Autodesk 3ds Max / 3ds Max Design 2015 Release Notes

Thank you for downloading Autodesk® 3ds Max® / Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design 2015.

This readme contains recent information regarding the installation and use of Autodesk 3ds Max 2015 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2015 software. It is strongly recommended that you read this entire document before installing the software. For future reference, you should save this readme to your hard drive.

Note: Autodesk is not responsible for errors or failures of Autodesk software arising from the installation of updates, extensions or new releases issued by third party hardware or software vendors for the qualified software or hardware identified in this document (or for any other third party software or hardware that you may use in connection with Autodesk products).

Contents

Additional Resources
Prerequisites
Known Issues Autodesk 3ds Max / 3ds Max Design 2015
Customer Involvement Program (CIP) and Customer Error Reports (CERs)

Use the following table to locate various resources related to 3ds Max 2015 / 3ds Max Design 2015:

 

Resource

Location

Installation Help

http://help.autodesk.com/view/INSTALL_LICENSE/2015/ENU

System Requirements

http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmax-systemrequirements

What’s New

http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmax-help-2015-whatsnew

Learning Resources

http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmax-learningpath  or http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmaxdesign-learningpath

Support Resources

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max or http:///knowledge.autodesk.com/support/

3ds Max SDK Documentation

http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmax-sdk-docs

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Initial Install

Before an end-user with restricted Windows® operating system privileges can use Autodesk 3ds Max 2015 / Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2015, an administrator, with full privileges, must install and start the software one time in order to generate the Windows operating system registry information needed to complete the installation.

Before an end-user with restricted privileges can use third-party plug-ins for Autodesk 3ds Max 2015 / Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2015, an administrator, with full privileges, must install and start 3ds Max 2015 / 3ds Max Design 2015 one time in order to generate the necessary folders for these third-party plug-ins.

3ds Max Beta Installs

If there are previously installed versions of any beta software (including Release Candidate (RC) versions) of Autodesk 3ds Max 2015 / Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2015, uninstall and delete all system folders pertaining to these beta versions before installing the commercial version. Instructions on how to uninstall the beta versions are posted on the beta portal in the Beta and RC Readme files.

Leaving Ports Open

Autodesk 3ds Max or Autodesk 3ds Max Design, Autodesk® Vault, Autodesk® Backburner™, and various other components of the install, require that certain ports be open in third-party firewalls. If you are having problems with your firewall, read the documentation included with your firewall.

Port Conflict with mental ray (When Installing Autodesk 3ds Max 2015)

During the Autodesk 3ds Max installation process (from the install wizard) the mental ray® port is assigned automatically and cannot be changed from the install wizard. In most cases this is fine. In a rare case a conflict arises if the port is already occupied. In such a case you will receive this error message: To fix this issue, perform the following steps:

1. Using a text editor, open the Setup.ini file (located at the root of your install media).
2. Search for the [MAX] section.
3. You need to reassign mental ray to a different port number by adding this line under EXE_PATH= EXE_PARAM= MR_TCP_PORT=[YOUR PORT NUMBER] Where [YOUR PORT NUMBER] is replaced by the port number you want to assign to mental ray.
4. Save the Setup.ini file and run installer again.

Installing the IPv4 or IPv6 Versions of Network License Manager

You can install the IPv4 version of the Network License Manager from the Tools and Utilities tab in the 3ds Max 2015 / 3ds Max Design 2015 installer. If you need to install the IPv6 version of the Network License Manager, you can do so from Autodesk.com at the following location: www.autodesk.com/nlm-ipv6-windows

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The following list contains known issues in this release:

 

Feature Description
File I/O
  • On Windows 8, when importing Autodesk Inventor files, Autodesk Materials do not show in the Scene Materials list.
  • When using increment file name ("+") on saving a file, the file name will append _xx if the file name does not end in _xx.
    For example:
    - FileName.max would become FileName_01.max
    - FileName_v001.max would become FileName_v001_01.max
General
  • When using a drawing tablet, the Enhanced menus might not display correctly. This can also occur if Windows has the tablet service enabled without having a tablet. This can be fixed by setting the following:
    Windows Start buton > Control Panel > View By: Large Icons > Pen and Touch > Tablet PC Settings > Other Tab > Change the setting from Right to Left.
Entertainment Creation Suite
  • Several topics in the media version of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite 2015 Installation Help, mention the Autodesk® ReCap™ Pro product instead of the Autodesk® ReCap™ product.

    This issue has since been resolved in the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite 2015 Installation Help available on the Autodesk Knowledge Network available at: http://help.autodesk.com/view/INSTALL_LICENSE/2014/ENU/.
Install
  • Installation fails on the Microsoft .NET 3.5 component under Microsoft Windows8.x when the machine is bound to a domain with group policy restrictions that blocks this component.

