people use illegal copies of MAX for this already, so why not use that for marketing advantage.

    You have to hand it to Discreet, this is a good way of marketing your product early on.

  • Piracy and Alternatives (Score:5)

    by Sir_Winston ( 107378 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @12:52PM (#893623)
    I truly wonder how much outright piracy is responsible for releases like this. It seems that many companies are offering stripped-down free versions of their software, and my guess is that a large number of such releases are to minimize the desire to pirate the full program. Ontrack/Mijenix, for example, released a free version of some of their products, with limited functionality, and several more companies have started similar measures this past year.

    One thing I've noticed is that these products which get limited free versions are usually ones which are heavily pirated. I suppose one line of reasoning is that if a version with all the commonly-used features is freely available, that people will be less likely to pirate the full version with all the less-commonly-used or only-needed-by-professionals features. 3D Studio MAX is among the most commonly pirated 3D apps, despite the dongle protection scheme (which was cracked within weeks). Heck, I even downloaded it to try it out after people were discussing it here on /. in a thread about graphics workstations.

    But for the things most people would use it for, there are better tools. My favorite is MetaCreations' 3D package called Carrarra. Carrarra is an integrated offering combining the features of Ray Dream Studio and Infini-D into one easy-to-use and intuitive interface. The thing I've always loved about MetaCreations is that their user interfaces are not only eye candy, they're easy to learn and practically self-explanatory. If anyone is interested in 3D graphics and wants something far easier to use than 3D Studio MAX, but still powerful and versatile, check out http://www.metacreations.com/products/carrara/ for their under-appreciated but very fine product. I use it all the time for making game models, and it'll probably whip the hell out of any stripped down version of MAX.
  • Since it's open source, it had better not crash as much as MAX R3 does, which barely runs on my system with 128M of ram.

    What OS? It hasn't crashed once for me under Win2k (384mb of RAM), and I use it a lot.
    --
  • I disagree that people should hold themselves back to do any type of development on top of this software, be it adding completely new features or mimicing ones seen in the non-free version. At least with something like MAX, there are a few reasons why I don't see this being a problem:
    • The reverse engineering involved would be really tough.. I'd expect there would be a ton of things in MAX that would be nearly impossible to replicate in the same way.
    • Kinetix/Discreet is going to ALWAYS be 100 steps ahead of the open source project. If they release something for free that could come close to their product in a relatively short period of time though the efforts of open source developers.. well.. that's their fault (and they're NOT going to do this)
    • Ktx/Dsct aren't going to "go under" if gMax somehow by some miracle becomes better than MAX (fat chance.) .. They sell tons of plugins for MAX (that's what Discreet did before they merged with ktx) and make alot of profits from support and training.
    By releasing gMax open source (under what license is still yet to be determined) they're pretty much letting developers have free reign over the code. If it just so happens that I found one of the controllers in MAX useful but lacking in gMax, and I realized a way to hack it out myself.. then IMHO there's no reason I shouldn't do it. If I do it better than they did, Ktx/Dsct can just nab my code for their latest closed version anyway.
  • Actually, Kinetix/AutoDesk have been saying for years that they don't mind you using a warez-copy of 3DSMAX as long as you don't use it commercially (quite a sensible attitude, btw).

    Errmm... where did you hear this? AutoDesk/Discreet is extremely tough on pirates, and they offer a reward (some ridiculous amount of money... I want to say $5000 but I'm not sure) for turning in somebody using a pirated version of 3D Studio.
    --

  • OpenFX (Score:1)

    by stab ( 26928 )
    We'll be releasing OpenFX [openfx.org] towards the end of August.

    GPLed ...

  • I think the el-cheapo version (!) doesn't is missing some cool plugins like the cloth thingy...

    ClothReyes? Damn, that's a cool plugin. I played with it on somebody else's machine, and it kicks ass. But I didn't know about the full release being $16,000. Damn.
    --
  • Personally, I'm hoping that it will also come with significant animation tools so that I can finally make the penguin skin I've wanted to create for HalfLife. HalfLife requires Character Studio to do the job, and while my school had several copies of CS, they hadn't actually installed them anywhere.
  • I wonder what exactly they're taking out. Probably that "3D modeling" feature or whatever they call it...
  • Not nurbs, but other curved surfaces are increasingly useful to have. Quake3 has curved surfaces, and a game coming out this fall, Mesiah, uses curved surfaces on characters. Also, skeletal animation is helpful. That is the easy way to animate characters, and it is also increasingly used in games (it was placed briefly in Q3, but was taken back out).

