Great news for archviz artists; most importantly! Blender is set to introduce a 3ds Max importer, offering more options for seamless workflow integration.
Sebastian Sille is working on this community addon and it needs only one more green light from Campbell for it to officially land in 4.1! Exciting times ahead. 
It is great indeed, happy to hear that.
Sadly (at least for me) is not working properly,I’m using autodesk viewer to compare the file and for now is not usable 
Here is a screenshot of blender 4.1 and autodesk viewer.
For anyone that want’s to compare the files provided in that topic, you can download them and check them out with the online viewer (https://viewer.autodesk.com/)
Not sure if we can provide feedback on it or not 
Would it be ever usable? If you know programming, you know that only max can read ,max file.
So how does autodesk feel about this 
They don’t even like if old max would read new max files, wait when they learn blender can open max files
Indeed… the max format often needs max and all the plugins to create a file… but a file with collapsed stacks should be do-able.
Nice news!!!
Really.
Great moment for any 3dsmax user!
I’d like to test it but I can’t understand where download what.
I’ve tried here https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender-addons but it seems that the import_3ds is not updated…so I’ve followed this one https://projects.blender.org/NRGSille/blender-addons/src/branch/nrgsille-import_max , download the .py file, loaded into blender, it seems it loads the addon but I can’t see in the import options.
Any tips? Thank you in advance.
I don’t think it’s time for testing yet.
There’s a request for a review before user test. I’m hopeful that these basic issues will be addressed
I believe is in a branch (not sure tho), anyway here is the link: https://projects.blender.org/NRGSille/blender-addons/src/commit/2bcb045779b1b64810b0c0ea9708873804267f79/io_import_max.py
Install it like any other addon.
It seems a typical hierarchy problem.
Probably the file has some objects hierarchy that is missing.
It should be tested with a single object.
Pretty sure that’s the issue. because the Civilian_Boxes_1.max provided in that topic seems to open ok
I’ve tried but nothing… anyway I’ll wait a more developed version.
One big question mark is if this addon can manage the 3dsmax modifier stack.
I don’t think as it’s closed source…but I’d like to dream on it 
It is impossible. It might be able to read only editablepoly and editablemesh at best.
Finally landed in master 
Wow! Great news!
As you correctly predicted, it works just with objects those don’t use modifier.
I’ve quickly tried just with static object and just a bend modifier and you can’t import anything.
It’s not so bad as 3d libraries (for static objects) often give the final object with all modifier applied but it’s like a lottery.
Different story for everyone that have already a 3dsmax file, can open it with 3dsmax and can manipulate the file, choosing to the FBX export or collapse the modifier stack and save it as 3dsmax and then import, but in that scenario, FBX is probably more feature supported.
In any case I think it’s better to have one more tool than one less.
I’m afraid this is not the correct place for feedback. anyway if the author reads I would like to let him know that I tried the addon and for my scenario it worked and I am extremely happy.
I have some old .max models that I thought were lost and now I was able to get them back. I think I lost UV mapping and animations but it’s already a lot to have meshes. among other things, in the original file the models had plugin modifiers applied which I no longer have and this did not allow me to open the file even using max to open them.
I just installed blender 4.1 but this addon doesn’t seem to have been made official yet. I hope the project isn’t abandoned!
I think it was closed/deleted, if they can’t ship it in blender main, they should at least make it as an addon I guess
yes that branch seems deleted, but I think it is in other NRGSille branches. the developer doesn’t appear on the forums so I don’t know how to ask him directly. It would be a shame to throw away the work done so far. while not perfect, it worked in certain simple scenarios
