Adobe Substance 3D Collection vs. Autodesk 3ds Max

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Substance 3D Collection
Score 7.2 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Substance 3D is a suite of apps that support 3D design, including texture assets and rendering tools. Workflows can connect to Adobe Creative Cloud apps.N/A
Autodesk 3ds Max
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Autodesk offers 3ds Max, 3D modeling and rendering software for design visualization, games, and animation. The vendor states that users can produce professional-quality 3D animations, renders, and models with an efficient and flexible toolset to help create better 3D content in less time.
$235
per month per user
Pricing
Adobe Substance 3D CollectionAutodesk 3ds Max
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Monthly Subscription
$235
per month per user
Yearly Subscription
$1875
per year per user
3-Year Subscription
$5625
3 years per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Substance 3D CollectionAutodesk 3ds Max
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFlex pricing available for limited usage. Minimum plan $300 for 100 tokens. 3ds Max costs 6 tokens per day.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Substance 3D CollectionAutodesk 3ds Max
User Ratings
Adobe Substance 3D CollectionAutodesk 3ds Max
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe Substance 3D CollectionAutodesk 3ds Max
Likelihood to Recommend
It's great if you don't want to mess around trying fixes or subpar software. Adobe Substance 3D is the default, and it just works when you need it. From textures to complex materials, it gets the job done with no worries. It's really good for new users, because the new UI features they implemented simplify the software a lot, and the learning curve is gentle. It is well suited for game development, renders, and top-notch material creation. One of the main features we use is the creation of dynamic materials that have different colors on the edges. This is useful because it adds a lot of realism, for example, in metals.
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Scenarios where Autodesk 3ds Max is well suited: 1. Modeling less complex geometries. 2. For beginners it is good, meshes, poly's, vertexes etc can be easily understood. 3. Easy UI and interoperability. Scenarios where it is less appropriate: 1. Inbuild Rendering (Scanline) can be made better. 2. Performance over low end/Old Pc's need refinement. 3. Bulky Size on disk. 4. Animation is the area which can be made better also.
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Pros
  • Great performance
  • Excellent Adobe support
  • Fast and easy
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  • V-Ray 3ds Max is an awesome third-party plugin for architecture renders in 3ds Max.
  • Complicated models can be made in a simple way in 3ds Max also P-particles, M flow works better then before.
  • Interface is very easy to use. Very open, attractive, and very much ease of use for new users.
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Cons
  • The substance painter is easy to use but its interface could be improved to be a bit more user friendly.
  • More assets can be added to stager, so visualize products better. Also AI workflow can be added for backplates.
  • Substance designer learning curve is very tough. Many people not able to grab it. It could be simplified.
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  • working in 2d is very frustrating and unreliable. It just lacks the precision
  • How scaling affects units (or doesn't) There needs to be a way for modifiers to address a change of scale in the object.
  • Booleans are not intuitive. Especially for architecture, creating an opening and putting a door or a window is an incredibly cumbersome process.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
It satisfies 95% of my 3d visualization need. The left over 5% is handled by a few other programs. If Max just can't perform a specific task I can do that elsewhere and then bring it back to Max to finish up. But, it's rare that this occurs in my work
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Usability
The overall usability of substance stager and painter is quite easy. Many people will be able to use it without much prior experience. But designer is very complicated to learn and not many resources available for that. I think if they integrate the AI and provide better resources in the general interface, it could be a 10 on 10 in usability.
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It is a very difficult program to learn to use and even harder to use well. But once you get to using it it is a great software package to know how to use. Getting to be good at using it takes lots of use.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
I have contacted support many times and have had a good experience. They have always been helpful
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Alternatives Considered
I am not able to enter in the list the most close to substance we used like instamat and pixplant. We used them as cheaper alternatives to substance, they have limited tools and dont provide full control and accessibility for what we need. Blender is good for creating materials using nodes and stuff but not upto the mark. There is always something missing. For the photoshop, there is no option to create textures on 3d, which makes it tedious. For the KeyShot its good and sometimes better than stager but the overall value in substance collection and the seamless integration with other apps is very good
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I use Blender, Maya is expensive learned it once but about the same as 3ds Max, just more expensive. Blender is great, open source and hard to learn, but work it. But since I have so much experience in 3ds Max it is my go to software.
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Return on Investment
  • The library we create in the substance painter really helps us to save a lot of time for future projects. Drag and drop the materials and boom product is ready.
  • Stager cuts us the costs by saving us time on the feedbacks because of the better visualization we were able to provide at initial stages.
  • Designer didnt helped us much directly but somewhat useful as it comes with the package and it has great tools which might be costlier to buy separately.
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  • Having to take comments on and re-render a set of single multi-camera shots wastes a lot of time, as there is also an error "batch render." Slows down my completion of a job, even for the most minor image updates.
  • Not being able to offer my freelance/contractor services period in-house on studios that are exclusively Mac. They don't even offer Autodesk 3ds Max as an option because they have never been able to see it in action. Huge loss of potential hires, with my 33year 3DStudio/Autodesk 3ds Max experience
  • When most current version is needed I jump onto the subscription temporarily and this eats severely into my profits. As clients want lower and lower prices with international and AI competition. Especially when I know many International houses for a fact use pirated 3D software.
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ScreenShots