    From my understanding, gMax probably doesn't have anything Max doesn't, so everyone who uses Max would have no reason to switch.
  • I think it died under it's own bureucratic weight. It was a design by commitee project, and those seem to always fail. In my opinion, the best way to start an Open Source project is to put together an initial release by your self, design the architecture by yourself, and then accept code and suggestions from others, perhaps even putting together a steering commitee for the project.
  • People who don't want to pay Microsoft twice for an Operating system that finally doesn't crash (as much) as their other failures.

    Pay? Yeah, my ass. No money out of my pocket has *ever* gone to Microsoft. Every computer I've bought with my own money I've built myself (or my uncle put it together for me... he can get parts real cheap :-), hence no Microsoft tax. My copy of Win2k is from my job's site license. And I run Linux most of the time anyway.
    --
  • Install BeOS under your Linux partition. Then wait for Wildcard to fininh the BeOS port of W:A.
  • openSource version of 3D StudioMax + some features from Gimp + open Flash swf format = GPL version of Flash?
  • I suppose one line of reasoning is that if a version with all the commonly-used features is freely available, that people will be less likely to pirate the full version with all the less-commonly-used or only-needed-by-professionals features.

    This is an interesting point, but I wonder...

    It seems to me that , while this may affect piracy, it won't affect the company's bottom line in a positive way.

    Piracy only hurts the company if someone who might have paid for the program gets a pirated copy for free.

    If they give out a free version, all the pirates who had no intention of buying the whole thing will get the free version.

    The professionals who need those extra features will buy the full version... but they probably would have bought it anyway. I know hobbyists turned professional modelers, and in the transition they went from pirated to legitimate ownership of 3dstudio.

    if the professional was going to pirate 3dstudio, he will either pirate the full version, or just settle for the free one.

    In any case, the company makes no more money by getting rid of piracy. All they've done is transform it from piracy to using a free version.

    *shrug* I just don't see the point, from that angle.

    But it's probably piracy related anyway -- they're probably acknowledging that piracy does serve as good "try before you buy" marketing, and are trying to encourage that to be done legally.
  • Your costs are incorrect. Maya Unlimited costs $16,000, Maya Complete costs $7500, and Maya Builder (which is comperable to Max from what I understand) is $2995.

    Maya seems to cost more but it also does more out of the box. (plus is easier to use than Max) Once you add in enough modules to Max to bring it to the same level of capability, the cost ends up being fairly similar. Max is a great package but if you are going to compare the two, make it an apples to apples comparison.

    Check here [hoise.com] for more details.

  • It is about time, as it is I am getting tired of this pirated version (shush, don't tell anyone, heh! Betcha there are more pirated versions out there then legal versions, fact is that a program that costs $3000+ for the student version is more then 20% of my households annual budget, in other words, its far to expensive!) that has none of the standard included textures maps! Why in the world would someone rip the friggin texture maps, without those 3DSM's usability drops by around 40% (unless you are experiences enough to make your own texture maps, but if I was that experiences I would be making enough money as a proffesional 3d modeler to be able to afford the regular version of 3DSM).

    In addition they also ripped the help files from the pirated verison, ugh! The friggin help files! That makes the program mucho harder to use, especialy considering all of the tutorial sites consider you smart enough to have read the manual and to know the basics.

    Compared to a program such as Rhino3d ::everybody applauds the wonderus Rhino3d:: which has an obvious and easy to use interface (read: nothing like 3DSM's interface which is just plain hard to use), 3DSM is almost useless without a help file!

    Anyways, I hope this "stripped down" version has no great deficiences, unlike adobe's LE and SE versions which where USELESS.

    And I mean USELESS, those things are pieces of garbage, no good at all. Windows Paintbrush has better interfaces and useability then those versions of photoshop (and I should know, I have had to do all of the graphics work for finals
    using nothing but paintbrush!)

    All in all, the texture maps are going to have to be included, as well as all of the animation capabilities, and the IK, and well, I don't really know what they are going to be able to cut from the program (surly not the modeler, the modeler in 3DSM is non-existent, that is what Rhinoceros 3d is for)

    It had better still be able to output AVI files (or else I will have no use for it, heh)

    Of course Discreet (the old ktx.com site was better, more info) is also building customer loyalty by doing this, simular to the way that Microsoft gives "free" computers to schools (then again, so does Apple) it gets people used to the 3DSM interface. (LOL, used to, interface, and 3DSM in the same sentance don't mix well!)

