MAX Plugins.de News Archive

Archived Plugin News  –  March 2016
 

Plugin Update: Modelling / Texturing

Changes for v5.0.4 beta are:
- Adds a toolbar with various useful shortcuts
- Adds an Effects Library Browser
- ForestEdge now works properly with new Corona 1.3 materials
- Forest Lister now shows number of estimated render items instead of viewport items
- Fixes a crash with VRayClipper
- Fixes 'Zoom extent' behaviour with selected items in Custom Edit mode
- Forest LOD using Look-At target now works without a camera assigned
- Fixes Distribution->Collision->Radius affecting Edge mode
- Fixes continuous rebuild when using nested Forests with 'Consolidate Materials' off
- This beta release requires a license upgrade

Forest Pack Pro is available for Max 9 to 2016 and costs €200. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v2.5.3 beta are:
- Fixes a bug with the Y Sequencer (a v2.5.2 bug)
- The 'RC' icon can now be selected from the viewport
- This beta release requires a license upgrade

RailClone Pro is available for Max 9 to 2016 and costs €200 A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: MCG

This is a set of simple MCG modifiers which do very powerful things when used in a procedural workflow. You can make adjustments to a mesh's pivot inversely by using these modifiers, and you can animate at a sub-object level.


Plugin Update: Modelling / Animation

Changes for v4.2.7.7127 are:
- The Gravity modifier is now part of hair grooms
- Distances in grooms are now always in centimeters
- Fixes the base channel parameter not being used when inheriting proxy mesh UV coordinates
- Fixes guides snapping back to original shape if animated and combed at non-0 frame
- 'Base object is optional' is now true by default in the grooms generator
- Fixes hair shape sometimes not updating during rendering
- Fixes the Cluster modifier diagram resetting after cloning
- Fixes the Gravity Gizmo not rotating in the right direction according to the gizmo
- Documentation updates

Ornatrix is available for Max 2009 to 2016 and costs $499. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v0.1.3 are:
- Adds a pause button in RT mode
- RT UI changes
- 20-30% speed-up (scene-dependent)
- Fixes an RT memory leak
- Fixes a delay when opening the render settings panel
- Fixes missed render samples
- Fixes a production render crash


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v2.30.18 are:
- Increases the speed of loading directories with a large number of files
- Fixes a bug when opening the 'Folder Browser' dialog
- Fixes an issue with setting pivots for objects converted to proxy
- Fixes other minor issues and bugs

Project Manager is available for Max 2010 to 2016 and costs $75. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v3.54.00 are:
- Fixes a bug when opening the 'Folder Browser' dialog
- Fixes a bug rendering previews in Max 2016 when using custom studio scene
- Fixes a bug in the 'Confirm replace' dialog
- Fixes some other issues

FilePathFinder Pro is available for Max 2010 to 2016 and costs $30. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: MCG

This is an MCG object that creates a simple spline grid, with options to display the individual components of the grid (horizontal, vertical and perimeter).


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v7.3.2.0 are:
- Fixes an error in the default balancing algorithm script (DefaultAlgorithm.py)
- Max SMTD now closes the render setup dialog before batch submission
- Max SMTD now opens/closes the render setup dialog during submission to update render elements
- Fixes an error message in the After Effects submitter when Javascript debugging is enabled
- Submitting specific C4D Takes now uses the render settings for that Take instead of the general render settings
- Public Amazon Machine Imagess are now shown instead of just private ones

Deadline is available for Max 2010 to 2016 and costs $185 per node. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v2.25-2.21 are:
- Implements the image border marker in Octane viewport
- Adds a checker background behind alpha in Octane viewport
- Implements the perspective correction hack

OctaneRender for 3ds Max is available for Max 2012 to 2016 and costs €459. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.50 are:
- Fixes a resize error

Bitmap Tracking/Resizing is available for Max 2009 to 2016 and costs $12. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.1 are:
- Adds a 'Subdivision' setting
- Adds some 'Cap' settings

Create Holes is available for Max 2016 and costs $15. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v1.22 are:
- Adds Matte Wrapper function to create Tubes with Matte/Shadow materials
- Fixes a bug with custom attributes when creating a ProPalBoard
- Updates the populate method in ProPalBoard to include new options

ProPal is available for Max 2008 to 2016 and costs $10.


