What's New in 3ds Max 2026

Welcome to 3ds Max 2026! You can download the 3ds Max 2026 from your Autodesk Account.

Read on to learn about the new features and updated workflows you'll find in this release. For technical details including What's Fixed, please see the 3ds Max 2026 Release Notes.

For more on the evolution of 3ds Max over the years, check out the 3ds Max timeline on Autodesk Area.

Default Material: OpenPBR

OpenPBR is the new default material in 3ds Max 2026.

Vertex Weld Modifier support for Splines

The updated Vertex Weld Modifier now supports Spline objects in addition to Mesh objects.

Return to Stack Position

Use the new Preserve Stack Position toggle to return to the modifier you had previously selected for an object before you selected a new object.

Create Panel: Object Search

Search for objects with greater ease in the Create section of the Command Panel.

Performance Improvements

The Array Modifier, Boolean Modifier, Conform Modifier, Displacement Modifier and Max Fluids have been optimized for faster processing.

Animation Updates

Exciting improvements to viewport performance, CAT and Biped workflows.

New OSL maps

Three new maps for Open Shading Language (OSL) are now available.

Create a Rectangle with 3 points

A new method has been added when creating Spline Rectangle objects that enables the object to be created at angles other than world-aligned right angles.

Retopology for 3ds Max

Improved processing time with base algorithm ReForm updates in Retopology Tools v1.6, and increased Flow Retopology jobs to 50 per month.

USD for 3ds Max 0.10

USD for 3ds Max 0.10 introduces the Layer Editor, letting you manage USD layers with ease.

Arnold for 3ds Max 5.8.2.2

MaxtoA updates since 3ds Max 2026 deliver major performance gains and introduce GPU Toon shading, an interactive HTML-based render stats viewer, and enhanced USD support.

Substance 3.0.5

Substance for 3ds Max has been updated to version 3.0.5.

What else is new?

This release of 3ds Max also includes the following changes and improvements.

Paint Weight hotkey in the Skin Modifier	A new hotkey, B, has been created to let you toggle Painting mode off and on. Now, while in Painting mode, you can press B to change the selected bone in the Viewport, and press B again to return to Painting. This hotkey streamlines skin weight painting to let you work seamlessly between these two modes.

Color management	There are now separate settings for the render output transform to be applied by default for gamma-encoded file formats versus other formats when using OCIO modes. This means that you should not normally need to change the color-space conversion options manually if you change the file format when saving images. Note that scenes saved from earlier versions of 3ds Max continue to work as before by default. See Color Management Settings. Color management has also been improved for image file lists (IFL). If Automatic is selected when opening or saving an image, the transform determined by the settings is applied to each file individually. If you instead select a specific transform manually, it gets applied to all images in the list. In addition, many issues affecting network rendering with OCIO-based color management have been fixed. The version of OpenColorIO is now OCIO v2.4.1.

Component updates	In alignment with the VFX Reference Platform, components have been updated to the following: Python 3.11.9 OpenEXR 3.3.0 OpenImageIO 2.5.111 General components have also been updated to the following: Cloth 2.3.0.61 CivilView 1.2.4 Security Tools 2.1.8

ATF update	ATF files now support SketchUp 2024 and NX 2406 models.

Studio Menus Evaluation	You can now inject your own custom menus from your pipeline into 3ds Max. `ADSK_3DSMAX_CUI_PRE_USER_CONFIG_%Major_Version%` environment variable This environment variable allows you to load new CUI (Custom User Interface) configuration files right after all system configurations have been loaded, but before the final user configuration is applied. The variable accepts a list of CUI files, separated by a semicolon `(;)`. The files are evaluated in the order specified in the list.

Hotkey and Menu Editor Enhancements	`(maxops.GetICuiMenuMgr()).LoadConfiguration((maxops.GetICuiMenuMgr()).GetCurrentConfiguration())` Multi-selection support: Standard Qt multi-selection using the left mouse click along with `Ctrl` or `Shift` keys is now supported in the Menu Editor. This feature is available for both the Action list on the left and the Menu Tree on the right, so you can delete or copy multiple items simultaneously. Category filtering: A `search-by-column` field has been added to the Menu and Hotkey Editor. You can search for menu items based on action, group, and category.

.Net 8 Update	The version of .Net supported is now version 8.