AutoCAD blocks in 3ds Max are treated similarly to AutoCAD objects, though the rules for propagation of transforms are slightly different to mirror the behavior of blocks in AutoCAD.

As with AutoCAD objects, linked AutoCAD blocks, of any type, and externally referenced drawings appear in 3ds Max as objects hierarchically grouped below a VIZBlock to reflect the structure of the block or xref in AutoCAD.

When non-nested blocks, of any type, are linked to a scene, the naming for the incoming block instances are based on the original block definition in the form of Block: block_name where block_name is the actual name of the block definition. For example, if you link a drawing containing a series of blocks named office chair, their name will show as Block: office chair in 3ds Max.

Nested blocks in AutoCAD will be analogously nested in 3ds Max under nested VIZBlocks. The grouping and naming follows the parent-child structure of xref drawing name:block name:nested block name:entity.

With linked AutoCAD Architecture objects, material assignments to linked AutoCAD blocks can propagate automatically to all other instances of those block components in the 3ds Max scene, depending on how Propagate Materials To Instances is set. Modifiers applied to block components, however, propagate automatically to all other block instances, regardless of how Propagate Materials To Instances is set.

If you transform (move, rotate, or scale) the top-level VIZBlock that contains a block reference, all the components of that block will be transformed together and no other VIZBlocks will be affected. If, however, you transform a block component, including a nested VIZBlock, that transformation will automatically propagate to all other instances of that block in the scene. This mirrors the behavior of blocks in AutoCAD when reference-editing a block definition.