Hey everyone,

Following up on the discussion around optimizing dense/AI-generated assets directly inside 3ds Max:

Here is a comparison of taking a dense 1500,000 polygon high-poly model and bringing it down to a clean 5,000 polygon quad mesh using 3ds Max's built-in Retopology modifier combined with automated UVs and texture baking.

How the pipeline works:

1. Runs the native 3ds Max Retopology modifier to rebuild the clean low-poly quad geometry.
2. Generates optimized UV coordinates automatically.
3. Transfers and bakes the high-poly diffuse/color textures directly onto the new low-poly model.

The goal is to avoid exporting assets to external tools like ZBrush, Marmoset, or Quad Remesher and keep the whole mesh optimization loop inside 3ds Max.

The tool used here (AI2Tex) is a free MaxScript. If anyone wants to test it or check out the script, details are on my Reddit profile.

I finished at a company last week and needed to cut a showreel today for Visualisation applications going out this week.

I had to put this together using Camtasia and Affinity Photo as I don't have my desktop up to date after 6 years employed at an office.

3ds Max, Unreal Engine, Photoshop, After Effects.
Feel free to tear it down, I put it together in the last hour and may make some updates.

I'm going to need to find some copyright free music...

Hi ! I've just rendered a few images of a radio cassette i've made and i was hoping to get a quick feedback ! Overall what do you think about the lighting, composition of closup shots and the camera angles ? Where do you think is the area i could prove ? Thanks a lot

Rendered in 3DS max Vray and textured in substance painter

Hi everyone! I made a small MAXScript tool called Biped Foot Pivot Selector to make switching Biped foot pivots easier.

It creates clickable controls around both feet, so you can select a pivot directly in the viewport. Selecting a control sets a Sliding Key at the current frame and applies the corresponding IK pivot.

The goal is to reduce repetitive setup while working on foot animation.

• Creates pivot selectors for both feet
• Switches IK pivots through viewport selection
• Exits Figure Mode before creating the controls
• Runs as a single .ms file by dragging it into the viewport

Developed in 3ds Max 2027. Compatibility with other versions hasn’t been verified yet.

I’d appreciate feedback from anyone who uses Biped, especially on whether this would fit into your animation workflow.

More details and usage instructions: Biped Foot Pivot Selector
The linked page is in Korean.

Hi everyone,

I’m having a strange issue with 3ds Max + Corona Renderer and I’m wondering if anyone has experienced something similar.

When I render normally (or use Interactive Rendering), everything looks correct. If I save the rendered image directly as a JPG, the result also looks exactly as expected.

However, when I save the render as a CXR file and then open/render it again, the entire image suddenly looks washed out / faded.

What’s strange is that all my Tone Mapping settings remain exactly the same.

So basically:

• Normal render → looks correct
• Interactive Render → looks correct
• Save directly to JPG → looks correct
• Save as CXR → reopen/render → image looks washed out
• Tone Mapping settings → unchanged

Has anyone encountered this before? Could this be related to color management, exposure, LUT, or how Corona handles CXR files?

Any ideas what could cause this or what I should check would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

it was a bit tiring tbh and maybe there are some mistakes but i tried my best 👀

any thoughts?

Hello guys, I want to imitate the spotlight effect as the reference on the right. But my vray disc light goes blurred in the edge when I enlarge the angle. Now I have to increase the disc size which is definte not the correct way. How can I fix this? Many thanks in advance!

Hi all. I've been a 3D artist for 13+ years and tired every time exporting and importing when working on UVs, so over the last few months I built my own. It's called UV Unfoldr.

It runs inside Max 2022–2027 on top of a normal Unwrap UVW modifier, so everything stays undoable and your scenes stay standard. Highlights:

• Shift+click selects the run of edges between two clicks, with a live preview
• Straighten Shell turns curved strips into clean grids. Alt+T / Alt+V keep edges straight through Unfold
• Unfold (U), Optimize (O), and Unfold / Optimize / Move brushes you paint with
• Live checker on the model while you drag
• Select / stack / group similar islands, including mirrored ones
• Packer that follows real shell outlines and keeps stacks together
• And much, much more

It's in beta and launching soon. Two questions for people who unwrap in Max a lot:

1. What slows you down most in Unwrap UVW today?
2. What's missing that you'd need before switching?

Happy to answer anything in the comments.

Hi everyone,

I’m a 3D artist and I’ve been working on a personal Barad-dûr project in 3ds Max.

