3ds Max 2026 Release Notes
Thank you for installing 3ds Max 2026. Use Autodesk Access to download and install automatically, or access the download from your Autodesk Account.
3ds Max 2026 system requirements
3ds Max 2026 installation and licensing
To learn about the new features and updated workflows, see What's New in 3ds Max 2026. The rest of these release notes describe known limitations and fixes included in this release.
What's Fixed
Note that 3ds Max 2026 also includes fixes delivered in 3ds Max 2025.1, 2025.2, and 2025.3. Check out the following links for more information.
| Animation |
|---|
| Reworked many internal components of CAT to solve issues with cloning rigs, copy / pasting layers, pasting layers between rigs and undo / redo of all these operations. This incudes several crash fixes related to these operations. Additionally, made some improvements to the behavior of motion layer footprint nodes with these operations. MAXX-76375 |
| Small performance improvement to the Skin modifier's voxel engine compute. MAXX-78008 |
| Fixed an issue in Biped when loading .bip files around extra bones receiving the incorrect animation. Extra bone animation is loaded by index so you couldn't change their ordering. Added a new checkbox to Biped's load dialog called "Extra bones loaded matching names" that is on by default. This allows extra bones to be loaded by matching exact names instead. Exposed to maxscript via the "biped.loadBipFile" command with the #extraBonesNameMatch flag. Unique names are not enforced for extra bones but is a best practice. MAXX-68299 |
| Color Management |
|---|
| Corrected an issue where customers using 3ds max-assigned bitmaps for render elements could have incorrect render element colors. MAXX-79197 |
| Drag and drop of bitmaps onto an object in the Viewport have Color Management rules applied. MAXX-77831 |
| Fixed an issue where the alpha channel is not saved with Render Output Conversion not set to No Conversion. MAXX-78802 |
| OCIO-based color management modes do not get restored automatically after using the Viewport Canvas to paint. MAXX-78505 |
| The settings for Render Output Defaults coming from 3ds Max 2024 are set in both Gamma-Encoded and Other Formats Saving from 2026 to 2025 (only) triggers a warning: Target version does not support render output defaults for linear image file formats. Saved scene will not do any output color conversion for the linear image file formats that are set to use "automatic" color conversion. MAXX-78666 |
| Fixed issues with OCIO mode not working with network rendering correctly MAXX-77893 |
| Fixed an issue where the Color Picker could be corrupted if moved to extreme parts of the monitor. MAXX-78943 |
| Added keyword parameter colorContext to colorPicker: none, sceneSurface, sceneLight, data, sRGB, ui. The default colorContext value is none. The colorContext specifies the color context of the color picker. MAXX-78491 |
| The viewport gradient is not reset as expected if the background color has been changed (color or environment map). MAXX-77836 |
| Core |
|---|
| Fixed crash when do File / Import or File / Export, and an importer / exporter defined in a .NET assembly exists. MAXX-79006 |
| EditRenderRegion interface moved to public SDK MAXX-78223 |
| .net wrapping code did not recognize intrinsic data types such as int8_t and unit8_t .net wrapping code did not recognize GEOM_FORCEINLINE .net wrapping code was ignoring imenus.h .net wrapping code was not handling size_t correctly MAXX-78490 |
| Fixed issue where 3ds Max could not run macros from the usermacros directory after Windows 11 24H2 update. MAXX-78790 |
| tbb_preview.dll and tbb_bind.dll are removed from Max 2026 MAXX-78507 |
| Fixed crash in Measure utility when node name >= 100 characters MAXX-78422 |
| Fixed MAXScript ExecuteMAXScriptScript Exception being logged from ribbon when dealing with NURMS spinners MAXX-78379 |
| Fixed 3ds Max plugins compiling errors with Clang compilers by moving the 3dsMax Q_DECLARE_METATYPE() macro definitions outside of the MaxSDK namespace, as noted in the Qt documentation. Also AColor, Point2, Point3, Point4, Matrix3 are actually not part of the MaxSDK namespace. MAXX-77427 |
| File IO |
|---|
| Fixed an issue where using Export and then Export Selected had the same exporter selected by default in the 'Select File to Export' dialog MAXX-78793 |
| MAXScript |
|---|
| Added hidden: |
| Fixed issue where you would get a system exception with MAXScript code looking like 'aaa.bbb.AXIS', where the case of 'AXIS' did not match case of string corresponding to name value #axis MAXX-78909 |
| Modeling |
|---|
| Resolved an issue where 3ds Max could crash when loading a scene with a Conform Modifier in it where the modifier is targeting an object that has no vertices (such as through a missing or not yet loaded xref) MAXX-78368 |
| We fixed an issue that was introduced in 3ds Max 2024.2 with the Volume Select modifier where the modifier wasn't correctly detecting when the volume of an object was partially passing into the volume of another, thus not making a selection. This fix has been versioned so it will not affect scenes created between then and now, it will only be applied when a new Volume Select modifier is added to your object in the 2026 release of 3ds Max. MAXX-78825 |
| Resolved a crash issue that would occur when the user attempted to use the Place Working Pivot tools on an object that has no vertices (such as a Helper, Light, etc.) MAXX-78756 |
| Corrected an issue where the cleared edge selection output from an earlier Chamfer operation was reselected and included in the intersection edge results of a Boolean modifier operation. MAXX-78659 |
| Resolved an issue where the DCM MAXScript Process Operator was not recomputing when the modifier was copied. MAXX-78537 |
| MAXScript code now properly invalidates a Spline shape's cache when any of its splines are altered. This change will help prevent a crash that could occur when attempting to manually manipulate the Spline after modifying it with MAXScript MAXX-78486 |
| Resolved an issue where the Curvature data in the DCM was only correct with the default values that were assigned. To safely version this change we have added a small option checkbox where the user can return to the old method if they want to. MAXX-78366 |
| The Boolean Modifier was incorrectly outputting quads as triangles when using the Volume meshing method. MAXX-78484 |
| Fixed a crash that could occur with the Vertex Paint modifier if the artist was in the in Vertex component sub-object, enables Soft Selection (in Vertex Paint), and then activates the Adjust Color function MAXX-78024 |
| Resolved an issue with the retriangulation algorithm and non-planar faces that could inadvertently cause 3ds Max to crash. MAXX-73478 |
| We have solved an issue where Custom Attributes (CA) were not being loaded properly with Datachannel modifier presets that they were saved to. Note loading a preset with CA's removes the current CA's that exist. MAXX-78004 |
| Fixed an issue with the "Pick Object" button on the Slice modifier where the button had no limit to the size of the object name that would be displayed and would cause the modifier stack to grow wider MAXX-78758 |
| Fixed an issue with the "Pick Object" button on the Array modifier where the button had no limit to the size of the object name that would be displayed and would cause the modifier stack to grow wider MAXX-78757 |
| Fixed an issue with the "Pick Object" button on the Symmetry modifier where the button had no limit to the size of the object name that would be displayed and would cause the modifier stack to grow wider MAXX-78759 |
| OpenPBR |
|---|
| Corrected an issue where Additional Parameters were missing from the OpenPBR Material node. MAXX-78749 |
| Particle Flow |
|---|
| Fixed the window creation issue in Particle view. MAXX-79085 |
| UI |
|---|
| Fixed the menu display out of screen issue when using dual or more monitors with different display scaling settings. MAXX-58766 |
Known Issues and workarounds
| Color Management |
|---|
| Issue: If output color conversion is used, then the EXR Render Elements will be written to the disk even if they are already saved as a layer in the main EXR output file, therefore doubling the storage space used. MAXX-79103 |