How to Decimate Mesh in Autodesk 3ds Max
Table of Contents
General Information
This guide is part of the RapidPipeline 3D Plugin Actions Knowledge Base. It shows how to Decimate Mesh on Autodesk 3ds Max; if you'd like to know more about it, please check out the following links:
Tutorials & Videos
- On the Menu Bar, click on RapidPipeline and choose Load Plug-in.
- Select the model you want to optimize (if no selection is made, the whole scene will be processed).
- Inside the Plugin window, choose the Action Decimate Mesh.
- Press the Run button. :::note Please note that if a deviation target is set, it acts as a cap. If you want to reach the exact specified face target under any circumstances, Deviation Target must be set to 0. :::
- Use the 3ds Max Plugin
- Select a part
- Run an Action
- Examine the results
This tutorial shows how use the RapidPipeline Processor Plugin in 3ds Max to simplify the geometry of a model with the “Decimate Mesh” action. For more information see the 3ds Max Plugin Documentation. The Add-On runs on a powerful 3D data optimization and automation toolset, for more about this see the 3D Processor Reference.
The asset used in this tutorial (https://skfb.ly/6VnPP) by Belzar Sirus is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

The show input model.

The shoe after the optimization.
Here is a preview of the processing´s output: the input shoe (top) has about 150K faces while the output (bottom) has been reduced to 50k faces.
Decimate Mesh Action

- Select the model you want to optimize (if no selection is made, the whole scene will be processed). 3. Inside the Plugin window, choose the Action Decimate Mesh. 4. Press the Run button.

Location of the UI in the Menu Bar.

The Decimate Mesh action opened in the Plugin.
Examine the Results
To fully check the topology optimization, enable “Edged Faces” from the Viewport Shading drop-down menu, so you can see a wireframe view of your models.

“Edged Faces” option in the Viewport Shading drop-down menu.

Wireframe inspection of input.

Wireframe inspection of output.
Next Steps
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