Hello every one,
I have a version 7 of Max, but I haven’t used it for a while, nor did I get informed of the evolution of Max to v8,v9 and v2008.
For my new project, V7 is more than enough and I don’t really want to upgrade. But it will involve a lot of scripting and particles. Is there important changes on these 2 points since V7 ?
I couldn’t find the info on the autodesk web page, since they list only changes from the last version. (And using the search tool of this forum, I only get blank, white pages…?)
yours
Jerome
Actually, if you would download the Max 2008 demo and its documentation, the MAXScript Reference lists every single change to the language since Max 5 (when I started writing these “What’s New” topics). So you should be able to read all details and decide if you want any of these new features.
Generally, the language itself hasn’t changed much, it is more the exposure of the new tools in Max 8/9/2008 that had to be added to MAXScript so you could control these new features via scripts.
Here is a short list of some major changes since Max 7:
Max 8:
*MAXScript Debugger (not fully there yet)
*New Scripted Controllers + Expression Controllers exposed to MXS
*Fixed persistent global variables not to overwrite on merge
*:: accesses Global Variables directly
*hdri bitmap support in bitmap() value and render() command
*Exposure of all new features as usual
Max 9:
*64 bit values support
*Support for DotNet objects, classes and controls in MAXScript
*Improved Heap and Memory management
*Vast number of methods for resolving various types of external paths
*Colorman.reinitIcons() can finally reload all UI icons (I love this)
*Exposure of all new features as usual
Max 2008:
*New Scintilla-based MAXScript Editor
*Verbatim String Literals using @
*Support for History drop-down list in File Dialogs
*The complete Avguard Extensions were built in
*Exposure of all new features as usual
well if you’re going to be using particles and scripting a lot, I’d imagine Particle Flow would be high up on the list of things you’d want to use? I think it was only made available as subscription add-on for 3ds Max 7, no?
If you can do what you want with Max 7, however, and see no particular reason to upgrade in general, then you might as well stick with Max 7; I think an upgrade from 3ds Max 7 puts you in the ‘legacy upgrade program’ once 3ds Max 2009 is released (might already be a legacy upgrade, but it’s not listed as such on the ADSK legacy page) anyway.
There’s all sorta of random updates to maxscript in later versions, like better editpoly support, some instance manager stuff. In general, everytime I upgrade there’s 1 or 2 new and useful things I now have access to that I didn’t before. But if r7 works for you, I’d stay stick with it, I primarily use max8 at home still, with a little work in 2008 now and again.
- Neil