Easily visualize and edit material component relationships with Slate, a new node-based material editor in Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 that helps significantly improve workflow and productivity for artists and designers creating and editing complex material networks. The intuitive schematic framework is engineered to handle the vast numbers of materials required by today’s demanding entertainment productions and design visualizations.

The new Slate node-based material editor helps you easily create and edit complex material networks.

Collaborate more efficiently with significantly enhanced workflows for Containers that enable artists and designers to layer local edits nondestructively on top of referenced content. Better meet tight deadlines by working in parallel: while one user iteratively edits unlocked aspects of the container, another can continue to refine the underlying data. Multiple users can contribute changes to different elements of the same container at once, while simultaneous edits to the same component are prevented.

Collaborate more efficiently with the new ability to layer local edits nondestructively on top of referenced content.

New tools in Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 and 3ds Max Design 2011 extend the Graphite modeling and Viewport Canvas toolsets to enable you to accelerate 3D modeling and texturing tasks:

• Expanded toolset for 3D painting and editing textures within the viewport
• Paint with object brushes to create geometry within a scene
• A new brush interface for editing UVW coordinates
• An interactive tool for extending edge loops

Get creative with interactive viewport feedback on material choices prior to rendering.

Develop and refine scenes in a high-fidelity interactive display environment—without the constant need to re-render—with the new ability to view most 3ds Max or 3ds Max Design texture maps and materials in the viewport. Artists and designers can make interactive decisions in a context that more closely matches the final output, helping reduce errors and enhance the creative storytelling process.

Enhance rendered passes and incorporate them into live action footage with 3ds Max® Composite, a fully featured, high-performance, high dynamic range (HDR)-capable compositor, based on technology from Autodesk® Toxik® compositing software. The 3ds Max Composite toolset incorporates keying, color correction, tracking, camera mapping, raster and vector paint, spline-based warping, motion blur, depth of field, and tools to support stereoscopic productions.

Receive and manage upstream design changes from Autodesk® Revit® Architecture building design software with a new Autodesk® FBX® File Link. This intelligent handling of data helps reduce rework of design visualizations when original designs are revised and refined, supporting nonlinear decision-making processes and facilitating collaborative, iterative workflows. Designers can also take advantage of new import options to group incoming materials, helping to optimize and simplify management of complex data sets.

Save time when modeling and maintain focus on the creative task at hand with a new in-context user interface (UI) for polygon modeling tools that helps eliminate unnecessary mouse movement away from the model. Modelers can interactively manipulate properties, enter values directly at the point of interest in the viewport, and preview results prior to committing changes.

Focus on the creative task at hand with a new in-context user interface for polygon modeling tools.

More easily create and manage characters, and layer, load, save, remap, and mirror animations with the Character Animation Toolkit (CAT). Now fully integrated into Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011, CAT provides an out-of-the-box advanced rigging and animation system. With its approachable, flexible toolset, animators can use default settings in CAT to help achieve high-quality results in less time—or completely customize rigs to include arbitrary morphology, embedded custom behaviors, and procedural controllers for more demanding character setups.

Maximize the usable workspace and focus on the features that matter most for specialized workflows with customizable user interface layouts. Create and store personalized UI configurations that include frequently used action items and macro scripts, and toggle the display of these configurations with the touch of a hotkey or button.

Customizable user interface layouts help maximize the usable workspace and enable you to focus on the features that matter most for specialized workflows.

Take advantage of new Smart Data workflows for your digital prototyping process when using Autodesk® Inventor® 3D CAD software. Significant enhancements have been made for importing Inventor data into Autodesk 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design:

• Inventor no longer needs to be installed on the same machine.
• Solids objects can now be imported as “bodies.”
• Support for materials, surfaces, and composites has been improved.

Nondestructively import and export surfaces and solids between Autodesk 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design and certain other applications supporting SAT files, including Autodesk® Revit® Architecture building design software, Rhino, SolidWorks®, and form•Z® software. Imported trimmed surfaces, solids models, and assemblies are represented as 3ds Max Design “bodies,” retaining the native mathematical description of the surface. This enables cutaways and reveals to be represented without artifacts, and for different tessellation parameters to be used for interactive display and rendering. Bodies can even be manipulated with deformers before export back to the original application.