Have you heard?! Forge Design Automation for 3ds Max went into production on October 28th. To learn more about this service and how you can batch process your 3ds Max tasks, check out the webinar series here: https://forge.autodesk.com/blog/design-automation-api-webinar-series-register-now. You can register for the 3ds Max webinar, as well as the other Design Automation engines (including AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor).
What can you do with 3ds Max Design Automation? Any sort of automated processing! 3ds Max desktop software already includes a tool called 3ds Max Batch. This tool allows local automation of tasks and is a good way to test your automation before using the Design Automation system. See here for the 3ds Max 2020 Batch details: http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2020/ENU/?guid=GUID-0968FF0A-5ADD-454D-B8F6-1983E76A4AF9
Anything that runs in the 3ds Max Batch tool is possible to run in the 3ds Max Design Automation engine. You can also include plug-ins that can be automated. Typically, you would provide a MAXScript that would execute the automation, but the code itself could live in a C++ or a .NET plug-in. Of course, the MAXScript could also contain the automation code. The Design Automation API also supports the ability to pass parameters into the script code, that can also be passed into the automation code. This will allow very flexible workflows with the ability to provide configurations and data to the automation job. For example, you could have a configurator website that takes information from your customer, then using 3ds Max Design Automation you could auto-generate a max model to give back to your customer. Using other Forge APIs, you could also preview the model using the Forge Model Derivative service and the Forge Viewer.