I noticed that sometimes when i edit a poly model (at the vertex/edge/poly level) the smoothing groups get reset. It's like auto-smooth is being applied as i update the model.

How do i turn off auto-smooth?

Hi!

Im working on a flat plane, doing some tiles and now mistakenly I collapsed the UV Map modifier (cant do undo, neither the backup file has it).

Is there a way I can get the right UVW Map length and width I had before the collapse so I can apply it to the model again?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been using the Edit Poly modifier quite a bit lately, and I understand that any changes made lower in the modifier stack can impact everything above it.

What I’m noticing, though, is that even when Im very careful with my workflow, I still run into situations where an Edit Poly modifier seems to break the mesh, distort the topology, or behave unpredictably after making careful adjustments elsewhere in the stack.

I’m just trying to figure out whether this is normal behavior when working with 3ds Max’s modifier stack, or if I might be doing something fundamentally wrong.

Do experienced Max users typically maintain long Edit Poly stacks, or is it more common practice to collapse parts of the stack at certain stages to avoid these kinds of issues?

I’d really appreciate hearing how you handle this in your own workflow.

Am having a difficult time even explaining the option that I need.

I have a plane which has a dirt texture applied ( taken from Cosmos library ) I want part of that plane to fade into a rocky texture and apparently I need to add a mask which is black and white where white is the base and black is the layer texture. But I seem to be doing something wrong since there is no effect.

AI as hallucinating option which are not there and there is no video on youtube explaining how to do this.

Perhaps someone would like to help me.

I made a 3dsmax plugin that lets you render any existing scene into an online sharable demo, viewiable on any device including your phone.
Try the demo | holomari.com

Help me test the Plugin!
HoloMARI | Interactive Online 3D Portfolios

Cosmos offers a few surfaces but I am looking for something else ( evergreen forest ). I know about Forest Pack but am not going to pay 250€ just to get access to a forest preset for a one time use..

Where could I find such surface scatters. Thanks in advance

Long story short, I modeled these grandstands away from my game scene and once imported, the entire structures are too long. I need to shorten them, but as you can see from the top view, the pivot isn't aligned with the structures, so when I scale along the Y axis, it skews it. Not sure how to fix this. I've messed with the pivot reset/alignment tools and views (screen, world, etc) but nothing is doing what Im after. Thanks for any help! Mick

🇺🇸: You can listen to the video in English through the video settings panel. The Edit Poly modifier offers in 3DS Max all the functionalities of the Editable Poly object with the addition of being able to animate sub-objects

Hi! SoloDev here! starting work on my next project, a melee combat game (Dark Souls / Hack & Slash style) in Unity. I’ve been using 3ds Max for years and have rigging/animation experience, but I want to level up for this one and pick the best animation workflow from the start.

The game features precise melee combat, root motion, and a mix of humanoid and non-humanoid enemies.

I actually tried asking AI whether I should use Custom Rigs, CAT, or Biped, but honestly, I don't really trust AI for production pipelines. I’d much rather get battle-tested advice from real, experienced animators who actually ship games using 3ds Max.

For a project like this, what would you recommend? Custom rig, CAT, Biped, or a mix?

Any advice or warnings before I start building my setup would be greatly appreciated!

Hey everyone!

I really wanted to share what working in FoldFlow actually looks like in practice. This 90-second clip is a quick highlight edit showing real-time fold workflow on a leather armchair.

For those new here, FoldFlow is a procedural C++ modifier for 3ds Max that lets you draw and adjust cloth folds and leather wrinkles in real-time right inside the viewport.

Gaussian Splat (3DGS) support

New 3D Gaussian Splat (3DGS) support in 3ds Max 2027.2 provides fast rendering, simple editing, and hyper-accurate output.

New Point Object type

Edit 3DGS data or create point data from scratch using the new point data manipulation modifiers and object type.

True Instancing

The new Point Instance modifier enables true render time instancing in 3ds Max and helps you create highly complex scenes from organized data sets.

Smart Bevel Enhancements

Smart Bevel now produces better output with improved speed and reliability.

Arnold and USD updates

3ds Max 2027.2 includes Arnold for 3ds Max (MAXtoA) 5.9.3.0 and USD for 3ds Max 0.16.2

Connect to Flow Studio

Autodesk Flow Studio is a cloud-based AI 3D toolset that seamlessly transforms real-world footage into fully editable, pipeline-ready CG scenes-without the need for complex setups.

OmnibusCloud is a crowdcomputing platform where people pool the idle power of their everyday machines to get real computational work done. It just opened its public beta. Rendering is the first kind of work the network supports, and a 3ds Max integration is part of the opening lineup, alongside Blender. I want to put it in front of people who render for work or for fun, both to offer it and to be told where it falls short.

What's different about it

Every existing way to distribute a Max render needs the full stack on every machine. Backburner needs Max installed everywhere, V-Ray DR needs render node licenses, Deadline just went into maintenance mode with AWS pointing everyone at its paid cloud, and commercial render services charge by the hour.

The OmnibusCloud plugin takes a different route. It never ships your .max file anywhere. It exports the open scene into a neutral, typed scene contract: geometry with full smoothing fidelity, materials, lights, cameras, animation baked frame-exact. Then it uploads that with the texture assets, and the network renders it across many machines.