    Workaround:

    Install Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Offline in Windows 8 and 8.1 without Internet Connection as follows:
    Requirements: You need the Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 ISO or DVD.
  1. Do one of the following:
    • Copy Windows 8 setup files to your hard disk.
    • If you have Windows 8 setup ISO copied in your system, mount it by right-clicking on it and selecting the "Mount" option, or extract its content using 7-Zip.
    • If you have Windows 8 setup disk and don't want to copy its content, insert the disk in your CD/DVD drive so that Windows can access its content.
  2. Open Command Prompt as Administrator using Windows 8 Start Screen (press Win key and then type cmd).

  3. Enter the following command:
    • Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3 /All /Source:D:\sources\sxs

      Note: “D” represents letter of your system CD/DVD drive, which contains the Windows 8 setup disk. Replace it with the correct drive letter according to your system.
Materials
  • Vector maps cause a program error when used with the mental ray renderer.
Nitrous
  • A program error can occur under Windows 8 when running older NVIDIA hardware that supports DirectX 10 and newer drivers. If this occurs, you can force DirectX 9 or software mode for the viewports.
    - DirectX 9: 3dsmax.exe -vx9
    - Software: 3dsmax.exe -vsx
Populate
  • When baking characters, clicking Undo then Redo can distort the character. If you click Undo after baking, you should bake the character again instead of clicking Redo.
  • When using bake, if you change frames after baking and then click Undo, the viewport might redraw multiple times.
  • When using Euler rotation controllers on baked characters, the rotations can "Gimbal Lock": The baked rotations default to Quaternion.
  • When using the DesignVIZ.mentalray CUI, the character textures are not saved even when you choose the Save Texture Maps option. This does work properly with CUIs that do not use mental ray.
  • Baked characters share the same maps as the character they were generated from. Resimulating the character will also update the maps of the baked character.
  • Automatic XRef update does not work correctly and can cause incorrect animation on characters.
  • When you load an XRef Scene with a Populate crowd, if you remove the XRef record the crowd will be motionless. To restore animation, select the crowd and click the Simulate button.
  • Cloning Populate seats as Instances is not supported.
  • If you change the seat height spinner from its default setting, sometimes this causes the knees to shake. One workaround is to Resimulate Selected. Another is to set the height back to the default, then simply reposition the vertical location of the chair gizmo to the desired height.
Rendering
  • mental ray Distributed Bucket Rendering (DBR) services are now disabled by default. To use DBR, use the Control Panel to enable the service.
SDK
  • In 3ds Max 2015, a cleanup of the public SDK classes ParamBlockPLCB and ParamBlockPLCBEx occurred, collapsing to the single class ParamBlockPLCB. As part of that cleanup, the access rights on the member variables was changed from ‘public’ to ‘private’. However, some 3rd-party developers derive from the ParamBlockPLCB class and can no longer access the member variables in their implementations. 3rd party developers experiencing this can safely locally change the access rights for the member variables from ‘private’ to ‘protected’. Making this change does not affect binary compatibility.
Scene Explorer
  • When opening multiple Scene Explorers, hiding or selecting a group will update only in the other open Scene Explorers.
  • Linking within a group (by click-dragging) is not currently supported.
  • When using Advanced Filter, a program error can occur if you add options and select the added filter's Property or Condition.
  • Adding a Display As Box column to the Scene Explorer and turning on the column can cause the object to disappear.
State Sets
  • An updated version of the State Sets installer is available on the 3ds Max 2015 Support Download page. This update has fixed several important defects.

 

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Customer Involvement Program (CIP)

The first time 3ds Max / 3ds Max Design is started, the Customer Involvement Program dialog opens. If you choose to participate in the Customer Involvement Program, 3ds Max or 3ds Max Design will automatically send Autodesk information about system configuration, which features are used most frequently problems encountered, and other information helpful to the future direction of the product. For further information, see www.autodesk.com/cip.

To enable CIP:

Install and start 3ds Max / 3ds Max Design.

If the Customer Involvement Program dialog box is not displayed automatically, then in the Help menu, click Customer Involvement Program.

In the Customer Involvement Program dialog box, select "Participate - with contact information."

Enter a valid email address and company name, if any. Click OK.

Customer Error Reports

We can improve the stability of Autodesk 3ds Max / Autodesk 3ds Max Design largely because of the Customer Error Reports (CERs) that end-users submit. We thank you for taking the time to fill out these reports and ask you to include as much information as possible about what actions you were performing at the time the error occurred. These details raise the value of the report immensely and are very much appreciated by the Autodesk 3ds Max Quality Engineering team.

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