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[Infidel]

So, I just downloaded 3d Studio Max v. 2014. I have used (sparingly and ineffectively) 2010-2013 previously. I have never been able to push Max to its edge, to truly utilize the immense capacity of this powerful program. My competency has never been such that I could build scenes large enough to slow the system down. But, I still notice little things that I like from time to time.
What about you? What version of Max do you use and/ or prefer? Are there tools you miss of wish they would upgrade? Are there tools that they have redesigned that you felt were better in a previous version?  What is your impression of Max as it has grown over the years?
What do you use Max for? Models? Maps/ Game Levels? Effects (particle type systems)?
Do you agree that Maya is an evil program?

This is just some food for thought and a chance to expound on your experiences and to share with others.

[wallworm]

I've owned 3ds Max 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. I used 3ds Max 3, 4, 5 and Gmax before those. My personal feeling has been that each new version is an improvement over the last. If you read some forums, you get the feeling that the sky is falling on Max... but the reality is that development has remained strong for decades now!

When I started getting serious about learning to model for Source, I still did not know a lot of the technical aspects of Source modeling nor Max itself. I was fairly familiar with Max by then, but not an expert. It's hard for me to remember a specific feature in 2008 or 2009 that was "new" at that time. The first "new" feature in my book was the Viewport Canvas, Slate and CAT, which were introduced in 3ds Max 2010. Slate was an awesome new way to work with materials and maps. CAT was buggy... and the Viewport Canvas simply sucked in the first release.

2011 saw a new Viewport Canvas altogether, and became one of my personal favorite new tools.

Nitrous came in 2012, starting the walk towards a new viewport framework. Nitrous itself is one of the main areas of development in Max through 2014 (and beyond I predict). Viewport improvements increase dramatically. Some of the things that 2014 brings are better display of textures in the viewport (for example, bitmap tiling could not be turned off in the viewport previous to Max 2014).

And, of course, stability. Six years ago, I was paranoid about saving my files every few minutes. Now I really don't think about it; I keep auto-save set at around 15-20 minutes. In Max 2013-2014, almost all crashes I've encountered were at my own hands (writing scripts that had bad logic like infinite loops, etc).

Often, it takes me a couple months after release before I brave a move to the new version of Max. With 2014, I jumped ship in about 1 day!

I really like 2014 and feel like it is the best version of 3ds Max that has ever been released. It is faster and more reliable than all previous versions, and the realtime display of Nitrous and textures is closer to render-quality than ever.

[Neil]

I have a 3DS Max student account which my high school had created for me 5 years ago. Funny thing is that it still works. I'm going to download 2014 and take a whirl, but there's not much I can do. My total hours on Max is less than five hours, and I barely know how to meddle with it. Most of my time is spent on the programming side of things (game programming specifically), so if you give me UDK or CryEngine and Visual C++ and ask me to build a game with it, it'll be a piece of cake :) The actual modeling part is what always gets me. People have told me that I'm a talented programmer, but I just don't know how to model assets or animate them in Motion Builder or Max or whatever. If anyone wants to work on an Indie game together, count me in :D

[Infidel]

If anyone wants to work on an Indie game together, count me in :D

I will remember you said that... I have ideas and I know the wallworm does as well. Time is always an issue and for me it’s also an issue with ability as I am still learning Max as well. I am making headway and trying to focus on it and its ability as opposed to allowing Hammer to persuade me into doing things the "more comfortable way". Instead I am trying to make Max the comfortable way to model and build game levels.

But like the great Yoda taught us that we must unlearn what we have learned...