  • Linux is way better than IRIX, unless you're actually using IRIX for something.

    Then you begin to see distinction.

    Not only is IRIX a ton more stable, but my trusty little Indigo2 here runs Blender 5x faster than my PC and allows me to get 2x more stuff done. Anyone that thinks they'll sell me on a Linux PC is smoking something. The fact is, you can put together a $200 Indy that will blow away $400 homebuilt machines (and it's got SCSI, Video-in, IndyCam, stereo output, complete analog and digital sound I/O, ISDN, AUI+10BT ether). Plus, it weighs 6lb and is only 2 1/2" x 13" x 16" =).

    Certainly, though, these are graphics professionals' machines. And I hope they stay that way, otherwise SGI may start make them suck like PCs =P. The Octane and Octane2 are certainly out of the pricerange for anyone using mere 3dsmax ;) but for anyone using Maya or Softimage, or some of those wonderful IFX tools (ifx.com), they can't be beat.
    ------------------------------------------------ ----------------
    Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey...

  • I would be very interested to know if Autodesk is thinking about creating official support channels to back the release of a free Max. I seen many posts about people who have downloaded the full version, but uninstalled after not being able to figure it out. Autodesk might be banking that many of those people might part with some money for assistance.

  • Yawn... someone needs to read more (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sounds like this version is just for the developer types who could afford it already. Either way, MAX's free release is not such big news... the freebie will fill the piles in my electronic trash can, along with Blender and a couple of other freebies. There are two kickass progs in my toolkit, both in Windows and both you have to (!) pay for. You get what you pay for in these two... Animation Master is the bomb for organics/strange shapes (only $300) and SolidWorks, a killer CAD prog for building mechanic stuff. Now, if I get any time this summer, I'll try to get them to work together...
  • Seriously. I have a friends who hate windows and would switch immediately to linux if it wasn't for the fact that they need3dsmax, autocad, (insert expensive win-only program here).
  • I'm sorry, but I can't resist spouting this troll:

    Is this security through obscurity directed towards piracy? Think on this: Make your program so damned hard to use without full documentation, that no one will pirate it. Doh! Of course someone will just scan-in the manual and distribute it anyway ;-)

    ----
  • You have a good point, but maybe reasoning goes more like this: if people use a stripped-down free version, fewer warez sites will carry a full version which is only more useful to professionals, and therefore the people who would want to pirate the full version will have a much harder time finding it since fewer warez sites bother. That seems like a fair line of reasoning to me, although there's no actual data to back it up. Only time will tell if such strategies will work. But, when you charge several thousand dollars for a program, you've got to expect that only companies and well-to-do pros will buy it; individuals and we poor people [sound of tiny violins] will pirate it.
  • But I didn't know about the full release being $16,000. Damn.

    Jesus, I'm a retard. You were talking about Maya, not 3DS. *slap*
    --
  • If it has enough features so that people can make interesting stuff with it, then a lot of people will probably be interested.

  • From the press release:

    "Discreet plans to license development rights for 3d studio gMax to qualified game developers on a per title basis".

    and further down:

    "Extensions to the new product can be made by qualified game developers who are licensed by Discreet to create "Game Packs" - collections of plug-ins and scripts. gMax is designed to support the same operating systems as 3d studio max including Microsoft Windows, the dominant 3d authoring environment for the consumer game content creation community."

    'Including' Windows? Come off it Discreet, what other OS's does Max ship on? Please. There are hints in the release that suggest a partnership with Microsoft, too.

    Ok, so maybe the licensing they refer to here is for the right to distribute changes with a commercial product, since they do say elsewhere that it will be used to ship level-editing Game Packs with games, but there is nothing in the language of the press release to suggest anything about Open source, or indeed portability. If that's the way it is, it's a great shame, but still a good thing (just not as good).

