The newly released 3ds max 7 offers a very simple and efficient way to create and use normal maps. All images © Discreet, a division of Autodesk Inc. 2004. All screen captures courtesy of Ryan Lesser.

Just a few weeks ago, Discreet released its new 3ds max 7 package. As with most of my reviews, I have taken the time to try and integrate the objects into my daily workflow so as to give you a more complete sense of how the tool holds up. Since I am a game developer, this article will slant toward game development. Let’s begin with Normal Mapping:

For the past couple of years, there has been a ton of talk about normal mapping. For those of you that have not heard the hubbub… normal maps are, to oversimplify, much better than bump maps. Normal mapping uses brightness and color to create a sort of height map with lighting/normals information imbedded in it. Recently, 3D tools have been catching up, trying to get a decent normal mapping pipeline into their toolset. 3ds max 7 now has a very simple, efficient way to create and use these normal maps and has not only supported it at render time, but also fully supports in-viewport rendering (using DirectX 9) of your Normal Maps.

While normal maps can be made in a variety of ways (adding geometric detail to your model through polymodeling, bringing your low-res model to ZBrush, etc.) 3ds max has finally incorporated a decent meshpainting toolset called Paint Deformation. Simply up-res your model and use Paint tools such as Push, Pull, Relax and Revert to quickly and intuitively sculpt detail into the model. This new, hi-res, high detail model can be used to render a Normal Map which can then be applied to your original low-res model. This technique yields excellent results, making low-poly models look exceptionally hi-res, even with dynamic lights moving across the surface of the model.

The effects of normal maps generated from the hi-poly hand on a low-poly version. Hi-res model created by John Chalfant.

Since its inception, the Editable Poly toolset has been the number one toolset for most modelers. Unfortunately, most 3ds max users had already become accustomed to the max way of modeling, which usually includes a multi-layered modifier stack. Many users were disappointed that there was no “Edit Poly” modifier that could be shoved into the stack once or twice, moved around, used in conjunction with other modifiers, etc. Well, guess what? Tada! Here it is. Discreet responded by making the new Edit Poly modifier, which allows a ton of controllable, in-stack parameters for use with any model.

While on Editable Poly, let’s look at some of the other new improvements. The Vertex paint tool has been upgraded. If you recall from my review of 3ds max 6, I had taken issue with the vertex paint blur tool, in that it was universal instead of paintable. Discreet pulled through again and now the blur tool is pressure sensitive and paintable! Much better. The Adjust Color function is now nice and condensed and there is a new floater for your color palettes. There is still one major thing missing here that I have called attention to in the past… animated vertex colors. I really find it hard to believe that in the past two or three releases Discreet has still overlooked this powerful feature. With so many users embedding extra information into vert channels, one would hope that they could be animateable (as in Maya, for instance).