3ds max and VIZ

Discreet, an Autodesk company, is currently offering a “crossgrade” from Autodesk VIZ 4 to Discreet's 3ds max 6. This article investigates the offer and why VIZ hasn’t been updated along with the rest of the Autodesk family.

By Martyn Day, editor, CADserver, November 26, 2003

I’ve recently spent some time trying to fathom out Autodesk’s visualization strategy through its product offerings. This research was prompted by Discreet’s interesting offer, starting this month, to upgrade (transferring between products is actually termed a crossgrade) Autodesk VIZ 4 customers to the latest version of Discreet’s 3ds max 6. One of the good things about 3ds max 6 is that it works with the latest release of AutoCAD, 2004, which has a new DWG format. VIZ has yet to be updated.

Unfortunately, VIZ is perceived as being the “cut-down” version of 3ds max, and in many ways that is true, as the high-end games-related features, such as kinematics and particles, are not available. VIZ, however, was Autodesk’s specific attempt to develop a rendering platform for design-related markets, especially concerning architecture. To enhance the experience, Autodesk added specific interoperability features to VIZ, to allow bi-directional modeling between it and AutoCAD/Architectural Desktop. I really like VIZ: it’s affordable, easy to use and gives great results for both still images and animations. That said, it has suffered from severe lack of marketing and has somehow got lost in Autodesk’s overcrowded product mix.

AutoCAD 2004 shipped in April this year and the new version of Architectural Desktop introduced something called VIZ Render. A cut-down of VIZ, with a similar interface, it provided real-time shaded interaction with ADT dimension-driven design. But it couldn’t generate geometry, that was ADT’s job. So, Autodesk had 3ds max for games, movies and high-end animation, VIZ for CAD design-related users and VIZ Render (if you like, a cut-down of a cut-down) within ADT. AutoCAD meanwhile still shipped with its own rendering engine, called AutoVision, which in comparison to 3ds max/VIZ is certainly showing its age.

In August of this year, participants on Autodesk’s VIZ newsgroup held a heated discussion about the future of VIZ. It’s true that all the evidence pointed the wrong way; VIZ was out of sync with the current AutoCAD file format for six months or more (in some cases halting deployment of 2004), there was no word on a forthcoming release from Autodesk, and subscribers had only had one “extension” in two years. The fear among users was that VIZ had been quietly canned.

This debate compelled Autodesk to issue a press release stating, "The next release of Autodesk VIZ, offering greater interoperability with other Autodesk design solutions, including the AutoCAD 2004 product family, is currently under development. Planned to be available in the first half of 2004, the new product release will benefit from advancements made last year in developing VIZ Render--an integral part of Autodesk Architectural Desktop software--and the upcoming release of Discreet 3ds max 6 software." At the time, the press release didn’t make much sense unless you had followed the concerns of customers; with its discussion of intent to develop an existing product, the announcement went against the usual function of product releases, which are usually only published close to a launch.

The press release went on to articulate where each of the three rendering products fit into the overall strategy:

VIZ Render is for: “Architectural designers who use Autodesk Architectural Desktop as their primary design application. VIZ Render provides a streamlined environment to present photo-realistic images of in-progress designs. An integral part of Architectural Desktop, VIZ Render does not offer modeling capabilities and is not available as a stand-alone product."

Autodesk VIZ is for: "Designers and rendering specialists who need to visualize data from a variety of Autodesk applications. Autodesk VIZ provides a rich environment for modeling, rendering, and animation. VIZ is targeted for architectural and industrial designers who need to produce high-quality images of their work and do not need many of the advanced multimedia features of 3ds max, such as character animation or special effects."

3ds max is for: "General 3D modeling, rendering, and animation. The upcoming release, 3ds max 6, focuses on addressing the needs of advanced visualization designers in a variety of disciplines, including architectural, graphic, and industrial design."

With Autodesk publicly committing to a next release of VIZ, I asked Autodesk why VIZ customers have had to wait so long to get an up to date, over a year for an AutoCAD 2004- compatible release? Michael Woodcox, Design Visualization Product Manager at Autodesk, told me Autodesk’s side of the story.

"While VIZ is a cut-down version of 3ds max, it has followed a different development path until now. Autodesk’s VIZ customer feature list requests meant that additional capabilities were added to VIZ that were not in 3ds max, leading to some incompatibilities between the products. Which was not ideal and also complicated and delayed the development of VIZ, being the derivative of a number of development groups.

