The Optimize tool allows for heavy-duty mesh optimization and mesh-flow tweaking without switching tools.

Out of the 100+ new Graphite tools, here are some of my favorites:

• Optimize -- With a single tool, users can now do heavy-duty mesh optimization and mesh-flow tweaking without switching tools. Once this is activated and using various key combos (shift/alt/ctl), you can delete rings, loops, edges, etc with a single click. This is incredibly useful for those that use Box Modeling and find themselves with too high a polycount. Of course, this is also handy for optimizing game models that were built without frugality in mind. In the accompanying image, I hand-optimized this 15,000 polygon mesh to 3,000 polygons in about 60 seconds. No automation. That is pretty amazing.

   

• Topology -- Ahhh...this is my favorite tool in Silo and I am so happy to see it here in 3ds Max. With Topology, you can take a high poly model from a painting application like ZBrush or Mudbox and simply "draw" your new low poly re-topology onto it. Imagine taking a black marker and drawing a grid on a sculpture and then poof! Your drawn web becomes a new mesh. This allows for total freedom in paint/sculpt tools without worrying about your final topology until the sculpt looks its best. In the accompanying images, you can see an original, messy mesh, the Topology-drawn mash and the final smoothed mesh. This drawn Topology took about 30 seconds to create.

This drawn Topology took about 30 seconds to create.

• Loop Tools -- there is a small mountain of excellent tools in this area, from auto-selection of loops/edges, customizable selection and edge skipping, auto-connecting and averaging of loop placement (Flow Connect and Set Flow). There is a lot here so I cannot dive in too deeply.

   

• Freeform -- this section allows the modeler to create handmade structures from scratch or by conforming to the underlying structure of a mesh, making re-topology a much easier task.

Review
The viewport itself has a handful of interesting enhancements under the Review moniker, most of which I am finding really useful. These enhancements can fall under two main categories: Hardware Shading and XView. Seen in the images, Hardware Shading simply allows the user to see advances lighting in the viewport, including hard or soft shadows, ambient occlusion and exposure control. XView is a sort of debugging device. It will analyze the scene and display important info based on the option chosen. Things like Open Edges, Overlapping Faces, T-Vertices and Isolated Vertices are among the available options. These are quite helpful for those using game, animation or rendering pipelines.