This thing seems to have an AI system - CrowdsFX doesnt. You stay short of magic in your magic release, i say.


On the Mailing List i think it was Luc-Eric (sorry if i got that wrong) who said they suggested a User-Voice system some time ago and the staff wasnt interested at that point. They were surprised when max went for it.

Max community seems a little disappointed with the results, but they should be very happy, imo. Already saw maya users requesting the same and i can only encourage you guys to press for it whenever you get a chance to speak with someone from AD or with their representatives.

Only one tiny little problem with the shiny new Max release. Can't use old pluggins

Holy crap. Glad I'm using SI.

depends how you define AI... collision avoidance is AI. I went quickly thru docs and it seems you can add your own rules (AI) to icetree...like awarness to cars, light signals etcetc

The video puts "magic" in context of having the ability to predict how people would behave in case of evacuation. Collision detection helps predict how zombies would behave in situation... well, in any situation.


Yeah, it was a joke...

well I may play devil's advocate here, but I think mass motion price is not *that* high for 2 reasons:

1) it should be quite complex. Not that crowdFx or ICE isn't, but they must have a team specifically devoted to the crowd simulation niche, which surely comes along with specialization.

2) it is aimed at engineering, not entertainment. And this is a major selling point, because generally the budget is bigger, it aggregates value and quoting the website: "Save time, money and manpower during the planning phase of multi-billion pound projects"

so, considering people who buys the software spend a multi-billion fortune on a project, taking and additional 20,000 is like buying one extra screw to put on your car.

When I first saw/heard of the User-voice feedback that Max has, I was told that it was basically a trial system that had worked on other ADSK products and we were looking to see if it worked. I kinda like the system because it helps users think about what they really want, and being as you only have a certain number of votes, its like having a budget. If you have a budget of $100 and 10 features, spending $10 on each one won't get the work done, so you have think where you spend your cash, so to speak.
It's not a silver bullet though, but its a good way of getting more peoples input on a variety of issues.

In terms of feedback on things like Beta, Softimage still uses a mailing list format, which is ok, but personally I like the ADSK format of forums which Maya, Max, et al use. The Beta website has forums like this community with different sections for things like UI, Modelling, Rendering, and so on. Then the product designers post the features with videos for people to feedback on.
A mailing list is fine, but imo it feels abit 'dated' I think Softimage would get better feedback using a forum based approach. It's also easier to follow.

Yeah you're probably right. I was actually thinking that they aim for easy public (our) money (government, ministry of transportation etc).

I always wondered about initiatives like the User Voice forums for 3ds Max. How much influence CAN the user base actually have on ongoing development of the next or at least a very near version? One would assume a lot of what's going on in development has been "road-mapped" well in advance and only "odds and ends" can possibly be implemented "on the side". Or is the development more flexible than I am (merely) guessing here?

I understood that the "user voice" was really for "small annoying things". So user voice isn't going to necessarily influence the major features for a given release. And even "small annoying things" have to be balanced against other requirements, as you suggested, such as the product roadmap and Suite requirements.

The scope of the 3ds max uservoice site seems a bit broader than "small annoying things", but even the "annoying things" the user base perceives as being "small" aren't probably always that easy to fix, potentially turning them into way bigger fixes for the developers than the user base can/wants to imagine.