Each plug-in type exposes its functionality to 3ds Max by defining a class that derives from a specific base-class and providing implementations of key virtual functions. The most important base class is Animatable, which most plug-ins implement from.

The following is a list of the most important plug-in types and the base classes they derive from:

• 3D Texture Map - Tex3D.
• Animation Controllers - Control.
• Atmospheric - Atmospheric.
• Bitmap Texture - BitmapTex.
• Camera Object - GenCamera.
• Color Selection - ColPick.
• Compound Objects - IBoolObject.
• Crowd Behavior - BaseBehavior.
• File Export - SceneExport.
• File Import - SceneImport.
• Geometric Objects - GeomObject or SimpleObject2.
• Global Utility - GUP.
• Hardware Shaders - IDX9DataBridge.
• Image Filters - ImageFilter.
• Image Import/Export - BitmapIO.
• Image Viewers - ViewFile.
• IK Solver - IKSolver.
• Helper Objects - ConstObject or HelperObject.
• Light Objects - LightObject or GenLight.
• Linear Shape Object - LinearShape.
• Manipulator Objects - Manipulator or SimpleManipulator.
• Material Plug-in - Mtl.
• MAXScript Extensions - MSPlugin.
• Modifier - Modifier or SimpleMod.
• Multi-pass Camera Effects - IMultiPassCameraEffect.
• Particle Objects - ParticleObject or SimpleParticle.
• Patch Objects - PatchObject.
• Radiosity Effect - RadiosityEffect.
• Renderer - Renderer.
• Rendering Effects - Effect.
• Render Elements - IRenderElement.
• Sampler - Sampler.
• Shader - Shader.
• Shape Objects - ShapeObject.
• Snaps - Osnap.
• Sound - SoundObj.
• Spline Objects - SimpleSpline.
• Spring Systems - SpringSys.
• Texture Map - Texmap.
• Track View Utility - TrackViewUtility.
• Utility - UtilityObj.
• World Space Modifier - WSModifier.