THE 3DS MAX PLUGIN

IMPORTANT! This part of the documentation has not been fully updated for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and is currently a work in progress.

 

This section of the SDK documentation is for help with the support for Autodesk 3DS Max. This software is officially supported by the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 SDK and is recommended for use when creating models, animations and materials for your add-ons.

 

During installation of the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 SDK, existing installations of 3D Studio Max will be detected and the appropriate plug-in for the installed version will be added. If you did not have 3D Studio Max installed when you installed the SDK and then later install it, you will need to reinstall the SDK to correctly add the plugin.

IMPORTANT! If you are updating the SDK and have previously installed the 3Ds Max plugin, you may experience issues using 3Ds Max due to corrupted preferences in the 3Ds Max user cache. This cache can be cleared by removing the files found in the following location:
C:\Users\[USER_NAME]\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\[Version]\ENU
For more information about updating your 3DsMax installation and workflow for please see here: Updating 3DS Max Projects

 

The plugin itself consists of the following features, each explained on their own page:

 

• Lights
• Material Tools
• Materials
• Babylon Utilities
• Multi-Exporter
• Containers

 

 

3DS Max Versions Tool Differences

IMPORTANT! For updating your 3DsMax installation and workflow for please see here: Updating 3DS Max Projects

The Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 SDK is designed to work best with 3DS Max versions 2021 - 2024 (2025 is currently not supported). We have made compatible tools available for earlier versions and the tools will also work with later versions, though some tools will not be available for earlier versions. Below you can find an outline of what tools are supported on which versions:

 

v2016 and v2017v2016 and v2017

v2018 and v2019v2018 and v2019

v2019.3 and v2020.xv2019.3 and v2020.x

v2021 - v2024v2021 - v2024

 

3DS Max Renderer

3Ds Max has a number of different renderers, however the SDK plugins will only work with the following two:

• Scanline
• Quicksilver Hardware Renderer

You should ensure that that you are using one of these when working with the SDK plugins to create or edit assets for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. If you do not have selected one of these render options then you will not be able to use the FlightSim Materials (and they will not be listed in the Materials window).

IMPORTANT! If you are using 3Ds Max 2021, then you are further limited to only using the Quicksilver Hardware Renderer since there is an issue with the Scanline renderer and the SDK plugin shaders.

 

 

Internal Utilities

In previous iterations of the 3DS Max plugin, you could find a number of specialist tools available from the FlightSim menu, and from the Utilities menu within there:

The majority of the tools listed here are supplied purely for educational purposes were are not intended for use when creating assets for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 add-ons. These tools have been used by the team making the simulation as part of the internal workflow, and as such often rely on fixed paths and other features not available to third-party developers.

 

In the interests of aiding the community, these tools have been removed from the FlightSim menu to keep things clean and tidy:

 

Although these tools have been removed from the menu, they are still available if you wish to study them or adapt them. Their source code has been added to the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 GitHub repository, and so you can get them and edit the source code to suit your own needs as a 3rd party developer:

• https://github.com/AsoboStudio/FlightSim-3dsMax-tools/tree/master/scripts/msfs_max_py