3ds Max Support

3ds Max Geometry Support

3ds Max supports various methods for generating objects, but currently only meshes are supported for conversion.

Supported Input Geometry

All surfaces and primitives that are convertible to Editable Meshes, even if not listed here, are supported by RapidPipeline DCC Importer.

✅ Geometry Surfaces: Editable Meshes, Polys, Patches, Shapes.
✅ Standard Primitives
✅ Extended Primitives
✅ Patch Grid Primitives
✅ Door Primitivies
✅ NURBS Surfaces
✅ Windows Primitives
✅ Dynamics Objects Primitives
✅ Stairs Primitives

Unsupported Input Geometry

Unsupported Geometry objects are removed during scene preprocessing within 3ds Max.

⛔ Particle System Primitives
⛔ AEC Extended Primitives
⛔ PointCloud Primitives
⛔ Compound Objects
⛔ Body Objects
⛔ Fluid Primitives
⛔ All Chaos Scatter specific geometry is unsupported.
⛔ All V-Ray specific geometry is unsupported, such as VRayFur, VRayPlane, VRayClipper, VRayProxy.
⛔ Corona specific geometry is unsupported.
⛔ Arnold specific geometry is unsupported.

3ds Max Modifier Support

Supported Modifiers

Any modifiers not listed here can be considered to be supported. Some modifiers have partial support, they are listed here:

✅ Displace modifier
▫️ Displacement is automatically converted into geometry.
✅ Hair and Fur (WSM) modifier
▫️ Each hair modifier will have only one Material ID.
▫️ Only the _Diffuse color_ is converted from a VRayHairNextMtl material applied to the model; all material settings are ignored from within the Hair and Fur modifier.
✅ VRayDisplacementModifier
▫️ Displacement is baked into normal maps by default.
▫️If "3D Mapping" mode is used, displacement can be converted into geometry using the option --bakeDisplacement.

See bakeDisplacement.

Displacement conversion methods

Unsupported Modifiers

These modifiers cannot properly apply their changes when the model is collapsed, therefore these are unsupported.

⛔ Particles or Animation (e.g., skin, deform) related modifiers.
⛔ Camera Map Modifier, Camera Map Modifier (WSM)
⛔ Free-Form Deformation (FFD) Modifiers
⛔ FFD 2x2x2, 3x3x3, 4x4x4
⛔ FFD box, cyl
⛔ Morpher
⛔ PathDeform, PatchDeform, PathDeform (WSM), PatchDeform (WSM)
⛔ Point Cache, Point Cache (WSM)
⛔ Physique
⛔ Skin, Skin Wrap, Skin Morph, Skin Morph Patch
⛔ Particle Skinner, PFlow Collision, Particle Face Creator, PFlow Collision (WSM)
⛔ VRayFur:
▫️ For the sake of clarity, differently from Hair and Fur (WSM), VRayFur is not categorized as a modifier, but rather a special Geometry object following V-Ray's conventions.
▫️ No feasible way to convert to actual geometry at this time.
▫️ Chaos Group doesn't seem to have this feature in their plans, either.
▫️ It isn't feasible, either, to convert it to Hair and Fur (WSM), as the parameters can be completely different at times and achieving a similar look can be difficult, if not impossible.
⛔ VRayHairFarmMod
▫️ Compatibility modifier used to render hair strands produced by the Hair Farm plugin by CyberRadiance. HairFarm objects themselves seem to be "exportable" to meshes, though.
⛔ Arnold Modifiers
▫️ All Arnold specific modifiers are unsupported at this time.
⛔ Corona Modifiers
▫️ All Corona specific modifiers are unsupported at this time.
⚠️ Generally speaking, an Object Modifier cannot be put on top of a World Space Modifier (WSM). For example:
▫️ Displacement modifiers are Object Modifiers, Hair and Fur (WSM) is a World Space Modifier.
▫️ As such, we don't need to worry about the possibility of a Hair and Fur (WSM) modifier being under a Displacement modifier - moreover, Hair and Fur (WSM) doesn't seem to be compatible with VRayDisplacementModifier at all.
⚠️ If the underlying geometry can be converted to Editable Meshes, most 3dsMax modifiers can be collapsed to Meshes, as well.
▫️ However, not all modifiers will properly apply their changes when collapsing. These are considered "Unsupported".
▫️ As a rule of the thumb, if a modifier is not supported, it is ignored and won't affect the result. In some exceptions, the modifier might be removed preemptively to prevent errors.

3ds Max Material Support

Fully Supported Materials

✅ VRayMtl
✅ VRayLightMtl
✅ VRayBumpMtl
✅ VRayMtlWrapper
✅ VRayOverrideMtl
✅ MultiMaterial
✅ Shell Material

Work-in-Progress/Partially Supported Materials

*️⃣ VRayHairNextMtl
*️⃣ VRayHairMtl
*️⃣ VRayFastSSS2
*️⃣ VRayALSurfaceMtl
*️⃣ VRaySkinMtl
*️⃣ VRayBlendMtl
*️⃣ VRay2SidedMtl
▫️ Replaced by Front Material
*️⃣ VRaySwitchMtl
▫️ Replaced by first material
*️⃣ VRayCarPaintMtl
*️⃣ VRayCarPaintMtl2
*️⃣ VRayStochasticFlakesMtl
*️⃣ VRayFlakesMtl
*️⃣ VRayFlakesMtl2
*️⃣ Blend
*️⃣ PhysicalMaterial
▫️ Converted to VRayMtl
*️⃣ Standardmaterial
▫️ Converted to VRayMtl
*️⃣ RaytraceMaterial
▫️ Converted to VRayMtl
*️⃣ Architectural
▫️ Converted to VRayMtl
*️⃣ Shellac
▫️ Converted to VRayBlend
*️⃣ DoubleSided
▫️ Converted to VRay2Sided

