Documentation & Tutorials
Learn how to install and use the Poliigon 3ds Max Plugin.
3ds Max Plugin Docs
Create more in 3ds Max
The Poliigon 3ds Max Plugin puts 4,000+ models, materials and HDRIs at your fingertips. Search, download and import without leaving 3ds Max.
Download 3ds Max Plugin
For 3ds Max 2021-2025, updated 20 November 2024
3 Reasons to use our 3ds Max Plugin
#1: No more browser
The power to search, download and import Poliigon assets from inside 3ds Max.
#2: One-click import
Say goodbye to tedious setups and complicated import settings. This addon does it for you in one-click.
#3: Try before you buy
Aren’t sure if the texture is right? Click the preview icon on any texture to see it temporarily applied to the selected object.
Poliigon 3ds Max Plugin Changelog
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
v0.15.2 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
- Overhaul of the drag and drop experience
- You can now more reliably drag and drop a material onto any object in the viewport with confidence
- Materials are now applied only to the object you drag onto, regardless of selection; if you want to apply materials to multiple objects at once, select them all and then use the import button in the plugin instead of drag and drop
- Dragging into empty space now places the object or preview plane into the middle of your screen at the floor level, instead of placement at the origin
- Improved communication for unlimited users who exceed the Fair Use Policy, learn more here
- Fixes
- Largely eliminated the risk of crashing after repeat FBX imports of models
- Fixed the depth check for drag and drop of materials and assets, previously sometimes objects in the back were preferred
- Releasing a drag provides more immediate feedback, while previously the icon would hang onto the cursor until the import action completed
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
v0.15.1 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
- The imported tab now functions as intended for unlimited plan users, where previously it would always appear blank
- Fixed an issue where some fabric materials would download but not be recognized as local for importing, due to not being saved into a subfolder
Friday, October 18, 2024
v0.15.0 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
- Support for Poliigon Unlimited plans
- These plans let you download an unlimited number of Textures, Models, and HDRIs from Poliigon with no credits or download limits, learn more here
- If you cancel your unlimited plan, the plugin will no longer allow you to re-import premium assets; this does not impact assets downloaded using packs or a plan with a monthly asset balance
- Known issue: Assets downloaded via an unlimited plan are not currently visible in the Imported tab, an update coming soon will resolve this
- Added a large preview + asset details viewer
- You are now able to right-click any asset to open a large detail viewer
- This viewer lets you scroll through all of the same preview images on the website, except for video previews
- This popup also includes details such as the physical size of the asset, and other meta data where relevant such as polycount and maps included
- This also allows for a quick way to download other resolutions, open the website, or open the folder(s) an asset is contained inside of (if local)
- Improved onboarding experience
- Users will see one-time popups when purchasing their first asset, to raise awareness of available user settings
- Users will see a one-time popup the first time they perform a pbr watermark preview (by dragging a non-acquired asset into the scene), to clarify what this means
- Added a new setting called Show Purchase Confirmation, which if enabled gives the user an extra chance to confirm a purchase before the asset balance is used
- Reworked the account tab to be simpler
- Added a button in settings to reset map extension choices to match the website
- Fixes
- Cancelled downloads no longer hang, which could happen if cancellation was pressed quickly before the download was started
- Safer and more reliable plugin shutdown handling
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
v0.14.1 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
- Fixed dependencies which broke installations for 2021 and 2022 3ds max users
- We recommend 2021 and 2022 users first delete their existing plugin before installing the new version, to ensure all dependencies are corrected. You can remove the existing install at:
C:\\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\poliigon-addon-3dsmax - This upgrade is not necessary for 2023+ users
- We recommend 2021 and 2022 users first delete their existing plugin before installing the new version, to ensure all dependencies are corrected. You can remove the existing install at:
- Updated our build environment, so it is no longer possible for testing to occur with outdated dependencies during QA. We will continue to perform testing in all supported versions of 3ds Max for every release.
- Improved logging and error handling for the login and download routines
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
v0.14.0 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2024, 2025
- Improvements
- Map selection preferences
- From the settings tab, you can now adjust default map settings similar to the website
- This allows you to enable or disable optional maps like BaseColorOpacity, as well as specify the per map extension to download and require for importing
- The first time you use the plugin, your website download settings will be used as the default - changing settings thereafter on the website will not change plugin settings, and plugin setting changes do not affect your online download settings.
