FAQ for Autodesk® Rendering in 3ds Max

Why does some of my scene not render?

Autodesk® Rendering supports only certain features of 3ds Max. This section summarizes those limitations, but the details might change or improve as rendering support improves. Click Test Scene Compatibility on the Render dialog to see a detailed list of what is currently supported, or not.

Revit geometry and materials

Entities that are imported or linked from Revit render correctly. However, Autodesk® Rendering disregards the Sky horizon height.

Lights

Autodesk® Rendering supports Photometric lights and the Sun and Sky systems. It does not support Standard lights; in particular, it treats standard Target lights as point light sources. (Photometric target lights work correctly.)

Cameras

Autodesk® Rendering supports both legacy and Physical cameras. But Autodesk® Rendering does not render depth-of-field or motion blur effects.

Exposure Control

For Exposure Native, Autodesk® Rendering supports either the "mr Photographic" or Physical Camera exposure control. If a different exposure control is active and you choose Native, Autodesk® Rendering reverts to using its own Advanced exposure control.

Geometry

Autodesk® Rendering supports render-time smoothing; for example, TurboSmooth iterations and view-dependent tessellation for Body Objects.

Caution: If you use view-dependent tessellation and render multiple camera views, the tessellation is based on the first camera only. If the first camera's field of view is greatly different from the second camera's, tessellation in the rendering of the second camera can be adversely affected. In situations like this, it is best to render a single camera only.

Materials

Autodesk® Rendering supports Autodesk Materials.

Standard and Arch & Design materials can also render—these are mapped internally to the Autodesk Generic material.

Bitmaps and other textures

The basic features are supported, but scaling, cropping, and alpha settings are disregarded.

Autodesk® Rendering does support UVW coordinates. It also supports the Invert, RGB Amount, and Filter settings.

Environments

Autodesk® Rendering supports textures assigned to the Environment background.

Particles

Particles are supported, but the alpha setting on particle materials might not render as you intended.

Pricing

Customers who have installed 3ds Max version 2023.1 (and later), have the option to use Flex tokens or Cloud Credits as payment toward Autodesk Cloud Rendering in 3ds Max.

Customers who have opted to remain on 3ds Max version 2023 can only use the available Cloud Credits in their Autodesk Account for the rendering service.