Unsupported Materials

⛔ VRayToonMtl
⛔ VRayScatterVolumeMtl
⛔ VRayVectorDisplBake
⛔ VRayGLSLMtl, VRayMDLMtl, VRayOSLMtl
⛔ VRayPointParticleMtl
⛔ VRayPluginNodeMtl
⛔ VRayVRMatMtl
⛔ VRayScannedMtl
▫️ Requires a separate license for the 'Chaos Scans system'. Untested.
⛔ PBR and 'External Format' Materials:
▫️ These materials can be exported directly, but the textures still need to be baked. Their output textures should require no translation, however. Work in progress.
⛔ PBR Material (Metal/Rough)
⛔ PBR Material (Spec/Gloss)
⛔ GLTF Material
⛔ USD Preview Surface
❔ Other 3ds Max standard materials
▫️ Untested/unverified at this time. Not guaranteed to be bakeable.
⛔ Corona Materials
▫️ All Corona-specific materials, such as CoronaPhysicalMtl, are currently unsupported.
▫️ However, Corona materials can be converted into V-Ray materials. There is a tool provided by Chaos which converts most settings reliably; it can be found in the V-Ray menu, under Converters, V-Ray scene converter.
⛔ Arnold Materials
▫️ All Arnold-specific materials, such as Standard Surface, are currently unsupported.

3ds Max Texture Node Support

If any 3ds Max texture node is not mentioned here, it should be considered "unverified" and will force the material to be baked. If any texture of a material is considered to be "procedural" the material will be baked.

Supported Input Texture Nodes

Non-procedural texture nodes

✅ Advanced Wood
✅ Bitmap
✅ Cellular
✅ Color Correction
✅ ColorMap
✅ Checker
✅ Composite
✅ Dent
✅ Gradient
✅ Gradient Ramp
✅ Marble
✅ Mask
✅ Mix
✅ Noise
✅ NormalBump
✅ Output
✅ Perlin Marble
✅ RGB Multiply
✅ RGB Tint
✅ Smoke
✅ Speckle
✅ Splat
✅ Stucco
✅ Swirl
✅ Tiles
✅ VertexColor
✅ VRayBitmap
✅ VRayBump2Normal
✅ VRayColor
✅ VRayColor2Bump
✅ VRayCompTex
✅ VRayCurvature
✅ VRayDirt
✅ VRayDistanceTex
✅ VRayEdgeTex
✅ VRayMultiSubTex
✅ VRayNoiseTex
✅ VRayNormalMap
✅ VRayUVWRandomizer
✅ Waves

Unverified Input Texture Nodes

If an unverified texture node is found, it forces the material to be baked as a fallback.

❔ BlendedBoxMap
❔ Camera Map Per Pixel
❔ Map Output Selector
❔ OSL Map
❔ MultiTile
❔ Particle Age
❔ Raytrace
❔ ShapeMap
❔ Substance
❔ TextMap
❔ TextureObjectMask
❔ VectorDisplacement
❔ Vector Map
❔ OSL 3ds Max texture nodes
▫️ All OSL 3ds Max texture nodes are considered unverified at this time.
❔ VRayLut
❔ VRayGLSLTex
❔ VRayOCIO
❔ VRayOSLTex
❔ VRayOSLOutputSelector
❔ VRayParticleTex
❔ VRayPtex
❔ VRaySky
❔ VRaySamplerInfoTex
❔ VRayPluginNodeTex
❔ VRayPointCloudColor
❔ VRaySoftBox
❔ VRayTriplanarTex
❔ VRayUserColor
❔ VRayUserScalar
❔ Arnold 3ds Max texture nodes
▫️ All Arnold 3ds Max texture nodes are considered unverified at this time.

Unsupported Input Texture Nodes

Unsupported texture nodes are removed, skipped or flattened during scene preprocessing. Errors and Warnings logged during conversion can be reviewed using RapidPipeline QC Tools.

⚠️ Falloff:
▫️ Falloff cannot be supported directly in standardized real-time materials because Falloff is view-dependent.
▫️ Falloff nodes are converted by DCC Importer into an 80:20 mix between the two nodes/colors in use, and Falloff Curves are ignored.
▫️ As an alternative, we suggest using the Sheen parameters in VRayMtl; DCC Importer can convert this directly into the glTF extension KHR_materials_sheen.
⛔ SigerNoise and other third-party plugins
▫️ We do not have support for third-party plugins at this time.
▫️ If unsupported third-party nodes are detected, they are removed during scene preprocessing, and an Error is logged.
⚠️ VRayHairInfoTex
▫️ Basic colors are converted to a color map, or a mix of colors, to roughly preserve the general appearance of fur geometry.
▫️ VRayFur is not currently supported, but we do support VRayHairInfoTex when used on explicit geometry.

3ds Max Additional Support

▫️ Cameras are preserved for rendering by [RapidPipeline QC Tools](../QcTools/qc-tools-overview).
▫️ Animation is currently not supported; generally meshes will be converted using their appearance at frame 0.
▫️ Negative transforms should be avoided if possible, however the converter will attempt to preserve mesh appearance as it appears when rendered in V-Ray.
▫️ For information about scene organization for optimal conversion please see [3ds Max Guidelines](3ds-max-material-guidelines).