Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max 2025 Released

The latest updates to Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max, and Arnold deliver continued support for open standards and improved modeling, animation, simulation, look development and rendering capabilities. 

“Today’s updates reinforce our commitment to enabling our customers to collaborate better and work smarter by supporting open standards, strengthening our content creation tools, and unifying workflows and data across entire production pipelines," says Ben Fischler, director of Product Management, Content Creation, at Autodesk. 

Collaboration with Open Standards

This latest release introduces OpenColorIO support in 3ds Max, LookdevX enhancements in Maya, and a robust OpenUSD (Open Universal Scene Description) integration in both tools for improved collaboration.

OpenColorIO support in 3ds Max—Easily adopt a standardized color management framework with OpenColorIO, now the default color management mode for new scenes in 3ds Max. Key enhancements include full-color management integration for the VertexPaint tool and the ability to designate color space for output files in the Bake to Texture tool. 

LookdevX enhancements in Maya—Achieve material portability with enhancements to LookdevX, Autodesk’s agnostic material authoring plugin supporting OpenUSD. This update introduces a native MaterialX data model, meaning you can now import, export and edit MaterialX files and assign MaterialX materials directly to Maya geometry.

OpenUSD improvements—For interoperable and nondestructive asset creation, 3ds Max USD 0.7 now enables importing animations such as animated lights, cameras and BlendShapes. Maya USD 0.27 brings the ability to load or unload multiple prims simultaneously and use the Universal Manipulator for prim manipulation.  

Hydra enhancements in Maya—There are enhancements to the Hydra viewer (technology preview). You can also now engage in the plugin’s development on GitHub.  

Automatic Denoising in Arnold—Produce quality renders with the Intel Open Image Denoiser (OIDN) imager. For new scenes, Arnold plugins such as MtoA and MAXtoA now automatically denoise renders with the Intel Image Denoiser, while existing scenes remain unchanged.

Productivity Tools 

Modelers and animators can achieve more productivity in Maya with a new Smart Extrude tool, Motion Trail Editor, and a redesigned Dope Sheet.

Smart Extrude in Maya—Extrude faces on a mesh with a new Smart Extrude tool (already available in 3ds Max) and eliminate the need to handle unwanted geometry. 

Retopology enhancements in 3ds Max—Minimize friction when modeling with speed improvements when optimizing asset geometry with Retopology 1.5. 

Redesigned Dope Sheet in Maya—Enjoy a user-friendly animation experience with a redesigned Dope Sheet, including the ability to create and flip between sets of commonly used animation controls for your characters. 

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Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.