Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2013 rendering, visualization, 3D modeling, and animation software includes interactive rendering for iterative feedback, enhanced data exchange with a larger-than-ever range of applications, and improved usability.

ActiveShade Interactive iray Rendering

Experience an interactive creative process for finalizing renderings, with the new ActiveShade support for the NVIDIA^® iray^® renderer. ActiveShade enables you to iterate more effectively by providing an interactive rendering session that constantly updates as changes are made to cameras, lighting, materials, and geometry. You can shorten the feedback loop to more efficiently fine-tune your scene, making it faster and easier to achieve your intended look.

Nitrous Viewport Performance and Quality

Enhancements to the Nitrous accelerated graphics core include increased interactivity on large scenes, and new support for image-based lighting, depth of field, and accelerated particle flow display. Improved support for shadows in large scenes and workflows for interior scenes extend the Nitrous functionality.

Enhanced Interoperability with AutoCAD and Revit

Take advantage of more efficient data exchange. Autodesk ^®Revit^® files (.RVT) can now be directly imported into 3ds Max Design 2013, so you can select a data view of choice to load from within the Autodesk Revit file. New support for lights, daylight system, and exposure control in the AutoCAD^® 2013 file importer has also been added.

DirectConnect Support

New support for the Autodesk^® DirectConnect family of translators enables you to exchange industrial design data with engineers using leading CAD software:

• AutoCAD^®
• Autodesk^® Inventor^® software
• Autodesk^® Alias^® software
• Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks^® and Catia^® system
• PTC Pro/ENGINEER^®
• Siemens PLM Software NX, JT^™
• certain other applications

A wide range of file formats is supported (some require the installed CAD product). The data is imported as native solids Body objects that can be interactively retesselated as needed. Users can refine the data until they get the precision they need in their renderings.

Render Pass System and Photoshop Interoperability

• Segment scenes more easily for downstream compositing.
• Create render elements for image compositing applications.
• Capture, edit, and save the current state using a state recorder, while a visual interface shows how compositing and render elements are wired together to create the final result.
• Quickly set up and execute multiple render passes from a single file; individual passes can be modified without the need to re-render the whole scene.

Adobe After Effects Interoperability

Projects may be completed in less time with the new Media Sync functionality. It provides two-way transfer of cameras, lights, null objects, plane objects/solids, footage (including footage layering), blend modes, opacity, and effects.

Customizable Workspaces

Select from a choice of default or custom workspaces. Each workspace can have individual settings for menus, toolbars, ribbon, and viewport tab presets; in addition, selecting a new workspace can automatically execute a MAXScript. Configure the workspace to suit your preferences or to fit the task at hand.

Tabbed Layouts

Create and switch between unlimited numbers of viewport layout configurations. Layouts can include both 3D and extended viewports. Easily select a different layout by clicking on its icon, or pressing a hotkey. Share customized View Tabs with other artists and designers by saving and loading presets.

Compare Autodesk 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design.

Compare Autodesk 3ds Max/3ds Max Design 2013 and 2012.

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Autodesk 3ds Max Design Software Requirements

The 32-bit version of Autodesk^® 3ds Max^® 2013 and Autodesk^® 3ds Max^® Design 2013 software is supported by any of the operating systems:¹

• Microsoft^® Windows^® 7 Professional operating system
• Microsoft^® Windows^® XP Professional operating system (SP3 or higher)²

The 64-bit version of 3ds Max 2013 and 3ds Max Design 2013 software is supported by any of the operating systems:¹

• Microsoft^® Windows^® 7 Professional x64 operating system
• Microsoft^® Windows^® XP Professional x64 Edition (SP3 or higher)²

3ds Max 2013 and 3ds Max Design 2013 32-bit and 64-bit software require the following supplemental software:

• Microsoft^® Internet Explorer^® 8.0 internet browser or higher
• Mozilla^® Firefox^® 3.0 web browser or higher

Autodesk 3ds Max Design Hardware Requirements

General animation and rendering (typically fewer than 1,000 objects or 100,000 polygons):

At a minimum, the 32-bit version of 3ds Max 2013 and 3ds Max Design 2013 software requires a system with the following hardware:

• Intel^® Pentium^® 4 1.4 GHz or equivalent AMD^® processor with SSE2 technology³
• 2 GB RAM (4 GB recommended)
• 2 GB swap space (4 GB recommended)⁴
• Microsoft^® Direct3D^® 10 technology, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL^®-capable graphics card⁵
• 512 MB or higher video card memory
• 1 GB or higher recommended
• Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
• 3 GB free hard drive space
• DVD-ROM drive⁶
• Internet connection for web downloads and Autodesk^® Subscription-aware access

