Image File Formats

Image files, also known as bitmaps, have a variety of uses in 3ds max scenes. You can use bitmaps as textures for materials, as backgrounds to viewports, as background environments, or as Image Input events in Video Post, or as images projected from a light.

An image file can be a single still image, or a sequence of images that form a video sequence or animation. When you assign an animation for use as a bitmap, then the image changes over time when you render the 3ds max scene.

In 3ds max 5, bitmaps are now reloaded automatically after they have been changed and resaved by a graphic editing program. See the Reload Textures On Change toggle in Files Preferences Settings.

When you render a scene, you can render a still image or an animation. You can render to most of the formats listed below. Some of the formats support various options. If there are output options, these appear in a dialog that is described along with the image file's format.

These are the image file formats supported by 3ds max:

AVI Files

BMP File

CWS Files (combustion Workspace)

DDS Files

Encapsulated PostScript Files

FLC Files

GIF Files

IFL Files

JPEG Files

Kodak Cineon

PNG Files

PSD Files

QuickTime Movies

RLA Files

RPF Files

SGI Image File Format (RGB)

Targa Files

TIFF Files

YUV Files

Note: To save loading time, if a map with the same name is in two different locations (in two different paths), it is loaded only once. This poses a problem only if your scene includes two maps that have different content but the same name. In this case, only the first map encountered will appear in the scene.