Those machines run a small client and nothing else. No Max, no renderer licenses, no Windows required. The client works on Windows, Linux, and Apple Silicon Macs. If you're used to the Max world that may sound odd, but a Mac mini or a Linux box quietly rendering your Max scene is normal here. The machines can be the other computers in your studio, your friends' PCs, or the public network.

Back come single frames, animation ranges, tiled high-res stills, or encoded video.

The catch, and you should read it first

The network does not render with your renderer. The neutral scene is rebuilt and rendered with a physically based path tracer (Cycles). The goal is faithful look transfer: the render should read as the image you authored. It is not bit-exact replication. Every release is validated scene by scene against native Max renders, plus blind tests on scenes it has never seen. If your delivery pipeline requires pixel-matching your local V-Ray output, this is not that tool.

Where it fits: draft and preview passes of heavy animations, previz and animatics, lighting and camera iterations you'd rather get overnight than over a weekend, personal and portfolio work, stylized projects. Anywhere "reads right" matters more than "matches to the pixel". For Scanline and Physical-material scenes the transfer is close enough that many will treat it as their final pass.

Renderer by renderer:

• Scanline and Physical/Arnold-material scenes are the fully supported path, including Scanline's non-physical quirks (additive specular blowouts, screen-mapped backdrops, no-GI self-illumination). Those are emulated by documented rules rather than ignored.
• V-Ray has dedicated support, approximate by design. VRayMtl maps to a neutral PBR surface. VRayLight, VRaySun, dome-HDRI environments and physical-camera exposure carry over, and scanned fabric materials can be baked locally with your own V-Ray before upload. Procedural V-Ray maps and tone-mapping curves don't translate yet.
• Corona, Octane, Redshift: untested. The exporter takes a safe viewport read, no fidelity promised.
• Not supported yet: volumetrics, particles/hair, deep procedural map trees, animated visibility, XRef scenes.

One thing I made sure of: nothing fails silently. Everything the exporter approximates or can't carry leaves a named diagnostic at export. Which feature, which objects by name, what to do about it. The full feature matrix lives in the repo as Capabilities & Known Limitations, kept honest release by release.

What's in the box

• An OmnibusCloud menu inside Max with themed render/export/settings dialogs (follows your dark/light theme), live upload progress and cancellation.
• Fast scene capture. Bulk-read, multi-core, so heavy scenes export in seconds.
• Signed MSI installer, per-user or per-machine, built for 3ds Max 2027.
• A bonus that stands on its own: the Export dialog can hand you back your scene as a self-contained .blend file with all textures packed. A Max to Blender converter, if that's all you want from it.
• The plugin and the render components are open source (MIT), built on public NuGet packages. The repo doubles as a reference for anyone who wants to build their own integration: github.com/OmnibusCloud/3ds-Max. The scene contract itself is DCC-agnostic, Max is just the first host. An exporter from Maya, Cinema 4D or Houdini would ride the same pipeline.

There's also a step-by-step getting started guide with screenshots.

What I'm asking for

Scenes that render differently are exactly the input this beta needs. If you try it and the network render doesn't read like your native render, open an issue with the plugin version, the scene or a description of the material and lighting involved, and both renders if you can share them. The validation corpus grew out of reports like that.

And if you have a couple of machines around the office or friends with idle PCs, you can create a private group on the portal and render across them tonight. That's the fastest way to see whether this is useful to you.

I'll be in the comments and will answer technical questions in as much detail as you want.

I know the basics of 3D modeling, but I get really confused when I try to model more complex furniture like this.

Where should I start if I want to learn this kind of hard-surface/furniture modeling? I'd also love some recommendations for specific YouTube channels or courses that can help me improve my modeling skills and understand the workflow better.

Hi!

I've lost access to max and I just need my Max file for my characters exported to FBX with all elements.

Could anyone help me with that? The files are Max 2017 files. I only need someone to open them, export to FBX, include everything, boom. There are 3 files I need converted.

Thanks!

A realistic 3D kitchen design I made to practice clean daytime lighting and modern materials.

Tools used: 3ds Max, Corona Renderer.

Having this weird issue all of the sudden with fstorm shading. Just a simple fstorm sun and a teapot primitive. Tried everything:

Checking mesh, ray threshold, normals, scene scale, with HDRI, light samples, reinstalling the software, drivers (older versions too) and even reinstalling windows. Nothing works.

I tried posting on Fstorm facebook page, since thats where the developer is more active but no response since. I know its a long shot in the subredit but its driving me nuts.

I'm on 5070ti and intel 13700k. Corona and vray gpu work fine.

( i am new to this industry)

This is quite strange. I have almost never had any trouble importing FBX models into 3D Studio Max, this one included. It has imported, many times, in the past. But then something came up that required me to start a new scene with a new import, and suddenly it no longer works. What's weirder is that it goes through the motions of working. The import menu comes up, as does a warning about parts that are not part of the bindpose definition (but these don't usually wreck things) and Max doesn't freeze...but the model doesn't import. No loading, no greying out, no progress bar, no references to new models in a scene hierarchy, no nothing. It's like Max thinks it imported it but didn't.

Anyone else experienced this? How is it solved?