At a minimum, the 64-bit version of 3ds Max 2013 and 3ds Max Design 2013 software requires a system with the following hardware:

• Intel^® 64 or AMD64 processor with SSE2 technology³
• 4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended)
• 4 GB swap space (8 GB recommended)⁴
• Direct3D 10, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL-capable graphics card⁵
• 512 MB or higher video card memory
• 1 GB or higher recommended
• Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
• 3 GB free hard drive space
• DVD-ROM drive⁶
• Internet connection for web downloads and Subscription-aware access

Large scenes and complex data sets (typically more than 1,000 objects or 100,000 polygons):

Recommended, the 64-bit version of 3ds Max 2013 and 3ds Max Design 2013 software requires a system with the following hardware:

• Intel^® 64 or AMD64 processor with SSE2 technology³
• 8 GB RAM
• 8 GB swap space⁴
• Direct3D 10, Direct3D 9, or OpenGL-capable graphics card⁵
• 1 GB or higher video card memory
• Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
• 3 GB free hard drive space
• DVD-ROM drive⁶
• Internet connection for web downloads and Subscription-aware access

¹ The 3ds Max^® Composite feature requires one of the following 32-bit or 64-bit operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system (SP3 or higher)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 operating system (SP3 or higher)
• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional x64 operating system

² Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2013 English only, additional language support requires a Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.

³ Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2013 have been optimized to take advantage of the SSE2 extended instruction sets supported on Intel^® Pentium^® 4 processor or higher, AMD Athlon^™ 64, AMD Opteron^™, AMD Phenom^™ processors. 3ds Max 2013 will not operate on computers that do not support SSE2. Several utilities are available on the Internet that report CPUID, including supported instructions sets.

⁴ Autodesk recommends settings that allow Microsoft Windows to manage virtual memory, as needed. There should always be at least twice as much free hard disk space as system memory (RAM).

⁵ Some features of 3ds Max 2013 and 3ds Max Design 2013 are only enabled when used with graphics hardware that supports Shader Model 3.0 (Pixel Shader and Vertex Shader 3.0). In addition, Quicksilver hardware rendering requires additional GPU resources to work effectively. A minimum of 512 MB of graphics memory should be used. A minimum of 1 GB is recommend for the most complex scenes, shaders and lighting modes.

The integrated NVIDIA^® iray^® rendering technology operates well solely with CPU processing but processing can be accelerated by NVIDIA GPU CUDA technology. Check here to see if the graphics card is CUDA ready.

Learn more about graphics hardware compatibility.

⁶ Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2013 are available only on dual layer DVD media (or electronic download where available). CD media is no longer available. DVD-ROM drive is not required if installing using electronic download. However to accommodate the installation files, you will need 9 GB of hard disk space and an additional 16 GB of space for temporary files created during the installation.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design System Requirements for Macintosh^® Computer Users

Boot Camp

You can install Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 and 3ds Max Design 2013 software on a Mac^® computer on a Windows^® partition. The system must use Boot Camp^® application program to help manage a dual OS configuration and meet the minimum system requirements.

• Intel^®-based Mac Pro or MacBook^® Pro computer
• Mac OS^® X 10.5.x operating system or higher
• Boot Camp V 2.0 or higher
• Minimum 2 GB RAM (Recommend 4 GB for 32-bit Windows OS, 8 GB or more for 64-bit Windows OS)
• Minimum 20 GB disk space for Apple OS partition, minimum 20 GB for Windows OS partition

Mac Virtualization on Parallels Desktop

Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 and 3ds Max Design 2013 can be used on the Mac via Parallels Desktop^® for Mac software without having to boot directly into the Windows OS so it is easy to switch between platforms. The system must meet the following requirements:

• A Mac computer with an Intel^® Core^™ 2 Duo, Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5, Intel Core i7, or Intel^® Xeon^® processor.
• Mac OS X 10.5.x or higher
• Mac OS X
• Mac OS X Lion 10.7 higher
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 or higher
• Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 or higher Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac
• Minimum 4 GB RAM (6 GB system memory for 32-bit Windows OS, 8 GB or more for 64-bit Windows OS recommended)
• Minimum 40 GB available disk space (100 GB recommended)

For more details, please read the 3ds Max for Mac FAQ.

Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

Autodesk is not responsible for errors or failures of Autodesk software arising from the installation of updates, extensions or new releases issued by third party hardware or software vendors for the qualified software or hardware identified in this document (or for any other third party software or hardware that you may use in connection with Autodesk products).

iray is a registered trademark of NVIDIA ARC GmbH licensed for use by Autodesk, Inc.