  • So they go under. So what? Unless you happen to work there, it shouldn't matter. We end up with a completely free (in every way that counts) version of of software that has now been developed to be as good as the original. The people who rely on autodesk programs can stop paying thousands of dollars for the program and upgrades to this incredibly buggy program, and get the same thing for free. So it scares a few developers away from doing the same. I'd rather have smaller number of products that evolve from stripped versions, to the full thing, than use something inferior just to keep them giving us little bits and pieces. What do you want, a bunch of stripped down inferior apps, or a few really solid full versions?
  • What the press release says is that they will a release a stripped-down version of 3DSMAX:

    "to game players for no charge on the web"

    It's free, is what that means. However, if you're a game developers, you will have to pay a licence fee if you want to release this stripped down MAX with your game as a level/model editor. And for quite a large (I would imagine) extra sum, AutoDesk/Kinetix/Discreet will customize the stripped down MAX to work with your particular game.

    So it is good news, especially for people with shares in the company, as this stunt will no doubt increase the position of 3DSMAX in the very lucrative gaming industry.


    This is not a .sig
  • I've tried every open source modeller I could find, and not a single one of them (besides Blender, but that's not open source) even comes close to the point of useability for real projects. Most don't even come close to the point of useability for little tiny projects. An open sourced 3D Studio would be a godsend.
    --

  • Re:Wow. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You'we wight. We need to be vewy qwiet. We'll fool them into thinking that we won't really DO anything with their pwoducts, then, just when they least expect it and they welease all theiw products open souwce, we'll spwing the twap and add all the featuwes back!!!
  • I saw "gMAX" and thought for half a second that they were releasing a GTK implimentation. *whine*

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • Reyes-Infografica, one of the largest makers of plugins for 3DSmax also recently released [reyes-infografica.com] about a half million lines of code for several products, including what appears to be several released and unreleased plugins for Max. It includes things like 2d/3d paint. musculature based facial animation, and lip-sync software. Depending on the licences involved, I wonder how much of this could find it's way into gMax?
  • Open Source too? Good points on the pirating of the program. I myself actually got a version a while ago, couldn't figure out how to use it, then uninstalled it. Thing is that I can afford it now, but I don't want to buy it because of that. Maybe the free version will change my mind. What would really suck though is if all the people that play quake are now able to make realistic replicas of themselves and you have a bunch of fat 32 year old guys running around in Team Fortress.

  • Wow. (Score:4)

    by nebby ( 11637 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @12:06PM (#893683) Homepage
    This is really really incredible news. It's really shocking that Discreet/Kinetix would give away anything like this for free. The high end 3d market has been exclusively for those with deep pockets.. I'm wondering how feature-rich the gMax version of MAX will be.

    Just the fresh blood in the 3d scene will be good to have (more people = better/more 3d tools and support), but the thing that really blows me away is the fact that it's OPEN SOURCE (!?!) .. I wouldn't be surprised to see gMax evolve into the 3d equivalent of GIMP for Linux. When I get my hands on it, the first thing I'm gonna start trying to do is hack away to get all those features back into it that Kinetix took out from MAX! This could be a huge, rewarding, and enjoyable project.

    I can't wait to see SGI's response, now that they've annoucned Maya for Linux.. the difference being that Maya is going to cost you a big chunk of change.. gMaya anyone? :)

  • These companies *like* non-commerical piracy (Score:5)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @04:27PM (#893684)

    I think you're missing the point here a bit.

    These companies are concerned about having professional versions of the software flying around out there because it is possible someone might get real commerical profit from using it. It might even lower their ability to procecute in a criminal trial a company using it if the company can prove there's lots of other people using the software that aren't being hassled.

    The real benefit from having a noncommerical version of the software that's highly usable is what I call "Wordperfect Syndrome". Wordperfect, back in the day, was one of the most pirated programs I could think of. This pirating led to the software becoming framiliar to almost anyone with a PC.

    Now, you're a business, say, and hire people to, uh, process words. You're going to buy the package they know, because you can't afford to get nailed for using pirated software (and you should have your ass nailed for making money off pirated software, IMHO). The reason you bought the software was because your user base knew it, and a good percentage of them picked it up through pirate or quasi-legal copies.

    This is like the widespread pirating of 3D studio and AutoCad that goes on in Academia - students learn the high power tools, then when they have their engineering degrees and get their high paying jobs, what do you think gets bought? Of course, AutoCad and 3D studio. I see 3D studio being used in a lot more places than you might think - it's used a LOT for animating engineering drawings produced in Autocad, as the two work seamlessly together.

    In any case, the company makes no more money by getting rid of piracy. All they've done is transform it from piracy to using a free version

    EXACTLY. Now all those future purchasers of your software don't have to act like felons (in the US, anyhow). This is a smarter move than you might think.