Plugin Update: Modelling / Animation

Changes for v4.2.5.6959 are:
- Adds MAXScript commands to (un|re)install the toolbar
- The W coordinate is now preserved when applying texture coordinates to parametric mesh
- Fixes the Strand length modifier giving incorrect results with only two points in a strand
- Fixes an error when using toolbar to add modifiers to a Hair from Mesh Strips object
- Hair clustering modifier no longer keeps regenerating clusters even when nothing changes
- Documentation has been updated

Ornatrix is available for Max 2009 to 2016 and costs $499. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Global Utilities / Export

Changes for v3.2.3.16769 are:
- Fixes an issue with using local modeldef.xml in Max scripts
- Updates ISimObject, SimConnect, and Rendering PDK documentation
- Fixes minor bugs in several example projects
- Engine Tuner renamed to Engine Sound Tuner and now works with ISimObjects
- Fixes documentation error with Token_Vars
- Fixes documentation error with assigning RTTs to Scaleform Panels
- Adds Scaleform gauge sample
- Renames SimObject flag 'always_use_avg_surface' setting to 'ignore_waves'
- Adds SimConnect_RequestJoystickDeviceInfo function


Plugin Update: Animation

Changes for v5.0 include:
- Adds localization for nine additional languages
- Adds support for timecode
- Updates the shared pose library workflow
- General speed improvements

Faceware Retargeter is available for Max 2012 to 2016 and costs $995 (Studio) / $1995 (Studio Plus). A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Animation

Changes for v1.4 are:
- Adds finger posing sliders
- Adds a pose tween slider
- Solves scaling of stretchy limbs, the entire rig is now scalable
- Adds finger and toe up direction locators for easier setting of rotation direction
- Single joint setup functions now have correct angle sliders
- Finger and toe bend and curl are now angle spinners
- Adds a warning if IK bones have different lengths
- Adds a stricter name-check when keying and zeroing all controllers
- Fixes an error when saving a rig that has orphaned lines
- Pre Flight Check now selects problem vertices
- Rig connect is no longer part of root rig, but a separate function
- Spine rigs no longer create unparented and loose objects
- Setting rig name to empty now makes the name bounce back to 'Jack'
- If found, rig creation stores scene file version into root controller user properties
- FK/IK switch now has undo functionality
- Adds a new workaround for occasional flipped finger bones rotations
- Pro: More robust search for clip directories
- Pro: More robust loading of clip animation
- Pro: Adds animal leg support to the rig builder
- Pro: Axis fixes for animal leg twist bones
- Pro: Adds translate attributes to animal front legs
- Pro: Animal legs now get their build options from regular arm and leg options
- Pro: Adds animal presets for deer, falcon and wolf

Super Simple Rig Pro is available for Max 2010 to 2016 and costs $50. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v3.30.05 are:
- Fixes V-Ray artifacts in alpha channel with specific scene when deep merge mode is by Z-depth
- Fixes V-Ray DR servers not proceeding to next frame during animation rendering
- Fixes V-Ray DR servers sometimes not taking part in light cache calculation
- Fixes random pixels in render elements with layered materials in V-Ray
- Fixes random hanging with very low texture cache memory limit and tiled textures in V-Ray
- Matte objects no longer receive shadows from themselves in V-Ray RT
- Switching language during an ActiveShade session no longer changes the decimal symbol to point
- Fixes 'Enable color map' in Output from clamping textures with V-Ray RT CPU
- Fixes a V-Ray RT GPU crash due to very long node user properties string
- Fixes VRayMultiSubTex 'Face material ID' / 'Random by Node Handle' modes in V-Ray RT GPU
- Dragging a button from the VFB toolbar no longer causes focus freeze
- Mouse cursor no longer sticks to the VFB sliders in the lens effects settings
- The VRayClipper mesh is now accessible through MAXScript
- Fixes the name changing in VRayExtraTex when loading a scene saved with an older V-Ray version
- Fixes the 'Use Real-World Scale' option affecting the material editor preview in VRayHDRI
- Fixes a VRayInstancer crash with ThinkingParticles
- Fixes a VRayGLSLMtl/VRayGLSLTex crash with CUDA error 700 when changing shader parameters
- VRaySamplerInfo integer scalar mode no longer produces wrong results
- Fixes calculation of un-needed shadow rays in VRayScannedMtl
- Writin VRayStereoscopic deep output no longer crashes
- Fixes Houdini imported grid transformation in VRayVolumeGrid
- Fixes broken vrimg2exr output when converting to 16-bit EXR with 'Data window' option enabled

