I am excited to tell you about the recently released Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2025 Fundamentals guide from ASCENT. This year the focus was on the use of ARNOLD or ART renderers instead of the legacy SCANLINE renderer. The practices in the new guide as well as their corresponding practice files were modified to use ARNOLD or ART as the active renderer. I have also reorganized the chapters as well as sections within some chapters and added new practices to take advantage of the modern renderers.
The changes include the following:
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The biggest change is in the “Materials” chapter where all the practice files are now setup to use either Arnold or ART as the active production renderer. The materials were also changed accordingly to render the practices correctly. In this chapter, the Standard Surface (Arnold-specific) parameters are discussed in detail to be able to create best results with Arnold/ART renderer.
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In addition, a new practice explaining the step-by-step process of applying parameter changes and a procedural map for the Standard Surface material have been added to the “Materials” chapter. This practice replaces the previous practice that was using the legacy Standard material along with the Scanline renderer.
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All the other practices in the “Materials” chapter have also been updated to use the Arnold Standard Surface material.
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The “Standard Lighting” chapter (previously Chapter 8) has been moved to the appendix (Appendix C) as additional reference material. Standard lights are used predominantly with a Scanline renderer, so it is no longer a part of the main content in the guide.
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The “Photometric Lighting and Cameras” chapter (previously Chapter 9), now takes the place of “Standard Lighting” chapter and becomes Chapter 8. Additional information is added to this chapter to improve the course workflow.
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A new chapter (“Arnold Lighting”) has been added as Chapter 9 and takes prominence in the guide. A detailed section about the various Arnold Light types is added.
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A new practice has also been added to the “Arnold Lighting” chapter, which explains the creation of the Arnold spotlight and the parameter adjustments required to add realism to the scene.