Those hard surface examples are really impressive.
Bifrost is currently being implemented in Max. There is a dedicated team working on it for over a year now. It’s available to try on the beta. It’s also the first time Adesk have had a cross communication team setup with Maya/Max devs(and beta users) interacting(think Atari ST/Amiga user forum…)
As you know, I’ve been trying this on beta the last year. This tool(Reform is the name) is in-house Adesk tech. It has been in Maya for a few years now, but Max team have pushed it much further. They have done a great job, and they’ve also added 2 alternative algorithms, and a very nice ‘pre retop’ triangulation tool. It’s pretty fast too. I tested it against Zremesher on a VERY complex hard surface mesh and Reform was significantly faster.
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I hope Blender will receive a nice remesher as well.
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It definitely looks very good. As a matter of fact I would go for a Max Indie license if I wasn’t considering a return to macOS when the Apple Silicon iMacs arrive next year.
I’m not talking to you ever again… 
Just join the beta and get all the latest updates for free, for ever. 
To be honest, I haven’t installed a Max beta in many months. The retopology modifier is a separate plugin install like Arnold, but it’s such a pain that Max is still 9 gigs. Blender’s 150 meg portable download has spoiled me.
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Hahaha. 
I know, I’m a snob, but once you’re used to the ease of one standard in hardware, OS and software, you’ll tend to get spoiled. I know a Windows PC with an NVIDIA GPU (that’s what I’ve got now) is currently a better choice for 3D tools, but I’m tired of having to assemble my own system, or asking a friend for help when it’s time to upgrade my system again.
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Judging from the recent 3DS Max development videos, it looks like all Autodesk would have to do to turn Blender back into a toy for hobbyists (in terms of perception) would be an offering of a permanent license at a great price with no heavy DRM attached. They have woken up and are now starting to really crank up the rate of development.
What are the chances of that happening though, Auodesk can potentially make Blender as irrelevant as it once was when NaN went bankrupt, but they would have to sacrifice a lot of potential profit and the shareholders would blow a gasket.
Zero. They will never return to perpetuals. In fact, they’ve been turning the screw more and more. They will now only support up to 3 older versions and will (illegally) be locking long term perpetual owners out of their own software.
There has been a noticeable crank up in Max dev over the last 2 years, but it is still slow and drip fed, and there are still a LOT of underlying issues in Max and a LOT of legacy bloat that(for multiple reasons) cannot be removed.
Even the bells and whistles of the ‘PBR viewport’ is built on ancient, dead-end tech, is locked into a TERRIBLE Microsoft shader compiler that Max devs have no control over, and even the main viewport rendering dev said digging into the code base was akin to ‘code archeology’ and was an absolute nightmare.
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Whatelse you can use to compile HLSL shader other than Microsoft shader compiler? Isn’t that everybody uses?
Almost all DCCs started around the same time include Blender. All them suffers from the same issues.
Yeah, my last Max version was 2012, and I don’t own it anymore, despite the high initial price and the yearly upgrade cost (which was effectively already a form of subscription, as I remember paying around € 650 for a yearly version upgrade with a handful of new functions).
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No other DCC has the same shader compiler implementation as Max(and I’ve used every single one of them)
Also, Eevee is built in the last few years from scratch. Max Nitrous is over 10 years old.
Yes, they all do have issues, but this is a thread specific to Max.
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Other DCC probably use GLSL to support other OS platform. I was asking about other game or software that uses DX.
I hear something about it… But how Autodesk do it? They twisted law, but what is his “explanation” ?
I don’t remember the details, but formally you licensed 3ds Max, that has always been the case. I remember if someone wanted to sell a copy of 3ds Max, he/she had to officially transfer the license before the buyer would be the owner. I guess they exploited that to justify subscriptions versus owning the software, so owners would not have an advantage compared to subscribers, and would have to switch to subscribing to remain up to date.
Such practices are the opposite of the Blender approach. I don’t mind paying for software, but the prices should be reasonable (not too high) and justified (great software that’s frequently updated).
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