V-Ray is available for Max 9 to 2016 and costs $1040. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v3.10 are:
- Adds Crossroads for creating crossroads from two roads with overlapped faces
- Adds LoftSplines for creating a surface with parallel splines
- Adds IrregularStair for creating stairs with style lines

TerrainAxe is available for Max 9 SP2 to 2016 and costs $220. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v6.8-1b are:
- Fixes the UI not updating when removing multiple jobs in the same operation
- Changes filter icons for host list to reflect host states rather than job statuses
- Fixes an issue that prevented individual frame logs from being viewed
- Removes the upper limit on memory reservation widget in submission dialogs
- Fixes 'Browse OutputDirs' plugin not working if there was a frame that didn't know its output path
- Fixes an issue where submitJSON and submitPKL files failed under Windows if given a ~/path
- Fixes an issue where frames and subjobs improperly determine permissions to run plugins
- Fixes an issue with right-click plugins not working if using old or custom column definitions
- Fixes user filter behavior
- Filters now persist across refreshes and searches
- Filter states now persist across restarts
- Moves user filter from a filter button to a checkbox with a more descriptive label
- Fixes an issue where searches set to be server side would fail
- Fixes job logs not updating when a job moves from running to complete
- Fixes submissions that originally came from WranglerView not being resubmitted from ArtistView
- Fixes an issue where internal socket server fails to start after an ArtistView restart
- Fixes an issue when resubmitting C4D jobs
- Fixes override parameters present in the submission dialog not being used in the command line
- AE in-app submission now uses JSON files instead of parsing dictionaries on the command line
- Fixes instance status for instances that have retried but are now complete
- Progress bars no longer display for jobs that are failed or blocked
- New Job/Instance interrupt plugins
- Fixes an issue where columns displaying a time only sorted on seconds
- Fixes and re-enables 'Reload Plugins' functionality

Qube! is available for Max 7 to 2016 and costs $3,500 for one supervisor, five workers, MySQL and subscription for one year. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v2.25-2.19 are:
- Fixes an Octane viewport bug

OctaneRender for 3ds Max is available for Max 2012 to 2016 and costs €459. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for Build 1970 are:
- Light shadow map on/off is now exported correctly
- Adds support for the light shadow map to the Infinity Shader


New Plugin: Texturing

Textures2Materials is a useful plugin which can turn multiple textures into materials at once (into multi-material or into multiple material slots). It also checks if your textures have bump versions and loads them as bump maps. Currently only V-Ray is supported.

Textures2Materials is available for Max 2009 to 2016 and costs $5.


New Plugins: Animation

Clovis Gay has released three new Morpher plugins for Max 2016:

OverMorpher World Space v1.0 - OverMorpher World Space gives you all the freedom that even the best rig can't. You can sculpt your poses in animation at a specific time, and your corrective poses are blended on top of your mesh deformations. It can be applied on top of any mesh deformations like a skin modifier, a point cache, a cloth simulation, an alembic cache, etc. You can also add cartoony deformations, like smear frames, squash and stretch, change the silhouette, correct a cloth simulation, and more...

OverMorpher Mesh Space v1.0 - OverMorpher Mesh Space works like a morpher, but on top of an animated mesh. It can be placed over a skin modifier, a point cache, an alembic, etc. Each morph target follows the deformation of a reference vertex, so whatever the animation does before the modifier, the morph will always follow properly. That makes it really handy for adding and animating deformations that your rig can't do, or add different morphologies to copies of the same animated mesh.

OverMorpher Pose Space v1.0 - OverMorpher Pose Space is pretty similar to SkinMorph in that it uses corrective poses driven by your rig, except the pose interpolation is more reliable. The SkinMorph modifier drives the poses depending on the angle between two bones, and because of the nature of rotations in 3D software and rotation orders, in some cases the interpolation doesn't work as expected, mainly on bones which have more than one free angle. This plugin is based on what is called a Radial Basis Function, so it doesn't use angles between poses, but distance between two points, which solves the angle problem, and opens up new possibilities.

The OverMorpher plugins are available for Max 2016 and cost €107.10 (OverMorpher World Space), €83.30 (OverMorpher Mesh Space) and €71.40 (OverMorpher Pose Space).


New Plugin: Modelling / Animation

Combine lets you combine multiple animated meshes into one without losing their animations and deformations.

