Crossmap is a Max shader that randomly distributes bitmaps on geometry (objects, elements, faces etc.). You just have to select a folder with bitmaps and Crossmap does the rest. It creates more variety among visualization projects in a fast and easy manner, and is especially useful for things like leaves on trees, grass, gravel, stones, flowers, wood fences and so on.

Crossmap is compatible with Max 2010 to 2012 (32-bit and 64-bit), and supports the scanline renderer, mental ray 3.6 and above, and V-Ray 1.5 SP5 and above. It also works together with Forest Pack Pro (random per element, distribution with input map) and Multiscatter (currently only with mental ray).

As with Color Tools below, VIZPARK are opening up their beta program. If you join the beta you not only get free access to a preliminary version of Crossmap, you can also get a free version if you actively contribute to find problems and improve the plugin. All the details can be found here.

Crossmap is available for Max 2010 to 2012 and costs €49.

Color Tools is a set of two shader map plugins for Max:
Color Extract extracts up to 100 colors from any photo to be randomly assigned to objects, elements, faces, or even other procedural maps; a very fast and easy way to assign grass colors to grass blades, tree colors to leaves or sand colors to a noise map.
Color Combine can combine three different maps into one map where each map represents one color channel (RGB). This way it's possible to create colored procedural maps (e.g. colored noise) where the color set of a procedural map is limited.

Color Tools is compatible with Max 2010 to 2012 (32-bit and 64-bit), and supports the scanline renderer, mental ray 3.6 and above, and V-Ray 1.5 SP5 and above. It also works together with Forest Pack Pro (random per element, distribution with input map) and Multiscatter (currently only with mental ray).

VIZPARK are also opening up their beta program. If you join the beta you not only get free access to a preliminary version of Color Tools, you can also get a free version if you actively contribute to find problems and improve the plugin. All the details can be found here.

Color Tools is available for Max 2010 to 2012 and costs €29.

Following on from the announcement at the beginning of December last year, the public alpha of IndigoMax started a couple of weeks ago. Full details and download links can be found in this thread on the Indigo forum.

Changes for v3.0 are:
- Adds support for Max 2012 (64-bit only)

Changes for SP7a are:
- Fixes potential hangs or lockups when handling finalRender materials in the material editor
- Fixes a possible crash with fR-Wire in the material editor with scanliner
- Fixes a possible crash with fR-Dirt when using proxies
- Shadows from Physical Sun no longer produce artifacts on proxies
- Fixes 'Disable Locals' bug in the raytracer settings with fR-Architecture
- Maps now load in material Render Elements if there is no replacement material in the scene
- Opacity and Render Elements now works efficiently
- Missing lines in finalToon related to fR-Proxies have been addressed

The Service Pack is available for finalRender R3.5 Studio Edition, finalRender R3.5 Standard and finalToon R3.5.

finalRender is available for Max 2009 to 2012 and costs €995 (Standard) / €1295 (Studio Edition) / €495 (finalToon). A demo version is available here.

This is my monthly news entry to let people know that I am always available for 3D work (I don't just run this site, and I don't earn any money from it).

My main areas of work are commercials, industrial and technical animation, as well as programming and scripting. All of the relevant information can be found on my other site Animation Design, along with some videos of my work to give you an idea of what I can do. So if I can help out at all, just let me know.

If you are a plugin developer with source code for plugins that you don't develop anymore, it would be great if you could get in touch with me. I would be glad to recompile as many old plugins as possible to stop them from disappearing for ever. Just mail me to let me know what sort of stuff you've got.

On a side note, this is how the Messiah:studio plugins got recompiled for Max 9 to 2012, as well as all of the Sisyphus plugins, so it's worth sending stuff my way :o)

Dave

The news from previous months can be accessed by clicking on the 'Plugin news archive' link in the menu.