News

As spring unfolds, many signs herald the new season: the scent of blooming flowers, the chirping of birds returning from their winter migrations, and the warmth of the sun dispelling the last vestiges of winter. However, for 3D artists, there's another, much-anticipated herald of spring—the release of a new version of 3ds Max. So spring has sprung, and right on cue Autodesk has announced the launch of 3ds Max 2025, blooming with inceremental but handy improvements designed to streamline your workflow.

What’s New in 3ds Max 2025?

• OCIO Color Management: OpenColorIO becomes the default color management system in 3ds Max 2025, simplifying the implementation of a modern color pipeline. This change is part of a broader initiative to make 3ds Max more intuitive and efficient for artists working in film, TV, and game development, where color accuracy is paramount.
• Updated Global Search Feature: The enhanced Global Search feature is now more powerful, offering a thorough list of tools, functions, commands, and settings at your fingertips. With improvements like the last five used items display, category display, double-click action execution, contextual results, and a resizable search bar, users can navigate 3ds Max more efficiently than ever before.
• Retopology Tools for 3ds Max 1.5: This update introduces preprocessing and OpenVDB remeshing as standalone processes, alongside significant improvements in processing time. The Autodesk ReForm base algorithm, updated to version 1.5, ensures improved performance and stability, marking a leap forward in the software's capabilities for modeling and animation.
• Menu Editor: The new Menu Editor enhances customization, allowing users to tailor 3ds Max menus and quad menus to their workflow, with features like drag-and-drop reordering and developer mode for third-party plugin integration.
• USD for 3ds Max 0.7 Plug-in: The updated Universal Scene Description plug-in brings new capabilities for importing animations, including camera and light animations, as well as blendShapes. This development is in line with Autodesk’s commitment to supporting open standards and improving interoperability between different software tools.
• Arnold for 3ds Max 5.7.0.0: The inclusion of MAXtoA 5.7.0.0 introduces the Arnold 7.3.0.0 core, offering improvements like progressive dithered sampling, a GPU renderer overhaul, and enhanced light sampling in volumes. These advancements signify Autodesk's dedication to providing state-of-the-art rendering capabilities within 3ds Max.
• Other Improvements: Beyond these highlights, 3ds Max 2025 enriches the user experience with improvements in CAT, new incremental save options, updates to the OpenSubdiv modifier, and enhanced viewport shadows. 

At iToo Software we're always interested to learn about the potential that a new release brings to our users. We are currently working hard to ensure that our flagship plugins, Forest Pack and RailClone, are fully compatible with 3ds Max 2025. We understand the importance of these tools in your workflow and are committed to providing updates as soon as possible, but as always we are dependent on the main render engines publising their updates before we can compile ours.

Expect a beta version of both Forest Pack and RailClone for 3ds Max 2025 in the very near future. Keep an eye out for an official announcement on this blog and our social media channels.