question (for brando)

[JBruckner]

I can answer some of them.

Render: Brazil
Particals: PStudio/Combustion
Composting: Combustion

Thats about all I can say, you should wait for Brandon :)

[CapnPanic]

particles: depends on what you need the particles to do. if you just need some simple particle stuff, then use max's built in particles...they are fairly simple, but get the job done in most cases. if you need hardcore, full control, full customizibility, do-anything particles, then thinking particles from cebas seems to be teh way to go. but beware, as thinking particles seems to be pretty learning-intensive and comes with an inch-thick manual. we've had a copy at work for nearly a year now and i have yet to find teh patience to sit down and learn how to use it

hair/fur: right now you're pretty much limited to shag:hair/fur although if you wait a bit (hopefully within a month or two) you should be able to use joe alter's Shave and a Haircut with 3dsmax by way of the connection in the works from Splutterfish. my impression is that shave is a much faster and more versitile hair package when compared to shag... but havn't used it myself yet, so no firsthand experience there

clothing: seems to me you've got Stitch for complicated things and Simcloth (free!!) for simpler cloth simulation. simcloth is the only one i persoanlly have used, but it is fairly reliable and predictable, and good for most basic cloth sims...although it is fairly slow, but its FREE!!! so i'm not complaining!!

soft/rigid body dynamics: max 5 now comes with Reactor, so just use that! it's built in and works well. although if you need full liquid simulation, then i think your only choice is RealFlow

atmospherics: yeah i think afterburn is your best bet there, it generally seems to have the best quality to speed ratio

nature fx: not sure what u mean here, but the only thing that comes to mind is Digital Nature Tools from Arete, so take a look there and see if it is what you are looking for

rendering/lighting: i, personally, am a big fan of Brazil. the full version comes with replacement lights, cameras, and a great set of new shaders and materials. it has all the global illumination features you would expect and workflow that is very intuitive and quick to learn. it's easily the fastest raytracer available for 3dsmax, and i've found it makes it possible to do all those things that you learned not to do in cg (ie make everything have raytraced reflections) with no real repercussions render-time-wise. this is the package i use myself in production at work everyday and i'll never go back to the scanline again! in the interest of fairness here, vray is supposed to be pretty good as well, although i don't have any experience there to relate. while i recommend against final render, as i tried using that in production for a while (before brazil) and it was erally more trouble then it was worth.

compositing: i used after fx for a few years and have since swithed to combustion 2. after fx was a great package for the money, but since combustion recently dropped to the price of after fx (which was when we switched at work) you should just ignore afterfx. although i havn't used digital fusion, i've been on combustion for a while and it was fairly easy to pick up and its a powerful package, with alot of things that afterfx doesn't offer.

anyhow, just my two cents :beer:

[BrandonD]

"Best" is such a relative term because it may not be "best" in all circumstances. I pretty much agree across the board with what Capn_Panic wrote. On the particle side, Thinking Particles just can't be beat for MAX. However, it's not something to take lightly. It makes it very time consuming and often difficult to do simple things, however it gives you the capability to do things that just weren't possible before. On the Compositing side, while I think Combustion's 3d integration leads the pack, I still have a soft-spot for Digital Fusion. I am so far removed as a compositor, but Digital Fusion is still my favorite.

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