Max.NET is a .NET CLI wrapper of (almost*) the whole 3d Studio Max SDK. It gives anybody the ability to use managed environment and a .NET language (such as C#, Visual Basic, J#, and many more) to extend 3d Studio Max by writing plugins and tools that exist within its environment.

Because Max.NET provides a 1:1 wrapped translation of the C++ SDK it is possible to do almost anything that can be done through C++. The managed environment, however, provides a number of benefits over the unmanaged C++. Some of these benefits are:

• The compilation time even for larger tools is dramatically reduced (it takes mere seconds to compile a .NET project vs. minutes or hours for compiling C++ code and all of its dependencies).
• Managed IDE allows for much easier development. Tools like intellisense and implicit documentation increase coding speed. Real-time error highlighting and detection prevents many bugs.
• Managed environment removes the need for low-level memory management. This prevents many bugs associated with unmanaged code.
• Additional benefit from remoting framework allows for easy unit testing of your projects and external code execution (outside of 3d Studio Max application domain). You can even execute code over network.
• Plugins created using Max.NET are platform neutral- one assembly will work with both x64 and Win32 3d Studio Max versions.
• All the benefits of reflection (being able to tell class meta-information at runtime), built-in, and external .NET assemblies.

The speed of plugins and tools using Max.NET is comparable to that of C++. This means that these tools will run (much) faster than any MaxScript counterpart.

Max.NET is free for non-commercial use given that you also provide source code for your plugins if you are distributing them (as per free GPL license). A commercial license must be obtained for any other use. This license grants unlimited commercial development as well as support time and full source-code for Max.NET.