USD for 3ds Max 0.8 Release Notes
Release Highlights
Ability to use USD cameras inside viewport
With this update, you can now use the cameras in a USD stage in the viewport. With this feature, you can view the camera compositions of the referenced file, including angles, field of view and animations.
Bulk selection and editing of prims
We have added the ability to bulk select or edit prims in both the USD explorer and the Viewport.
USD controllers
We have added the following 3ds Max controllers to work with USD data:
- Xform controller that sources a transform from an Xform prim.
- Position controller that sources the position from either an Xform prim or an attribute of a USD object.
- Rotation controller that sources the rotation from either an Xform prim or an attribute of a USD object.
- Scale controller that sources the scale from either an Xform prim or an attribute of a USD object.
- Float controllers that can source float, float3 or float4 values from an attribute of a USD object.
Progressive morph export feature
We have added the ability to export 3ds Max progressive morphers as in-between USD blend shapes.
Zoom extents on selected prims
You can now use the zoom extents feature on selected prims. You can also apply the zoom extents to the entire USD stage when the selection is set to stage mode.
What's Fixed
|
| Resolved a crash when exporting Skel animation with an invalid root prim. EMSUSD-1352 |
| Resolved the crash when importing HumanFemale.usd into 3ds Max has been observed. EMSUSD-1323 |
| Fixed the issue with performance drop in the viewport when loading a USD Stage with instances containing many geomsubsets. EMSUSD-1233 |
| Corrected the "Reset to Default" value for the Stage Object animation option "Frames per Second". EMSUSD-1154 |
| Added Python exposure to USDSceneBuilderOptions content source option. EMSUSD-1145 |
| Fixed a current frame export issue with multiple morphers in the scene. EMSUSD-1129 |
| Fixed an issue with skinned animation data when Offset Baked was disabled during Export. EMSUSD-1128 |
| Fixed the display of the animated focal length when importing animated USD camera. EMSUSD-1127 |
| Fixed the issue with failed relative path resolution when exporting MaterialX materials to separate layers. EMSUSD-1050 |
| Exposed bump amount value in the UsdPreviewSurface scripted material for correcting normal map display issues in the 3ds Max Viewport. EMSUSD-1009 |
| Fixed the error produced when importing data exported using USD for 3ds Max plugin back into 3ds Max. EMSUSD-824 |
| Fixed an issue with animation playback on the USD stage where performance was lost in the proxy mode when switching between Proxy and Render. EMSUSD-731 |
| Fixed the issue where import configuration does not persist during the session. EMSUSD-697 |
| Fixed the issue where undo fails for some text fields and drop-down menus in the stage's command panel. EMSUSD-540 |
| Fixed a Color Space issue that impacts 3ds Max 2024 or later, where Gamma was not set to 1.0 for USD Material Nodes. EMSUSD-338 |
Known Limitations
| USD Multi-selection |
| Circular, fence and lasso selection modes do not support multi-selection. |
| USD Exporter and USD Importer |
| Texture graphs are not supported, only direct bitmap inputs are supported in the USD Exporter. |
| Motion Blur data is unsupported. |
| When skins are exported, modifiers that modify the topoly are unsupported. |
| Normals may not match the source normals when re-importing USD Skel animations. |
When importing a USD file containing Normal Map data into 3ds Max 2024, the object's surface may look facetted/ the UV seams become apparent.
Workaround: Ensure that gamma correction is enabled. Open the bitmaptexture node in slate, click the file browse button and explicitly set the gamma to 1.0. |
| USD Blend Shapes |
Morph targets exported without Skin may not display properly in the USDView or USD Stage when using 3ds Max 2023 or below. This happens because currently USD requires bones to support blendShapes.
Workaround: Set the Windows Environment variable to: USDSKELIMAGING_FORCE_CPU_COMPUTE=1, or run this command in the interpreter: UsdSkel.BakeSkinning(usdviewApi.stage.Traverse()), or use USDView 2024 or above. |
| USD cannot resolve the modifier stack when modifiers that change mesh topology are applied. Any modifier like morpher or turbo smooth is expected to be below the Skin modifier when they both are present in a 3ds Max node. A warning presents when this hierarchy is incorrect. |
| USD Stage Object |
| Most modifiers will have no effect on a USD Stage Object. |
| Rendering support for the stage is dependent on each renderer. See the rendering section for more information. |
| Display of baked bitmaps can cause blurriness of scenes even in high quality mode in the Viewport. Baked bitmaps (ie. with Uberbitmap) are unsupported even in high quality mode in the viewport. |
| A 2024 OpenGL Import error is reported relating to the Numpy module. This warning is expected but won't affect the usage of USDView with 3ds Max 2024. |
| USD Skel does not support faceVarying Normals. This extends to Morpher, as well. This is a USD limitation, and not specific to USD for 3ds Max tools. |
| MaterialX |
| 3ds Max 2022: MaterialX materials on a USD Stage reference cannot be displayed in Nitrous (Viewport) nor using Arnold as a renderer. |
| For USDView bundled with 3ds Max 2022 and 2023: when exporting or viewing an existing .usd file with MaterialX data present, the viewport in USDView will be black and unusable. |
| Loss of parameters when exporting MaterialX material. In maps, for example: subsurface_scale value is lost. |
| USDZ format cannot export MaterialX data as part of the USDZ framework. See USDZ specifications. |
| Lighting |
| Some Lighting property values in 3ds Max, primarily drop-down menus and on/off toggles, are not retained when Exported to USD. |
| Camera |
| Some camera property values in 3ds Max, primarily drop-down menus and on/off toggles, are not retained when exported to USD. |
| USD Instancing |
| Editing descendants of an instance is not supported in USD. |
