For the last 4 weeks I’ve been
playing around with the new 3ds Max 2023, let me show you what I’ve found. This video is sponsored by Autodesk. They
gave me early access to the new 3ds max 2023, so I can test the new tools and features
and present them to you as soon as possible. I am sure you are very
excited, so let’s get started! First, let’s look at a major
update to the retopology modifier. I have a photo-scanned rock in my
scene. The mesh is crazy dense. I will add a retopology modifier
and show you new features. Now, we process complex mesh data way faster
using a new "Pre-process" option found here. When active, ReForm will generate a simplified
mesh that accurately follows the input geometry. The remeshed data will then be used
to generate clean quad geometry. This simplified process removes the
need to prepare meshes with modifiers like SubDivide or ProOptimize.
This is pretty cool, isn’t it? Face count on the other hand controls the
density of the mesh. Let’s make it more dense. You can control the progress here. At any time you can turn it off and
on without a need to compute it again. This new update also makes it possible
to propagate existing mesh data, such as Smoothing Groups, UVs, Normals, and
Vertex color to the new Retopology mesh output. Here I have another photo scanned model
with the texture already unwrapped. Let’s add the retopology modifier. By checking the Auto Edge option,
I have the flexibility to transfer important mesh data such
as UV Channel for example. Let’s click ‘compute’. This way the texture stays perfectly
unwrapped in the new retopology mesh. In addition, you still have access to
the original unwrap modifier’s result. It’s gonna be really useful when
working with photoscaned geometries which are getting more and more popular. Now, we have a new selection method
inside the editable poly, let me show you. Here is the model of rocks
from my megascans library. I will enable polygon selection. Here it is - the occluded selection mode. When enabled, you will only select
polygons which are visible in the viewport. You may think that we got this option
before with ‘ignore backfacing’, but this option only excludes polygons which
are facing the view with the back side. You can do a lot of cool things with that. For example you can select all the polygons
from the top view and detach the selection. Then you can use the new object
to create snow as I’ve done here. That’s just one way to use it, let me
know in the comments how you would use it. We have all been there, you’re
working on the huge project, you’re super focused and suddenly, out of nowhere… What are your options now? Depending
on what type of person you are, you either wait calmly for about 30 seconds, or… Turning autobacks off completely is not an option,
many times I lost hours of work because of that. Thankfully now, there is a handy
solution for this issue, let me show you. Here we have the Auto Backup Toolbar. By default this icon will be
active when you open 3ds max. When it’s active max is looking for
any changes to your scene state. When something changes, it figures
out that autobackup should be done. As soon as I start working on something,
the timer will start the countdown. When the timer gets to zero,
the auto backup will be done. It’s awesome that you have a visual of when
the auto backup will be performed at all times. If you want to skip the auto backup, you
can reset it at any time using this icon. On top of that, there are some
improvements in auto backup preferences. You can quickly access preferences
by right clicking on this icon. In the previous version of max,
we got only these 3 options. Now we can also prepend the
auto backup with the scene name. So instead of having AutoBackup01, AutoBackup02 and so on, you will get
SceneName_AutoBackup01 and so on. It's a great update, many times before I
got multiple scenes open at the same time and I couldn’t find the correct autoback.
I’m sure it happened to you as well. You can also Compress on auto backup,
this way the file will save faster and decide if you want to
display the timer or not. This small update is probably my favorite feature,
I’m sure it will save me a keyboard or two. New and updated keyboard shortcuts have
been assigned for various operations found in the Unwrap. For example we can quickly do loop
selection with ALT+L shortcut, or create a Pelt Seam with SHIFT+P shortcut. Shortcuts work in the UV editor
as well, like SHIFT+A for ‘Pack’. You can check all the shortcuts in the
Hotkey Editor, under the Unwrap UVW category. You can also change the shortcuts or assign new
shortcuts to the options that don’t have one. You guys should already know that I am a huge fan
of shortcuts, so this update is very appreciated. Another huge modeling update after
last year’s smart extrude feature. Place Working Pivot provides a method to rapidly
adjust the position and orientation of pivots. You can access working pivots in 3
different ways: using this toolbar, from the tool menu or from quads. This option lets you place the Working Pivot on
any vertex, edge, face component, or mid-points of those components on the
active object in their scene. When you click and hold you can also
choose the orientation of the pivot. You can combine it with a smart extrude which
will provide a really fast modeling workflow. Another really cool feature is the ability
to create a grid for the working pivot. We can use it for example to draw a shape on it. With the usual grid snap tool I can align
it perfectly to the center of the grid, which is the location of the working pivot. I will extrude it and attach it to the model. Now I can use smart extrude to create a boolean. Love these options, modeling will be so easy now. Next week I will publish a tutorial where I
will get more in depth into working pivots. The Sheen layer has been added to Arnold Material. It helps to render soft microfiber
fabrics like velvet, satin and silk. In the past we had to add a falloff map to
do this, but now it’s much more simplified. I took the scene from my Interior
Visualization Online course to test it. I have prepared a simple Arnold material
with diffuse and normal textures. You can find the sheen effect here. Let me start the interactive rendering. Amount controls how strong the effect is. Let’s start with the value 1. Obviously it’s too strong, so I will decrease it. 0.4 looks good. And let’s test different Roughness values. Low roughness keeps the specular
highlights at the grazing angle, and as it increases the
sheen reflection dominates. I will set it to 0.45 We can also change the color of the effect. I will make it darker and a bit reddish. And that’s it. Looks pretty good, right? Autodesk introduced gITF
support in the new 3ds Max. glTF is a file format used to showcase
3D models on the web and online stores. We can now easily publish 3D assets directly to
glTF for use in web applications, online stores, and so on, while ensuring
visual quality is maintained. You can find the glTF material here. You can apply it to your
model as any other material. Now we have access to the glTF Material Preview which provides us with the ability to
accurately work on the asset in the viewport. It’s eliminating guesswork, and
giving us the confidence that assets will look the same in different
environments, outside of 3ds Max. When the model is ready for a glTF viewer, you can then use the new real-time exporter to
export mesh data, and its associated material. Then you just have to drag and
drop the model to this website. I will put the link to it in the
description, so you can play around with it. Here, I can see a lot of potential in the future. You don’t have to sit and wait for a
client to come to you with a request. Instead you can for example develop a workflow
to showcase 3D previews of products online. I’m sure many online store owners would love to
have this kind of presentation on their website. Let me know in the comments what you think about
the new 3ds max and which option is your favorite. If you want to learn how to create
amazing architectural visualizations and animations in 3ds max, I’d like to
invite you to join our online courses. Click here to check them out, bye bye!
