What’s New in the Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2016 Fundamentals - Training Guide

 
by Renu Muthoo

I am excited to tell you about the Autodesk® 3DS Max® 2016 Fundamentals training guide that is now available from ASCENT. In this year’s training guide, I focused on making the content precise and effective while incorporating all of the new and enhanced features in the 2016 version of the 3ds Max software.

This year saw the consolidation of the two versions of the software (3ds Max and 3ds Max Design) into a single software version. This takes out the confusion in the selection of the version that is best suited for a user in a certain industry. The single version has something for everyone and can be effectively used across multiple disciplines and various industries.

For a complete explanation of the new and enhanced features in the Autodesk 3ds Max 2016 Fundamentals training guide, view our webcast.

General Layout Changes

I have used the Instructional design strategies to enhance the readability and learning experience of the training guide by making it easier to learn from and teach from. Some of the general layout changes are:

• Introductory paragraph and Learning Objectives: The introductory paragraphs and objectives at the beginning of each chapter have been rewritten to be content specific and workflow based. They are objective based as opposed to being just the section headings that were there last year.  It will give you a better understanding of what you will learn in the chapter.

• Bullets: This year, large paragraphs have been broken down as bulleted lists, which make the content easier to read and to retain.

• Captions: Captions have been added to figures making it easier for the user to understand the context of the image.

 

• Precise information: Using the Instructional design principles, I have made the content precise and to-the-point, as well as more effective to learn from. The redundant and duplicated information has been removed, making the training guide succinct and crisp. All this has been done without sacrificing the quality of the content. This way I was able to reduce the page count and now it is a single manual as opposed to a two-part bulky manual, as it has been in the past several versions of our training guide.

 New and Enhanced in 3ds Max 2016 software

Some of the new and enhanced features of the 2016 version that are included in the training guide (For a complete explanation, view our webcast):

• Start-up templates
• Design Workspaces
• Enhanced Scene Explorer
• Selection Preview
• Select and Place/Select and Rotate
• Rendering Options
• Iray Renderer – Render Elements
• Camera Sequencer
• Physical Camera

These changes will ensure that your teaching/learning experience using this training guide is up-to-date and relevant. I hope that you will find all the changes useful.