What's the verdict on 3ds Max 2019?

[Luke]

Currently on 2018 and wondering if it's worth the upgrade..?
Is it stable?

[JoachimArt]

I've been working on it for quite some time now. It's been stable for me - on the same level as max 2018.
The new spline operators are very nice. Corona doesn't support OSL map, as I know of,  so haven't been trying those out.

[pokoy]

I've been working on it for quite some time now. It's been stable for me - on the same level as max 2018.
The new spline operators are very nice. Corona doesn't support OSL map, as I know of,  so haven't been trying those out.

OSL works fine with Corona and any other 3rd party renderer that supports Max' native shading context. There were a few maps that didn't work for some reason (hue/brightness was amongst them) but other than that it should work just fine.

[iancamarillo]

I'm hesitant to switch over due to the UI refresh problems

[pokoy]

I want to do extensive tests first, too. So far, I had to skip 2017 because of crashes and UI glitches, skipped 2018 for production but used it on small fun jobs (felt way more stable and refined than 2017), and plan to go with 2019 for production soon. I have to say viewport performance alone would be worth it but I want something that's as stable as 2016. So far I've heard mostly positive things about 2019 so fingers crossed it's going to run smoothly. There were some cool additions to 2019 and the UI has been fixed in many places.

[iancamarillo]

have you seen grant warwicks 2019 ui video on facebook? makes me ill

[pokoy]

I've seen it, my guess is there's something about his setup. It feels way better here on our PCs and if it would happen often you'd see many more reports like his.
However, the command panel is known to have performance problems and it got slower since 2012 upwards, and it looks like having it display more than one column plays a role. I hope there'll be another PU.

[Njen]

I want to do extensive tests first, too. So far, I had to skip 2017 because of crashes and UI glitches, skipped 2018 for production but used it on small fun jobs (felt way more stable and refined than 2017), and plan to go with 2019 for production soon. I have to say viewport performance alone would be worth it but I want something that's as stable as 2016. So far I've heard mostly positive things about 2019 so fingers crossed it's going to run smoothly. There were some cool additions to 2019 and the UI has been fixed in many places.

How in the world have you put up with the super sluggish behaviour of the Unwrap editor in 2016 all this time? I upgraded as soon as I could because of that huge issue. 2017 has been stable for me for all this time.

But yes, I am thinking of jumping to 2019 right now too.

[Juraj]

Every year I ask the same question to people on my Skype, and I still can't get sufficient answer :- D.

Like since 2016 (which I am on) I have yet to receive enthuastic "yes ! do upgrade, it's so worth it". The answers range from "Do not, it's full of bugs" to "I don't know...it's 'ok', we don't have any issues". The later is not even helpful... so is it improvement or is it not ?
Nobody can even tell me if it feels faster, esp. if you run 3x 4k monitors like I do.

[pokoy]

I'll try to summarize some of the features, it's mixed but mostly positive.

• Viewport - performance has seen serious improvements with 2017+, however don't install PU1 because there's a regression which will successfully simulate a 1990s era viewport in terms of speed. Solution is to wait for a possible PU2...
• UI - dockable windows, big plus. A modern feel - plus. Some bugs with the render dialog focus, though, which can be very annoying.
• Modeling - Spline Booleans - huge plus, seriously cool to have it finally.
• New Booleans (introduced in.. 2017 I think) - better workflow, an important option to keep edges on flat faces has been added in 2019. It is more stable, too. Still there are a few rare cases where ProBooleans will produce a valid mesh and the New Booleans will fail. But it's definitely good enough for daily production and way more accessible.
• Shading - OSL - seriously cool and work with every renderer that supports max shading contect (Scanline, Vray, Corona etc.)
• Alembic - more interop options are always good.
• Fluids - Naiad-based, good stuff. A few rough edges usability-wise but definitely usable. PU1 brought some improvements... but will cripple your viewports so... wait for a possible PU2, again.

I'd say try it, use it for one, two weeks in production and see how it goes. As usual, it may work fine for some people, others may have issues with certain tools etc. But in general, I think 2019 is finally a worthy successor to our beloved 2016.

[iancamarillo]

I can't say for sure but when I upgrade my machine plus the render nodes, I get backburner errors if I want to use an older version of max. As if backburner wants to only use the latest max install to submit from. I think reinstalling backburner fixes the errors but this surprise can be time consuming especially during deadlines. Anyone else experience this? Anyone have any alternative to backburner, other than deadline, that's hopefully cheap or free? Thx

[pokoy]

Never had this issue but more recent BB versions constantly spit out socket connection problems in the log here... still, all works fine. But error messages from BB are legendary useless. It's so outdated, if there was a cheap (read: free) alternative I'd switch in a second.

[mraw]

Royal Render can be used for free up to a limit of 4 rendernodes. I had a hard time getting it to work with Corona, but it works.

[iancamarillo]

yeh I hear you there pokey - smh. Thanks mraw, I'll check it out

[duncanmind]

Can you use xref scene function in 3ds max 2019 ?