"The decision was taken a year and half ago to better coordinate the two products, making 3ds max the true master platform and VIZ a true derivative of that one platform. All this was based around the development of 3ds max 6 and that had to be completed before we could work on delivering VIZ 6 (the next release looks to miss a rev number). At Autodesk University (December 2-5, 2003 in Las Vegas), I will be releasing more information on the forthcoming release of VIZ, announcing the new features to customers. Autodesk is committed to the 3ds max, VIZ and VIZ Render product suite. In the future we are looking to significantly bring the time lag between 3ds max and VIZ releases down."

It seems Autodesk’s reticence to explain this development change to customers has been due to the “revenue recognition” issue, which has become endemic at the company. That’s to say that Autodesk states that it can’t give specifics of future product functionality or delivery due to SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) accounting rulings. The move to subscription, means that Autodesk could not recognize subscription money until it deliver on any previously specified product date or feature. The SEC states that software companies can’t realize the revenues until the “value” has been delivered. I guess in some ways this is in place so that companies can’t bring forward huge lumps of subscription revenue into quarters to artificially boost their price, and also to ensure that companies deliver on their promises to customers. Then again, the way around this is for software companies is to be vague and uncommunicative on purpose and not inform their customers of what or when they are getting the “value.” In my mind, this situation is “more Wrong, than a Wrong thing in Wrong land” and I dare say I will be returning to specifically deal with this issue in a future article.

Woodcox explained the complexities of the situation and from our conversation I gathered that he really did understand the anger and frustration of some VIZ customers over the lack of updates, Autodesk’s accounts-driven inability to tell customers what was happening, and the subsequent ambiguity in the message that was delivered. He said that in the case of VIZ 6, due to the time lag between updates, Autodesk will be making full announcements about the next release at Autodesk University next month. I feel Autodesk had to do this and at least start to rebuild the trust they lost with users who felt unsatisfied with what they got -- or rather didn’t get -- for their money.

So, now we have figured out what’s happening to VIZ and VIZ Render, on to the original source of this article, 3ds max 6 and the cross-grade offer. From the start of November, VIZ customers can, for a special price, upgrade to the new 3ds max, which works with the new AutoCAD DWG file format. The other good news, concerning VIZ compatibility, is that the old copy of VIZ can still be used (but only on the same system) as 3ds max 6.

For those users on VIZ subscription, the subscription is carried over to the 3ds max 6 new license. When it’s subscription renewal time, the customer pays the 3ds max. As a reminder of what was delivered on 3ds max subscription last year, users received the Design Extension, which provided most of the unique features from VIZ, a Shockwave exporter and flash renderer and a really powerful Particle Flow system.

With Autodesk announcing a definitive commitment to continue developing VIZ, and to enhance the way it is developed and synchronized with AutoCAD, the need to move to 3ds max is not essential. However, on past performance the VIZ development and product delivery has a lot of bad will to overcome. I believe that Autodesk is committed to VIZ, it just has to build a track record and some forward velocity.

On the other hand, 3ds max will be the platform for all the future development work, according to the Autodesk visualization strategy. Therefore 3ds max will always offer all the features of VIZ and considerably more and will be by definition the first to be released to sync with new AutoCAD functionality and formats. Discreet already has a proven track record of delivering quality extensions within the subscription period, As Discreet’s core modeling tool, it has certainly maintained its velocity in the market, despite stiff competition from products like Maya.

The downside to 3ds max is that you will be paying for features you may never use. It really comes down to how experimental you want to be with your animations and rendering. Michael Woodcox commented that many of the high-end signature architects choose to use 3ds max over VIZ, or opt for a mixed installation because of the quality of 3ds max's Mental Ray-based rendering option, as well as the particle engine and the ability to save models in formats such as X-box games levels, for interactive walkthroughs.

If you can live with the incompatibility between VIZ and AutoCAD 2004 for the next few months, and/or if you operate on a tight budget, it could be worth waiting to see what happens with VIZ next year. The feature list, which should be made public in December, will be a good guide to see if development is going in the right direction. If you need the compatibility now, fancy the additional features, and want “the full Monty,” then I think it’s certainly worth upgrading to 3ds max while this offer is on; the subscription price is really an excellent deal considering the powerful add-ons that have been delivered so far.

While in the past Autodesk has separated 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ (to give it its full name) between two divisions, Woodcox explained that in the future Discreet and the Autodesk Visualization Products will have a more coordinated development vision and strategy. There will also be less emphasis on adding bucket-loads of new features, for “features sake.” Future development will mean more time spent on delivering fully working, stable and powerful features. I guess that’s the less is more approach.

In the case of this VIZ to 3ds max upgrade offer, Autodesk will be happy whether customers stay with VIZ or upgrade to full-blown 3ds max. As they say, it’s all in the family. 

About the Author

Martyn Day is group editor of MCAD Magazine and AEC Magazine. For more information, visit the CADserver website.