| A host of enhancements make this an upgrade worth getting |
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It's been 18 months since the last major update of discreet's 3ds max, and the just-released version 5 is packed with new features and enhancements from top to bottom.
Among several workflow enhancements and new tools, one of the most interesting new features is probably the addition of reactor, discreet's production-proven dynamics system. It was actually about time that 3ds max received an overhaul to its repertoire of dynamics simulation tools. Reactor is seamlessly integrated into the max interface and provides tools to simulate rigid bodies, soft bodies, fluids, cloth and even ropes.
But that's just one of many, many changes in this release, including a newly rewritten Function Curve/Dope Sheet Editor, a new Symmetry modifier, redesigned Transform Gizmos, a new character assembly node and a new Spline IK solver, to name a few. In this review, we'll concentrate on what's new since max 4.
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During startup you will notice a new splash screen -- it now shows you some of your hotkeys randomly with each startup. This is quite useful in getting started, since some of the default hotkeys have changed and you have something to look at during the still long startup time.
At first glance, the main interface doesn’t look like a new version. Everything seems to be where it was, but after examining the screen more carefully, you’ll notice that a couple of buttons have been added and reorganized.
The snap tools can now be found on the upper toolbar instead of being right next to the animate key, which has been changed significantly. It is now capable of setting keys manually with the new Set Key button. The old Animate button is now called Auto Key. Key Filters specify which attributes of the objects such as Position, Rotation and Scale are affected by the Set Key tool.
Using Named Selection Sets in combination with the Set Key tool is also very handy. For instance, if you animate a finger of a character but you want to set keys for the whole hand, you just create a Selection Set for the hand once and this set can be reused to set keys only on the objects in that list without selecting them. They don’t even have to be visible.
Set Key is a fundamental feature to allow Pose-to-Pose animation.
Keys are now color-coded in the trackbar as well as in the new Function Curve/Dope Sheet Editor for easier editing of position, rotation, scaling and other animatible attributes.
Animation
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| Dope Sheet and Function Curve Editor (Click image for larger view) |
The newly rewritten Function Curve Editor brings a lot of enhancements to the animation side of max. It is not as cluttered as the old Track View was, which leads to an enhanced workflow while working with your keyframes. The most commonly used tools for editing are now accessible through easy to read buttons. The rest is put into the menu bar.
A great new feature is the new Auto Tangent type for keyframes, which is the new default.
Animators should be pleased because they don’t have to deal with the well-known ‘overshoot’ problem where the curve shoots beyond the values of the surrounding keys.
It is also nice to see that discreet finally separated the position and rotation channels into X, Y and Z channels as their new default.
Also a very useful tool is the ability to draw freehand curves right inside the FC Editor, which also makes use of the Auto Tangent feature so that it doesn’t create a key for each frame as it finds the right curvature automatically.
Soft Selections for keyframes make editing of motion capture curves, for example, a lot easier as you just have to select one key and adjust the falloff range, which is visible as a gradient along the curve, and move your key around and see all the other keys inside that range move accordingly.
Another tool for dealing with heavy animation data such as motion capture is the new Reduce Keys tool, which gives you an approximation of the original curve with way fewer keyframes.
The trackbar is now switchable to a full FC Editor as well, through a little button left of the timeline. This gives the animator a more organized and easier to work with interface since you don’t have another window open covering parts of your scene.
A new Dope Sheet Editor has also been added to the list of new animation editing tools in 3ds max 5. A Dope Sheet is basically a simplified display of your animation; it shows you all the keys as colored blocks (sub frame keys are displayed as thinner blocks) and makes key management and retiming of animation kind of fun.
Many users were asking for a Non Linear Animation system, and the first step has been realized through a now weightable List Controller. And believe it or not, Borislav Petrov (www.scriptspot.com/bobo) wrote a script called eNLArge to manage your animation clips just like in an editing application.
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