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For those who don’t know the tool: 3ds Max is Autodesk’s Windows DCC for modelling, animation, layout and rendering. It sits beside Maya, connects to Arnold and OpenUSD, and now brings splat data into the Max stack.
Splats enter the stack
3ds Max 2027.2 adds support for importing, previewing, manipulating, relighting and rendering Gaussian Splatting data. The supported import formats are PLY, SPZ from Niantic Spatial and LCC from XGRIDS. The practical translation is simple: captured splat assets no longer have to live in a viewer, a converter, or a folder named final_final_really_final.
The imported splats display in the viewport as point data and can be previewed through ActiveShade. They can then be manipulated with the new point tools or with existing modifiers. For artists, this is the useful bit. The splat becomes scene data, not a pretty hostage file.
What a splat is carrying
A 3D Gaussian Splat is not a mesh with a more fashionable haircut. The original technique represents scenes with 3D Gaussians derived from calibrated image captures, optimising position, opacity, anisotropic covariance and spherical-harmonic colour coefficients for fast novel-view rendering. In production terms, each splat carries spatial and appearance data, including view-dependent colour behaviour.
That is why splats are attractive for organic mess: foliage, plants, hair-like detail, rough surfaces and scanned environments where a conventional mesh can become either too heavy, too smooth or both. They can preserve visual effects from multiple viewing angles that are painful to rebuild with polygons. Painful here means “someone will eventually suggest a manual retopo pass”, which is usually how the will to live leaves the room.
Editable Points are the hinge
The structural change in 2027.2 is the new Points object type. It represents point data inside Max, including Editable Points, Point Spheres and Gaussian Splats. A Gaussian Splat can be converted into an Editable Point object for direct editing of the underlying data. Editable Points expose stored splat data such as position, orientation, splat size, colour and harmonic data. Artists can inspect point attributes, select points with similar colour values, modify those colours and see the result reflected at render time.
The workflow also supports direct duplication. Shift-drag can duplicate selected points while moving or rotating them, similar to familiar Editable Poly behaviour. Soft selection can move, rotate or scale point regions, so edits do not have to look like they were performed with a hole punch. // Not independently verified at press time.
Existing modifiers get involved
The implementation treats splats as point-based scene data, so existing deformation modifiers can operate on them. Bend, Twist, Squash, Melt and similar deformation modifiers can be applied to splats for procedural edits. That does not make every scan beautiful. It does mean the scan can finally be bullied by the same modifier stack as everything else. Point Select adds selection handling for point subsets. Selected points can be hidden, isolated or passed up the stack so modifiers above it operate only on that selection. A simple XForm modifier can move part of a splat while the rest stays untouched, keeping the edit non-destructive. // Not independently verified at press time.
Meshes and splines can become points
The Points system is not limited to imported Gaussian Splats. Meshes and splines can also generate point data. A mesh can convert vertices into points, while spline knots and sampled knots can become points as well. Turn to Point provides the procedural route. It can convert mesh vertices to points, generate points over a surface, or generate points through a volume. The workflow also mentions rasterisation, face-based distribution, density-based distribution, jitter controls, and options for restoring normal and colour data.
Point Instance does the heavy lifting
The new Point Instance modifier places referenced scene objects at points on the modified object. It works on polygonal meshes and Points objects, but not on point clouds or particle systems. It can instance polygonal meshes and Gaussian Splats.
Array stops making everything worse
The Array modifier can now work with Points as an input or output type. Instead of generating actual mesh geometry, it can generate point data that preserves the position, rotation and scale transforms produced by the array. Those points can feed directly into Point Instance.
This changes the cost of repeated objects. The older mesh-copy route works for light assets, then becomes a small act of violence once the source objects get heavier. The point-output route keeps the array interactive for cases where instances are enough. Small array tests have been described as roughly five times faster, with larger scenes showing more dramatic gains as object count and mesh weight increase. press time.
Viewport bounding-box display can further improve interactivity while iterating. Point Instance can also instance objects that are already instances, including nested instance chains. Gaussian Splats can be instanced in the same system.
Arnold renders and relights
Arnold 7.5.2 supports rendering and relighting 3D Gaussian Splats loaded from PLY files. The version shipped on 18 June 2026 and is included in 3ds Max through MAXtoA 5.9.3.0. Arnold uses a point-based route for splat data and includes a Gaussian Splat Shader for controlling appearance and relighting.
The shader supports a captured look and relighting with Arnold scene lights. The Max workflow also shows splats appearing in reflections, casting shadows and respecting transparency in shadows. This is the production-facing advantage over a splat viewer. A capture can sit in a rendered scene, respond to lights, show up in reflections and participate more cleanly in a shot. It still inherits the capture’s sins. Bad exposure, bad coverage and bad scale do not become good because a renderer shook their hand.
Other renderers have homework
The splat object is described as a native Max class, with API access available for other renderers. Support in V-Ray, Corona or other renderers depends on those renderer developers implementing it. Arnold support is the confirmed path here. Everything else should be treated as future plugin work until the renderer vendor ships and documents. This is the correct level of excitement: useful, but not magical. A native object gives third parties something to target. It does not automatically make every renderer fluent in splat.
SPZ and USD matter too
SPZ is Niantic’s compressed 3D Gaussian Splat format. Niantic describes SPZ files as typically around 10x smaller than corresponding PLY files, with minimal visual difference. The repository also documents coordinate-system handling, including RUB storage by default and conversion support for other axis conventions.
That coordinate-system detail is not trivia. Splats cross tools, viewers, game engines and DCCs, and every pipeline eventually discovers that “up” is a philosophical position. SPZ at least acknowledges the argument before your asset arrives lying on its face.
OpenUSD also has a Gaussian Splat path through ParticleField3DGaussianSplat. The schema represents the original 3D Gaussian Splat technique as a ParticleField, with built-in schema support for the required 3DGS data and rendering hints for projection and sorting modes.
Arnold 7.5.2 includes preliminary support for the USD Gaussian Splat schema. Preliminary means pipeline supervisors should read it as “test this in a copy, not on Friday afternoon in the hero sequence”.
The rest of 2027.2
Smart Bevel receives performance and reliability improvements. The vendor benchmark claim is up to 20x faster processing and 22x lower memory use. That is a claim, not a permission slip to bevel the furniture, the skyline and all your bad decisions.
USD for 3ds Max 0.16.2 adds diagnostics for asset paths. Flow Studio appears through a UI launch button. Useful, perhaps. Deep integration, no. It is a button. Buttons have their place.
https://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2027/ENU/?guid=GUID-D11D1F34-C9FF-4981-AAE3-5A969986FCF4
https://digitalproduction.com/2026/06/25/arnold-7-5-2-adds-gaussian-splats/
https://aousd.org/blog/openusd-v26-03/
https://openusd.org/dev/user_guides/schemas/usdVol/ParticleField3DGaussianSplat.html