  • No, he is not kidding. He is speaking of convex polyhedra, you are speaking about convex polygons

    Oh, sorry. My bad.
    --
  • This is great news... 3D Studio MAX is a great program, and I plan on purchasing the full version as soon as I can afford it.

    ... but the article is misinformed. "World's most expensive modeller?" Hardly. Retail price is ~$3500, usually sells for $2500-3000. Maya, on the other hand, is in the vicinity of $10,000. Oh well.
    --
  • The press release says you "license the right to distribute 3d studio gMAX with their title". This means it's free to download for all, but if a developer modifies it and wants to put it on the same CD as the game, they have to pay a license fee.

    The only other licence fee is if you decide to purchase "Game Packs", which sound very familiar to plugins. Personally, I'd consider game packs/plugins separate from the main product, and I'm not bothered that they're charging for them. Besides, someone out there in the community is bound to make freeware versions of game packs for those of you opposed to supporting a company who is releasing a product for free ;p
  • or at least dont use Multitasking under Win95/98.

    No, just plain don't run MAX under 95/98. It's just asking for trouble - the OS tends to buckle under the strain.
    --
  • On Sourceforge, they have a section about modeling with 57 entries. Most of these are libraries, converters, CAD-programs etc, but there are 19 modelers among them! And AFAIK there are several OS modelers not on Sourceforge. There is at least Blender, so there are at least twenty OS modelers in the works. Ah, the joys of OS. I have no idea, whether some may merge, I doubt it. Probably a lot will die or never see the light of day.
  • I've probably said this before...

    "Free as in Speech" is propaganda. GPL software is more restricted than speech in most places.
    The "freedoms" given/taken with GPL do not correspond with speech freedoms/restrictions.

    "Free as in Beer" may actually fit better, but the meaning of the metaphor is may change depending if you think beer is wonderful or not.

    If the reason for these phrases is because of the non exact nature of the word "free", why not just use better words than "free"? Yes these words exist. Even simple phrases need less explaining than speech and beer.

    "Open" means everything and nothing.

    "Unrestricted" implies complete freedom without implying anything about cost.

    "Liberated" is could be political, but is still better than "as speech"

    "Costless" requires no explanation, unlike the beer phrase.

    And neither "free" nor any of the above imply the ability to see the source of a work.

    The easiest solution is simply to use "source" as what is unrestricted instead of software.

    The english equivilant to the various source
    phrases would be:

    "Free as in speech" : Unrestricted source code.
    "Free as in beer" : Costless software
  • Looks like someone hasn't read the licence. POV is not even close to being open source. In fact, there's almost nothing that you can do with it apart from use it or patch it.

    The source for POVRay is freely available, right? Then it's open source. "open source" does not mean "GPL" or "here's my source, do what you want to with it." Maybe "Open Source" does, but that's not what we're talking about here.

    We're talking about source. Open source.

    --

  • implications? (Score:3)

    by fluxrad ( 125130 ) on Sunday July 30, 2000 @12:13PM (#893713)
    this is going to bring a LOT of people over to linux.

    case in point: i've got a friend doing some high level 3d modeling using apps like Maya and SoftImage on his SGI Indigo2. I asked him (faceciously) why he didn't blow away IRIX on that box and go with linux, which is, IMNSHO a signifigantly better OS than IRIX. He told me it was basically because ther was almost a non-existant amount of graphics support for linux.

    Up till now i would have agreed with him. But with the recent ports of toonz, maya, and now 3DSM, that's all changing. There are a ton of people out there who no longer have any excuse to stick with windows (Irix yes, windows no). While 3d in linux does have a little ways to go...this is a gigantic step in the right direction.

    Now it's time to sit back and watch how this affects NAN [blender.nl].


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • Yes! Finally a fellow LW fan!
    It's so much more visual and less text-box-oriented than 3dsmax, but no one listens to me.


    "If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
  • Tell me: what feature do you really need for developing models for video games?

    polygon and vertex manipulation

    basic animation controls

    texture mapping controls

    that's it. As far as I can tell, there is no immediate application for NURBS (non-uniform rational b-slines; see Rhino3d [rhini3d.com] for more info). I think that the PS2 is the only gaming platform that supports them, and even there it is too slow for much.

    I think that if Kinetix can make a really nice, STABLE version of MAX for free, more power to them: I'm gonna stick with Rhino3d (export > 3ds) and using MAX for it's great material making abilities and the video post.

    Rami
    --

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