3ds max 2019 is coming very soon! You can find the help is now online, with the new features discussed here. If you are a subscriber, you should see it listed in https://manage.autodesk.com soon (if not already there).
One of the first things you will notice is that 3ds Max 2019 is introducing support for the Open Shading Language (OSL). We have already started a github repo that will allow community members to share and contribute shaders. See here: https://github.com/ADN-DevTech/3dsMax-OSL-Shaders. For the overview and 3ds Max specific information pertaining to OSL shaders, see here: Open Shading Language (OSL) Support. Also check out the general OSL github repo and docs here.
Make sure to check out this AREA blog article announcing 3ds Max 2019:
https://area.autodesk.com/blogs/the-3ds-max-blog/meet-3ds-max-2019/
From the SDK perspective, this release is again a binary breaking release. Although the SDK itself did not change too much, you will have to recompile your plugins. The same development environment is specified as was in 2018, so mainly Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Update 3, Platform Toolset v140, and Windows SDK 10.0.10586. Due to some new components, the .NET Framework is bumped to 4.7 and now Qt 5.6.3 or 5.6.2 can be used. See SDK Requirements here for complete details.
Highlights from the SDK changes include:
- Improved support for loading binary dependencies (DLLs in same folder as plug-in)
- Support for Autodesk Application Plug-in Packages, this is the same structure that the Autodesk App store uses
- Improved parameter block validation
- Improved support for saving to previous scene file versions of PB1 plugins migrated to PB2
- Thread Safe EvalXXX Methods improvements
- Vertex Velocity Interface
- New Double precision geometric primitives
For complete details, please see: What's New: 3ds Max 2019 SDK.
Highlights from the MAXScript environment include:
- OSL Suport
- Shape Booleans
- Improvements to the Alembic import and export plug-ins are exposed to MAXScript
For complete details, please see: What's New in MAXScript in 3ds Max 2019
The Python version used by 3ds Max continues to be 2.7.12.
The .NET SDK now requires .NET Framework 4.7. There were minor bugs fixed here again, to help cleanup this environment.
That’s it for now! Enjoy 3ds Max 2019!
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