What?s New in 3ds Max 2021
Highlights

Bake to Texture:
New tool for baking maps and surfaces offers faster performance in a new streamlined workflow
Extensive renderer support including Arnold
Error validation and compatible map filtering
Support for OSL texture maps and Blended Box map
MikkT normal mapping support.
PBR Materials:
New PBR materials make the interaction of light with surfaces physically accurate
The two types of maps, PBR Material (Metal/Rough) and PBR Material (Spec/Gloss), ensure compatibility with any real-time engine workflow
Drag and drop downloaded PBR maps straight from Windows Explorer into the Material/Maps Browser.
Weighted Normals Modifier:
The Weighted Normals modifier improves the shading of models by altering the vertex normals to be perpendicular to larger flat polygons
Generates explicit normals for meshes better and faster than ever
Weight options include: Area, Angle, and Largest Face
Full control over smoothing and blending values.

New OSL Shaders:
New shaders include:

HDRI Environment controls the positioning and final look of the environment both in the viewport and the final render
HDRI Lights lets you place HDR photos of real-world lightsources that dynamically update the scene
Uber Noise adds complex types of noise such as Perlin, Fractal, Cell, fBm, and Worley
Other new and updated shaders include Color Correction, Float and Color Curves, plus Camera, Object, and Spherical Projections.
Arnold renderer as default:
3ds Max 2021 includes Arnold 6.0 as the default renderer, instead of the Scanline Renderer. This gives you a modern, high-end rendering experience.
Supports the new Bake to Texture workflows.
New AOV workflows.
Includes new Scene Converter scripts for converting V-Ray and Corona Materials to the Physical Material.
New Substance2 Map:
Substance2 map is faster than the legacy Substance map.
Utilizes updates to the latest Substance engine for native sbar loading. You no longer need to export maps from Substance Designer.
Supports up to 8k textures.
Supports the renderers included with 3ds Max: Arnold, ART, Scanline and Quicksilver.
Scripted tools to quickly set up Substances with a particular type of material or to back maps to files.