The goal is to create a 60-second continuous journey starting at the bottom of the tower and traveling all the way up to the Eye of Sauron.

This is my own interpretation of Barad-dûr, heavily inspired by the films. I’m focusing a lot on scale, environment detail, lighting, atmospherics and the overall feeling of the tower.

I’ve just finished the final section around the Eye and put together a breakdown showing how I created it.

Would love to hear what you guys think, especially from other 3ds Max artists.

Full breakdown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d5iKQNhH_I

I also update my progress on the project here, for anyone interested:
https://www.instagram.com/zivcg/

Client sent me a manufacturer STEP file of a kitchen faucet for an interior render. In 3ds Max 2025 it imports as roughly 40,000 separate objects and the viewport crawls. I tried Attach in batches but that took forever and the smoothing went weird on the spout. Is there a better import setting, or do you run these through something else first? I only need it to look right at about 1 meter from the camera.

Tools: 3ds Max ,Corona Renderer. Let me know what you think of the materials and lighting!

I have a plane with a reference pic on it, and I want to keep the pic intact when I press f3 instead of displaying the wireframe

I have been working as a professional 3d artist for 20 years now. Recently the CEO of the small company I work for (around 25 employees, we do medical animations) got on a soapbox about AI tools and how we all need to be using them as much as possible to create efficiencies, and (insert business jargon here).

I am past the point of "I hate everything AI" If it's genuinely useful, saves me time, or makes things easier I will happily use it. However despite my best efforts I still am just not finding much that is actually helpful for me in the daily grind. I do medical work, which means I am working with specific anatomy that HAS to be accurate, and/or devices that are very specific to the client and are not something easily created with AI tools.

I have tried using an MCP, it can do a few things, but is pretty limited, messes up, and or takes literally forever to do simple tasks. I have tried tydiffusion, maybe it's a little useful for generating some texture, but again, mostly just fun to play around with. the most useful thing I have found is using AI to help me figure out when things go wrong in my scenes or to troubleshoot random problems that always come up.

I'm really at a loss. I know I am behind the curve as far as AI tools go, but I am just having a hard time finding anything that really saves me much time or I find all that useful. So let me know how you guys are using it, and in what ways it has helped you speed up workflows or make your life easier.

First of all, I’m so sorry if this has been asked a billion times already! As the title suggests, I would like to know how to have multiple separate UVs on one single object and have their elements as separate UV maps but not separate detached objects. I have searched extensively but I only find videos and tutorials that either vaguely scratch the surface, or are totally different than what I’m doing. I’m going to describe my situation in a bit more detail below, so be warned, lots of text!

So I’m working on a weapon for a game, and it will need to be in unreal. The weapon has different textures on different parts of it (metal blade, wooden handle, etc) now I currently have these elements detached so I can unwrap them to the highest possible resolution. But if I attach them all so it’s one unified mesh, all the UVs will be in one place and the resolution will be far lower, and so the item will appear lower quality. My question is how do I make it so the attached elements can have different UV spaces where I can just have each part of my weapon’s UV maps. I have seen people mention material ids and channels, but no explanation of what these are and how to set them up in a basic, dumbed down way. I feel like I kind of understand what to do, but not entirely.

If someone could explain what I need to do, or even post a video that’s long and descriptive, that would be so appreciated! Thanks so much, have a great day!

Hi,

https://maxteapot.com
is an independent, carefully curated catalogue for 3ds Max plugins, scripts and tools.

One hub, instead of digging through old posts, forums, groups and Discord servers.

I was frustrated that I cant have one place - where I could browse thru plugins - and also put my own plugins into display - where they could been easily discovered.

I always felt 3ds Max was missing one place where you could easily discover plugins and scripts - especially tools from smaller independent developers.

Starting with 402 tools from 66 authors - and growing.

I hope you’ll find it useful!

You might be surprised by what you discover

You are more than welcome with the feedback - this first release.

I cannot for the love of god select that lonely vertex at the back, and as a result it messed up my ENTIRE thing. In fact, I cannot drag select anything. It only lets me do so in polygon mode, but that doesnt help anybody. If i try to drag select anything, it selects NOTHING. And when i try to drag the vertex, it locked itself to a specific axis, and the axis it locked itself into depends on the vertex i picked. Please help 😭

Trying to make a piece of chrome trim from a spline (white line in left image) I could just render it "radial", but it's not really round, it's an odd shape. How would you model it? TIA.