Why 3ds Max?
Image courtesy of Binyan Studios
Create higher-quality imagery
Help clients visualize your architecture ideas down to the last detail. Advanced tools in 3ds Max give you the unmatched ability to create the highest quality photorealistic renderings.
Image courtesy of Binyan Studios
Work faster and meet deadlines
Create better 3D content in less time by automating tasks. Accommodate design alternatives, handle client changes responsively, freely test concepts – and know in advance whether they’ll work.
Image courtesy of Binyan Studios
Win more bids with interactive rendering
The built-in Arnold renderer provides a fully interactive experience and can render previews while you work and iterate quickly.
See what 3ds Max can do for your architectural visualizations
Produce accurate, beautiful, high-quality architectural renderings
Architectural Visualization Brochure
Produce accurate, beautiful, high-quality architectural renderings
“Having such powerful tools places more focus on us to do the best job possible through creating alluring moods and lighting spaces more effectively.”
Autodesk 3ds Max enables architects, designers, and visualization specialists to fully explore, validate and communicate their creative ideas, from concept models to cinema-quality visualizations. A comprehensive 3D modeling, animation and rendering solution, 3ds Max delivers powerful lighting simulation and analysis technology, advanced rendering capabilities, and a faster, more integrated workflow.
3ds Max provides a powerful way to sharpen your competitive edge, visually communicate your client’s proposed designs, and beautifully tell their story with realistic elements and details.
Bring architectural visualizations to life – with everything from interior walkthroughs to exterior environments, fully populated with roads, buildings, and landscapes, and animated with cars, people, and natural elements.
Why you’ll love 3ds Max
TRANSFORM TECHNICAL TO VISUAL
3ds Max offers a rich and flexible toolset to model premium architectural designs, allowing full artistic control to translate technical drawings into visual stories.
Key benefits
Inspire, communicate, and sell your vision with detailed environments, objects, and embellishments.
HIGH QUALITY IMAGERY
Advanced tools in 3ds Max give you the built-in rendering power to create the highest quality photo-real visualizations and create a premium experience for clients to envision their future investment.
EMBELLISH EVERY DETAIL
3ds Max allows you to bring to life fine-tuned extra touches such as cars, people, and vegetation, for an enriched and engaging experience that enhances the architecture and its surrounding landscape.
MEET YOUR DEADLINES
Quickly explore and accommodate design alternatives, handle client changes responsively, freely test concepts – and know in advance whether they’ll work.
COMMUNICATE YOUR VISION
Present your work to colleagues and clients early in the design process. 3ds Max allows you to communicate your creative vision from rudimentary design intent to photorealistic final.
IMMERSE CLIENTS IN THEIR SPACE
With 3ds Max, you can tell a visual story of how people will interact with and experience your designs, and attract prospects with marketing material that conveys an aspirational vision before the project is built.
Key features
3ds Max offers for architectural visualization.
REVIT IMPORT CAPABILITIES
Revit® Architecture building information models can be quickly and accurately imported into 3ds Max, including geometry, lights, materials and cameras.
PHYSICALLY BASED LIGHTING
Simulate sun, sky, and other artificial lighting sources to accurately portray how light and shadows will interact with designs.
EXTENSIVE MATERIAL, TEXTURE, AND COLOR EDITOR
Apply material finishes like transparent glass, marble, wood and metals. Build and share custom libraries of your favorites.
POPULATE
With a click of two buttons, give your characters more convincing walking, jogging, passing, turning, and seated behaviors, making your crowds appear more realistic and truer to life.
CIVIL VIEW
Automatically populate parametrically generated details such as road markings, animated vehicles, and shrubbery, to scale within your environments.
PHYSICALLY BASED LIGHTING
Simulate and analyze sun, sky and artificial lighting, to accurately portray how light and shadows will interact with your building
INTERACTIVE RENDERING
Interactive rendering allows you to see and make changes in your scene in near-final rendering quality, displaying in the render frame window while you work.
EXTENSIVE MATERIAL EDITING
Create any material finish such as transparent glass and marble, and build custom libraries of your favorite materials, colors and textures — then share them all with teams and studios.
SEAMLESS VR/AR WORKFLOW
With the FBX Export plugin, a one touch round-tripping journey between 3ds Max and Unity automatically mirrors changes you make to your 3D assets in Unity, meaning faster iteration, greater productivity and more time savings.
PLUGINS
Access hundreds of industry leading 3rd party plugins from our extensive community.
FLUIDS & ANIMATION
Create realistic liquid behaviors directly in 3ds Max to add effects such as water fountains, kitchen fixtures, weather effects, and pools.
3ds Max puts powerful 3D capabilities into the hands of you, the design professional. Explore what 3ds Max can do for you.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Get access to support specialists, remote assistance, and online resources
UP-TO-DATE SOFTWARE
Receive instant access to the newest features and performance improvements
FLEXIBLE SUBSCRIPTION PLANS
Use 3ds Max as long as you need it from one month to multiple years
See plans
Plans and pricing
Flexible plans for you and your team
Design visualization software for powerful 3D modeling, animation, and rendering
Features you can expect to get with 3ds Max
Brilliant viewport
Reduce design interactions with render quality viewport previews, displaying PBR materials and camera effects directly.
Import capabilities
Import data from anywhere, using CAD and BIM data directly or to enhance the details of your 3D design.
Physically-based lighting
Simulate artificial lighting sources to accurately portray how light and shadows will interact with your designs.
Extensive material, texture, and color editor
Apply material finishes, change textures, and use vibrant colors to make your designs photorealistic.
Fluids and animation
Create realistic liquid behaviors directly in 3ds Max to add effects such as water fountains, kitchen fixtures, weather effects, and pools.
Placement tool
Intuitive auto-parenting and aligning behaviors make it simple to position, orient and move content seamlessly anywhere within your scene.
See what customers say about 3ds Max
The Future of Design Visualization
"Having used Autodesk software for more than 30 years I can’t imagine using any other software for large-scale archviz projects."
– Nigel Hunt, Owner of Urbân
See what customers say about 3ds Max
Rewriting the traditional rules of architecture and design
"3ds Max is key for our workflow. In terms of feature set and performance, there are no other programs out there that compare to 3ds Max."
– Patrick Vogel, co-founder of ALT/SHIFT
See what customers say about 3ds Max
Keeping the Creative Wheels Turning
"It is our 3D workhorse, and we love the file format flexibility it provides; nearly every format we need is supported."
– Carlos Cristerna, Principal at Neoscape & Director of RadLab