Features include:
- Pick multiple source objects, it'll combine them to a new mesh
- You can replace the sources with a replacer object which will get the transforms of the sources
- There are six re-time functions
- A random value which works on top of it
- Includes cache tools to easily pointcache the result

Combine is available for Max 2010 to 2016 and costs €29.75.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v4.1 are:
- Fixes several bugs

Universal Material Converter is available for Max 2012 to 2016 and costs €79.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v0.0.5a are:
- Fixes GPU errors with new Nvidia drivers
- Fixes a memory leak
- Fixes a crash bug


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v1.2.1 are
- Fixes map path issues for some materials
- Fixes UNC path issues

Corona Material Presets Pro is available for Max 2013 to 2016 and costs €125.


Plugin Update: Animation

Changes for v1.01 are:
- Adds a 'Distance travelled' option

MCG AccumFloat is available for Max 2016 and costs $5.


New Plugin: Modelling

Holex is a scripted modifier plugin which allows you to create various types of holes in polygon meshes. You can create multiple holes or rivets at the same time or individually across multiple objects.

Holex is available for Max 2016 and costs $10.


Plugin Update: Animation

Changes for v1.0.8.6855 are:
- Adds an 'exclusion' map to fluid voxel generation
- Adds optional particle velocity trails rendering for particles to mesh algorithm
- Adds particle meshing smoothing options
- Viewport particle meshes are now smooth instead of faceted
- When 'show as particles' is enabled texture coordinates are now supported during rendering
- Fixes a crash when opening a scene with PF operator which didn't save a geometry ID
- Adds support for forces and velocities to Particle Flow geometry operator
- PF operators now record fluid if animation range starts at a negative time

Lucid Physics is available for Max 2009 to 2016 and costs $249. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v1.2.2 are:
- Fixes potential crashes when loading presets from Material Manager
- Fixes a crash when loading a Preset that is set to VRay Instance into OmniTiles
- Improves logging

Color Extract is available for Max 2012 to 2016 and costs €29. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.1.7 are:
- Adds a new option to add multiple previews per preset
- Adds cloth thumbnails for fabric materials (separate download)
- Adds a new video tutorial on how to create custom thumbnails


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v1.0.5 are:
- Fixes a UI problem when trying to nest Omnitiles maps
- Adds support for viewport shading
- The file-path for the pattern preset save/load location is no longer user dependent
- Fixes a potential crash in the pattern editor when unlocking shape and UV mode
- Fixes UV transforms having no effect in Corona render
- Fixes incorrect UV scaling when applying both random and general scaling
- Fixes prompting for a license file in Max 2012 after loading a scene containing Omnitiles map
- New display guidelines with mouse on grid

OmniTiles is available for Max 2012 to 2016 and costs €99. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Animation

This MCG Float controller will accumulate values over the animation duration. It can also be used as 'memory' in High/LowWatermark. An example of value accumulation would be the turning of a screw.

MCG AccumFloat is available for Max 2016 and costs $5.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v0.0.4a are:
- Adds image sequence support to the FStorm Bitmap Texture
- Adds gamma correction to the FStorm Bitmap Texture
- GPU interaction has been refactored
- Fixes a memory leak


Plugin Update: Modelling / Animation

Changes for v4.2.1.6873 are:
- Guides from shape modifier now has a normalized coordinates option
- Adds a few descriptive tooltips for some parameters
- Re-simulating with external forces no longer stops applying the forces to hair
- Fixes the surface comb always creating previous sink on new clicks in some meshes
- You can now insert modifiers from the toolbar if Mesh from Strands is on top
- Changes to facilitate baking to texture

Ornatrix is available for Max 2009 to 2016 and costs $499. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Utilities

The SpeedVisualiser is an MCG that lets you see how fast an object should move at a certain speed (negative speed goes in the opposite direction). The SpeedHUD displays an object's current speed in the viewport.

MCG SpeedVisualiser HUD is available for Max 2016 and costs $5.


Plugin Update: Lighting

Changes for v5.3 are:
- Lights with 3D mapping can now be made into area lights in 3D space
- You can now convert any selected light into an Uber Light
- The Render View now continuously updates when dragging lights
- You can now adjust the height of the light to match an image's aspect ratio
- Adds a new License Management panel
- Various other improvements. A full list can be found here

HDR Light Studio is available for Max 2012 to 2016 and costs $995 for a permanent license plus $145 for the 3ds Max Live plugin. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v3.50.14 are:
- Minor bug-fixes
- Minor updates


New Plugin: MCG

This MCG modifier is to help animators visualising BPM (beats per minute). It can be applied to any mesh object (or splines) and works independent of the frame rate, ie. NTSC, PAL, etc.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for Build 1960 are:
- Bug-fixes