Description

 AUTODESK 3DS MAX 2008 REVIEW 

Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 is the latest release of the popular 3d program used in all areas of the entertainment industry. 3ds Max, technically now version 10, adds a lot of speed improvements and useful features, providing more flexibility and performance. With today’s productions demanding shorter schedules but still quality work, this version addresses workflow issues and slow interaction with complex scenes to help meet these goals. It’s out of the box feature set makes it a very versatile application for any production needs. 3ds Max 2008 is available for 32bit and 64bit systems, now also supporting Windows Vista and DirectX 10. 

New Features: 

Data Management & Performance 
The vast improvements in these two areas alone make it worth to upgrade to 3ds Max 2008. It offers the best performance yet for complex projects which demand huge scenes with ten thousands of objects and materials. 

Data Management 
One of the main features for data management is the new Scene Explorer replacing the old selection dialog. It gives you an essential tool to manage your scene by providing a hierarchical view of any object, similar to Maya’s Outliner. From hiding or freezing selections of objects, turning shadow casting on/off, renaming, linking or simply searching the scene using the extended search options, it keeps you on top of your scene. 
The Scene Explorer can also be customized using the SDK or Max Script to add additional functionality. It lets you filter and sort objects by their type, for example lights, cameras, space warps or bones. While you work in the dialog your current scene selection stays the same, but you can convert the explorer selection to affect or delete objects. 
You can have the Scene Explorer always as a free floating window or open it by using the old selection dialog icon. ( Which still locks you out from doing any changes to your scene while it’s open ). I personally prefer the floating window and just move it over to the other screen.