Perforce in 3ds Max: check out, lock, sync and submit from the Dousen panel

By Luca Vitiello · Updated 6 October 2026

Dousen adds a docked panel to 3ds Max. Its Perforce tab shows whether the open scene is locked, opened by others or behind the depot, and lets you check out, sync and revert it under your own Perforce user. Published exports go to the Jira task's changelist.

• 3ds Max opens the same docked panel as Maya at startup, with a Perforce tab.
• The Dousen menu (3ds Max 2025 and later) opens it.
• Buttons: Check Out, Sync & Reload, Revert, Refresh.
• Status comes from p4 fstat and refreshes about every 30 seconds.
• An animation instance exports its own nodes and skeleton roots to FBX, like a mesh instance.

What Perforce status does the Dousen panel show in 3ds Max?

3ds Max opens the same docked panel as Maya at startup, with the same tabs. In 3ds Max 2025 and later, a Dousen menu appears before the Help menu, and Dousen Panel shows or hides the dock. The Perforce tab shows the state of the current scene, read with p4 fstat and refreshed about every 30 seconds. The panel header shows the current task and Stream: <name> or Classic depot. The lines are:

How do I check out, sync and revert a scene from 3ds Max?

1. Open a scene saved under your Perforce workspace root and select the Perforce tab.
2. Click Check Out to edit an existing file. It opens in the selected task's changelist, or in default if no task is active.
3. If the status says Not at latest, click Sync & Reload and confirm. The reload discards unsaved changes.
4. Click Revert and confirm to discard your changes to an open file.
5. Click Refresh to read the state again.

Each button is available only when it applies to the file's state. For a new scene, use the New Asset tab, or New Asset in the Dousen menu, and click Set Up Asset. Dousen saves the scene to the resolved source path and adds it to the task's changelist.

How do exported files land in the task's changelist?

Select a task in DousenDesktop and it sends the Jira key and changelist to every running DCC. On the Publish tab, click Publish. Dousen selects each instance's nodes, plus the skeleton root bones for a skinned mesh, exports them as FBX, and opens the scene and your previous outputs for edit in the task's changelist. New files are added after the export. Nothing is submitted until you submit from DousenDesktop, as described in One changelist per Jira task. The Publish mesh.export on save checkbox on the Tools tab applies the same handling on save.

After you restart 3ds Max, the first publish doesn't know the previous outputs. Check those out yourself if your workspace is read-only.

What stops a publish in 3ds Max?

A Perforce pre-flight runs before the export. If another user has locked a file the export would write, the publish stops and names the lock, and the failure shows in Publish history in DousenDesktop. Save-triggered publishes check for locks as well.

How does the 3ds Max addon load?

DousenDesktop ships the addon and loads it when you launch 3ds Max from the apps bar. Check the executable path under Settings → DCC Apps first. The panel opens at startup. A 3ds Max started from a desktop shortcut has no Dousen panel, and a running session needs a restart after you update Desktop. If your studio runs its own startup scripts, Loading studio tools explains when they run. See also How the addons load.

If your studio keeps DCC source files in a separate Perforce repository, possibly on another server, the same buttons act on that repository's server. See Source repositories for the admin binding and the artist workspace.

Related

• 3ds Max addon reference
• Perforce in the Dousen docs
• One changelist per Jira task
• Perforce actions in the DCC addons

Dousen is free during the studio beta, with access by request, and free forever for teams of up to 5 users. Request early access.