Introducing the New 3ds Max Design 2011 Features

3ds Max Design 2011 is a significant release that extends the comprehensive features and
functionality with new exciting capabilities and also updates many existing features. This is
an important release with a long list of improvements and additions that will greatly impact
your projects whether you have been using 3ds Max for a number of years or are new to design
visualization.
Each new version of 3ds Max incorporates fresh and exciting tools to enhance your capabilities
and workflow while also increasing the performance of the program on your computer
system. Utilizing these new features is key to improving your skills and decreasing the time it
takes to complete your projects. To help you find information, 3ds Max Design 2011’s Learning Movies dialog box (see Figure 1.1) includes links to essential skills movies that teach many of
the basic skills for using 3ds Max, as well as links to movies that explain the new features and
additional 3ds Max–related tutorials. Note that if you don’t see this dialog box, you can go to the

Help menu and launch the Essential Skills Movies from there.

Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2011

Welcome to Mastering Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011. Autodesk 3ds Max Design is the premier software package for design visualization and animation and has many features specifically designed to assist architects, engineers, and designers in many disciplines in the realization of their projects. It is comparable to 3ds Max, the entertainment software, and is essentially the same product without the Software Developer Kit (SDK), which is used to develop plug-insthat give the programs additional functionality.

In addition to having all the features that 3ds
Max has, 3ds Max Design offers two exclusive tools. The Lighting analysis tool is used to help meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) 8.1 certification standards. The Civil Visualization Extension, which will be available as a download for those users on Autodesk 3ds Max Design Subscription, is a customized version of the Dynamite VSP plug-in for importing design data from Civil 3D or the Bentley MX design tools. In this book, we refer to the program as both 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 provides users with cutting-edge rendering technology, easyto-use architectural materials, improved interoperability with other related design and CADD software, enhancements to modeling and animation tools, and better viewport interactivity than ever before.
This chapter introduces some of 3ds Max Design 2011’s special features and then gets you
started working with the 3ds Max interface. In this chapter, you will learn to:
Navigate and •u configure the viewports
• Dock and float toolbars
• Copy objects and use the transform tools
• Create a named selection set