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INSIDE / INTERVIEWS : |
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Q. We know that you've been a 3ds MAX user right from its early beginings in 1990. Tell us a little about you're relationship with this software. What do you love & hate about it, and what plugins or extras do you use in your everyday projects ?
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A. You ask an old husband for his opinions on his wife after 14 years of marriage? That's tricky to answer... It could get me into deep sh*t, you know? :P
She (MAX) has been the most-wanted chick around until today, and yet some guys prefer another much younger girl named "Maya". I've never wanted to realize that Maya maybe had the bigger b**bs or was better in action when it comes to the rather fancy things a man can dream of. So for a long time I just refused to even think about Maya and labelled her admirers a bunch of snobbish fellas.
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But even though being the owner of the domain mayasux.com, I had a short affair with her last summer when things went rather dull otherwise. I thought I could maybe not evade her any longer if I wanted to move on with my job. But then... we didn't really make it beyond the first date, then MAX was calling me again for new endeavours.
So even if we did not always love each other, we still have a good relationship today ;-) And even after 14 years, I still have the feeling that I know jack sh*t about her.
Doesn't that all sound familiar? :D
Seriously, MAX needs a general overhaul badly. It's already overdue for years, and even though there has always been some rumour about a total rewrite for the respective next version, nothing to that degree ever happened as of now. Next year its core will have its 10th anniversary. Any version after MAX 1 is still relying on a few meanwhile very limited concepts, which were groundbreaking back then, but no longer competitive these days. I've heard that especially its SDK leaves a lot to be desired meanwhile. Not being a coder myself and not knowing even a single line of MAXScript, I still notice these limitations every now and then due to my work as a betatester and the many cusswords the developers have found for the MAX core technologies. MAX6 should rather be named MAX 3.5 to reflect the actual progress the platform made. But I got the feeling that discreet likes the big release numbers, even though the new-features-lists become shorter every time.
MAX is rock-solid, though, heavily production-proven and still very logical and reliable. To be fair, I also have to say that I've almost never encountered anything that had proven to be impossible just due to a software limitation, but more likely due to my own limitations. So if you happen to freak about things that seem impossible with your tools, always be sure that a true artist could manage it anyway, maybe even with MS Paint if worse comes to worse. And if that doesn't help you, there's still finalRender as an alternative ;-)
Apart from that I also like VRay for "ordinary" scenes. It is very straightforward, delivers great results without much tweaking, but often fails when it comes to heavy geometry or combinations of many sophisticated features such as micro-displacement.
Then I love "f-Edge" by ChaosGroup. Even though it also tends to become very unstable when used for vast geometry. But I dig its simplicity and versatility. That's the kind of tools that spice up your daily work!
Tom Hudson't Greeble is an awesome little tool, as well. Especially for the things where you wouldn't expect Greeble to be suitable for. So even if you are laughing at me now, be sure that Greeble shines especially when it comes to things, that do NOT have anything in common with the surface of Battlestar Galactica or the alikes. It can be much more of service for rather organic things, too.
And last not least the whole collection of BlurBeta plugins should be mandatory for everyone! Thanks Scott&Steve for all the candy!
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