- Be aware: updating map preferences may require re-downloading missing maps/extensions before being able to import local assets again
- Conditional material imports: when importing a material, the plugin will check if a material with that same combination of resolution and extension/enabled map choices are already in the file, otherwise it will do a fresh import
- Map selection preferences
- Fixes
- Green checkmarks for owned assets now reliably load on the Online tab
- Updated the url for the website pricing page
- Improved handling of partial failures during file downloads
- Users are now forced to restart 3ds max after installing an update, and improved recognition of new plugin installs - this is to ensure the plugin is fully loaded with the most up to date modules
- Top-right notices are now properly dismissed after pressing the x-icon
Friday, August 23, 2024
v0.13.2 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2024, 2025
- Added support for multiple libraries
- You can now add additional folders or drives in Settings, any Poliigon assets found there will be available for importing
- Downloads will continue to go into the 'Primary' folder.
- Implemented offline and restart notification banners to help communicate the plugin status
- Refactor in how downloads are handled, with this update downloads should be more stable and more likely to complete with fewer timeout errors
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
v0.13.1 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2024, 2025
- Fixes
- Fix loading displacement files in the .tiff format
Thursday, June 6, 2024
v0.12.4 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2024, 2025
- Improvements
- The My Assets category tree is now sparsely populated, only showing categories where you own at least 1 asset
- Fixes
- Resolved issue of plugin now working after closing and reopening the window, it will now return to working such that your scroll and category position is retained
- Fixing a few scenarios of redrawing causing when quickly changing tabs
- Improved the stability of FBX imports by closing and then re-showing the plugin after an FBX import as completed, given the built-in import causes quite a bit of flickering for each import performed
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
v0.12.3 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025
- Fixed some assets loading as empty materials, due to having only the Specular workflow locally.
- For limitations across render engines, the new plugin always will push users to use the 'METALNESS' workflow files over the 'SPECULAR' workflow files where there is an option at download. If you have legacy 'SPECULAR' files on your harddrive, you will continue to not be able to use these files - but we are better handling it so it's easy to download the metalness variants for higher quality rendering.
- Resolved issues with auto update installation
- You may need to perform a manual install in order to get the working plugin - moving forward, a more stable forward-compatible installation is being used.
- Fix loading the correct variant 1 for assets with multiple image map variants
- Non user impacting change: Swapped to a self-hosted reporting backend, for users who opt into sharing error/usage details
Thursday, April 25, 2024
v0.12.2 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025
- Improvements
- Indicate assets purchased but not-yet local with a gray checkmark, so that local assets with a green checkmark are easier to identify
- Added signal to remotely inform how an initiated download completed, so we may better monitor and improve asset download reliability
- Minor UI improvements during library setup
- Improvement on Arnold bitmaps to avoid opening the same map twice, slowing down material creation
- Fixes
- Support for 3ds Max 2025, including fixes to the qt6 library and HDRI importing
- Implemented workaround to convert thumbnail hdri jpg to png, due to missing qt dll in released 3ds Max 2025 version
- Resolved permission error that could occur during thumbnail downloads
- Resolved a NotImplementedError would could occur during browsing
- Improved the fallback for reading the currency code displayed on the account page for paid plans
- Better fallback handling if an icon is not readable
Tuesday, Mar 21, 2024
v0.12.1 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2023, 2024
- Improvements
- Implemented functional SSS, Fabric (fuzz sheen), and Translucency workflows for all render engines, utilized automatically for models and materials containing the maps
- Auto expand a category on selection for faster browsing between categories
- Fixes
- More stable handling of missing thumbnails on server. Previously, a missing thumbnail could have rendered the UI non functional, now it will gracefully move past the asset with any problems, and better yet, fall back to downloading the next best thumbnail.
- Improved handling of asset metadata convention
Tuesday, Feb 27, 2024
v0.12.0 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2022, 2023, 2024
- Improvements
- Added both Octane and Redshift render engine, supporting all assets available in the plugin (Models, Materials, and HDRIs)
- Asset names are now visible in the grid view
- During your first material import, a one-time popup will ask you to confirm your real world scale settings, addressing feedback of different users wanting the default on vs off. This can be changed in the Settings: Download & Import preferences > Textures > Real World Scale tickbox
- The thumbnail size slider is now synced between views and saved to settings whenever adjusted
- Added a mechanism to alert users about specific assets with newer conventions not supported by their current plugin install. No current assets are affected, but this will help direct users to update the plugin when new asset conventions are rolled out for users that have delayed updating.
