Generate AI Video in Seconds inside of 3ds Max

Added: 2026-05-29

[00:00:00]All right, I've been animating my 3D renders inside of 3ds Max using AI. I built a plugin that turns any two renders into a video. So, I'm going to show you the plugin, the prompts, and how to use it yourself. So, right now, if you want to animate a still render, you got to save your first frame and your last frame.

[00:00:18]And then, you head to your platform.

[00:00:21]You upload your first frame.

[00:00:23]You upload your second. You write your prompt here. You hit submit.

[00:00:29]Then, you wait a few minutes for it to come back. What I found was like the last job I did, I was just constantly jumping back and forth between Max and then jumping back into some tabs and then back and forth, and I just would forget what was going on in Max, and I just felt like I was doing a lot of back and forth. It's not even the time it takes. It's just that by the time the video comes back, I've forgotten what I'm doing in here. So, I built a plugin that fixes it. I very originally called it Video Max, and it lives inside of 3ds Max. So, I've got my interior scene open, and all I need to do is capture first frame. So, whatever is in in the frame buffer will be put into here. So, we can add what we like. We can clear it. We can choose whatever model we want to use. We can choose the duration, the resolution, and then we can write a prompt. So, I put in my prompt, and I hit generate. So, for this one, I put a woman in loungewear. She walks in from behind the camera up with tea and sits on the edge of the bed. And the cool thing here is that I can continue working in Max. Like, I can change my camera angles, and I can keep doing what I'm doing. So, I can put it over to one side if I want. Um and I can keep doing my thing while this is generating. And the reason I think this is important is that if you scroll social media, you're going to realize that static images just aren't cutting it anymore. Every feed is full up of video. This means our clients want video more than ever, especially to feed the endless algorithm beast. Um and lucky for us, we now have the tools to make this easier than ever. So, this is going to enable us to keep up with demand. So, I'm going to be going back and adding motion to all of my old projects and adding motion to my portfolio. All right, so it's now come back and we can hit play.

[00:02:08]And there she is. We've also got a pop-out preview window, so we can watch the output there as well. And then it also all saves to our computer. So, there's no more browsers, no tabs, no downloads, no extract all. All right, so now let's check out some other use cases. So, the first one is the classic empty room to full room. I'm just going to put this on standard. It's cheaper and it's faster.

[00:02:35]And then I'll add my prompt. I'll put all these prompts in the community, which if you're not in there, it's free.

[00:02:42]It's the place to be. We're making tools like this. We're talking 3D. We're talking clients. There's no reason why you shouldn't join.

[00:02:49]And there is our result. And that took the same amount of time as it would take for you to find your clean password.

[00:02:58]We can also just right click and clear these. And let's try a cinematic time-lapse from day to night.

[00:03:06]So, in my testing, these have cost around 50 cents per generation for standard and around a dollar for pro.

[00:03:14]So, this is just one of the tools that we've been building. The last one, if you haven't seen it yet, was an AI model generator in Max. And for this one, the next version, I think we'll do batch generations so that you can send a queue of these rather than waiting for one by one.

[00:03:29]Um that's a very easy fix. I probably should have done it for this video, but I was too excited to to show you guys uh what we've been working on. So, it's pretty quick, as you can see.

[00:03:40]And there's the day-to-night shot. Next up, let's try an exterior.

[00:03:44]So, just a time-lapse with very subtle tree movements and static cameras. Take a look at our day-to-night time-lapse.

[00:03:51]Let's try a different angle of the exterior. This time we'll make it 5 seconds and we'll have them interior lights turning on. So, we'll hit generate. So, what's also cool about this is it just saves directly to the computer, so we can just open up the folder and find our first frame, last frame, and video.

[00:04:11]All right, and that one's done.

[00:04:17]Obviously, if you've got like a first frame and a last frame that you want to use, you're going to have a lot greater control over this. So, let's make this one 5 seconds.

[00:04:32]Generate.

[00:04:34]See, you can see we got a lot more control over that.

[00:04:37]Here are a few more examples. And if you want to be in the community figuring out which AI tools are worth your time and which are noise, then come join the number one 3D artist community on school. We meet every week for coffee hour. There's a link in the description.

[00:04:50]And if you're a 3D artist looking to turn your skills into income, then applications for future-proof 3D artist is now open. And if you want to see how I'm approaching AI, you can check out this video.