- Enabling 16bit images and turning off emission for cardboard (backdrop) assets. In the future, we will have per maptype options for which bit depth to use
- Fixes
- Fixed error handling in the grid view which caused 3ds max to crash. This is likely the most prominent causes of instability users have faced
- Implemented numerous minor fixes to materials generated. Known workflows still missing: SSS, translucency, and fabric (fuzz), coming in the next update.
- Better handling of unsupported render engines, including a notice that Corona 7+ is required
- Fixed some maps sometimes not loading into assets due to alphamasked assets, such as with GrillTeslaWavyCrissCross001
Thursday, January 25, 2024
v0.11.1 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2022, 2023
- Quality of life improvements:
- Clicking asset balance opens account page in the plugin instead of the website page
- Implemented faster method from new endpoint for downloading thumbnails during browsing
- Improved logging mechanism, including logging background threads and saving logs to a file for more reliable troubleshooting
- Fixes
- Fixed most commonly faced bug during material creation, which could result in the console error: 'pymxs.MXSWrapperBase' object has no attribute 'name'
Tuesday, January 3, 2024
v0.11.0 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
- Quality of life improvements:
- Support for the new asset balance redesign, read more here
- Added notification popup after purchasing if out of credits, with prompt for taking further action
- Fixes
- Fixed the grid widget editor not opening after scrolling or purchasing, which would have required users to move their mouse off and back onto the grid item to perform imports
Thursday, December 21, 2023
v0.10.0 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
- Quality of life improvements:
- Textures now import with real world scale applied
- Added FBX Models importing support, in addition to 3ds Max files. See options in user preferences
- New preference option to add a synced node scales, default off. Previously, this was always on. It may have appeared that UVs or scale could not be changed in textures, due to this hidden control node used to sync sizes across textures. There are now two to correctly adjust for some non-square textures.
- Added a general purpose alert banner system, so we can notify users of critical outages or about unsupported versions of the plugin in the future
- Added feedback survey mechanism with above banner, suggesting users give feedback only once after a week of using the plugin
- Textures now import using Bitmap Textures in Arnold
- Retain window size, position, and state after re-opening
- Fixes
- Several data and processing improvements, the plugin should be appear much more stable
- Fixed quickly changing tabs potentially resulting in a hanging loading state
- Fixed runtime errors relating to closing and re-opening the main plugin UI
- Fixed over-reporting of non-issue API responses
- Fixed issue where my assets would always fully refresh when opening the page, if there was one purchase sometime during this session
- Improved reliability of API download handling, which should reduce glitches including on download
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
v0.9.2 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2021, 2022, 2024
- Quality of life improvements:
- Added user preferences for texture and HDRI download + import resolution
- Implemented a one-click auto update button. Moving forward, the plugin will directly notify you at the top right when a new update is ready to be installed.
- Improved re-install experience, including a popup directing new users to dock the new plugin
- Lower corona normal map blur filtering for higher quality results with minimal render time impact
- Fixes
- Fixed a bug during preview file downloads: UnboundLocalError local variable.
- Fixed drawing errors in 3ds max 2021 when hovering over a grid asset item
- Fixed a bug resulting in failed downloads if asset already had local, completed files
Monday, September 18, 2023
v0.9.1 - 3ds Max beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2022, 2024
- Quality of life improvements:
- New popup during (re)-install to prompt users to dock or which new version was just installed
- Reinstalling the plugin won't result in duplicate popups now
- Plugin version information now available in the main settings tab
- Fixes
- Resolved an issue where the drag resolution for a texture would not match the dropdown specified resolution, which could lead to an error during material creation.
- Resolved an issue which would lead to errors if the same asset was found in multiple folders
Wednesday, September 6, 2023
v0.9.0 - 3ds Max Beta
Supports 3ds Max 2021+, tested on: 2022, 2023, 2024
First 3ds Max Plugin available to users, with the ability to:
First 3ds Max Plugin available to users, with the ability to:
- Browse for Textures, Models, and HDRIs
- Purchaase and download without leaving 3ds Max
- Preview PBR textures as a material in your scene before purchasing
- Import and automatically set up textures, 3ds max model files, and HDRIs based on the active render engine
- Support initially for Arnold, V-Ray, and Corona. More coming soon
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