Changes for v1.3.0.1 are:
- Adds support for DirectX definitions (DAT files)
- DirectX setup files are now included
- Documentation has been updated

DirectX 9.0c X-File Exporter is available for Max 9 to 2009 (32-bit only) and costs ¥5000. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v4.0.40330 SP1 are:
- More in-depth statistics are now gathered for jobs
- Improved interface for viewing statistics from the Monitor
- Statistics can now be queried using Deadline Command
- By default, pre and post job scripts now ignore the job's timeout settings
- Windows and Linux installers can now install older binaries over newer ones
- Linux installers now work in Console mode
- Windows Client installer now works on Windows 7
- File/Folder browsers no longer crash the application if network shares have restricted access
- History logs now include the domain and user of the modifying account
- Obsolete job folders are no longer created in the job's repository folder
- Fixes a bug that could potentially erase the pools and groups lists
- And much much more... a full list of changes can be found here

Deadline is available for Max 7 to 2010 and costs between $110 and $140 per node (plus support). A demo version is available here.

Changes for v3.1.20 are:
- New DotNet interface
- New image preview list (includes HDR, EXR, PSD and other formats)
- New image preview for Mental Ray proxies and V-Ray proxies
- New image preview for IES files, materials and XRefs
- Adds 3 display modes for files: Details, Details with Thumbnails and Thumbnails
- Adds independent caching of BMP, JPG, PNG and TIFF files
- New methods for file collection: via clipboard or drag and drop
- You can now add bitmap files, proxies, IES, materials and other files to the project
- Adds the ability to create new materials
- You can now creating Multimaterials by dragging a selection of images
- Adds texturing of objects and subobjects
- You can now change settings for textures before or after material creation
- New 'Render Preview' tool
- Fixes issues with retargeting of Custom Dependents in Asset Tracking
- Object selection has been hugely accelerated

FilePathFinder Pro is available for Max 2009 and 2010, and costs $30. A demo version is available here.

As you have all probably noticed, Autodesk have announced Max 2011, with the announcement for Max Design 2011 expected at the end of the month. The good news is that all plugins for Max 2010 should work just as well in Max 2011. I was lucky enough to be able to test all of the plugins that I recompiled for Max 2010, and all of them worked OK.

Changes for v6.1.2.6637 / 6638 are:
- Settings added for highlighting sequences in steps
- Adds the ability to combine (merge) steps
- Adds additional Tool Assistant settings for adjusting opacity and shape of notes
- Adds animation options for highlights
- Adds metadata settings for PDF
- Adds the ability to record Walk Mode movements
- Adds expand/close children options in the right-click menu of the scene tree
- New setting in F3 search for using metadata expressions
- Import/Export settings pop-up facility
- Adds Spatial Search toolbar, for use with Deep Server
- Adds new interface for adding Metadata in properties dialogs
- Adds new shortcut keys for Decal Mapping
- Adds an 'Expand all' option in window selection
- PMI Settings are now in the Tool Assistant
- The Hotspots toolbar has been renamed to CGM Hotspot
- Adds an HDR Light Studio toolbar, containing a demo of HDR Light Studio
- Adds new PMI viewing filters
- Adds opacity settings for callouts
- Tessellation has been improved for all CAD formats
- Adds read and write aupport for JT 9.3
- Adds support for NX7
- Inventor 2010 is supported by the Recommended and Alternate load methods
- Adds support for Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 5
- Adds support for Solid Edge V20 ST1 and ST2, and additional support for *.psm files
- Improvements for the DGN file type
- The CAD Solid reader has been improved for all formats
- New RH export option to save Solids Only, Mesh Only, or Solids and Mesh
- CAD file loading can now be aborted using the Cancel button
- Adds support for assembly files with external reference types
- New CATIA4 import options to collapse surfaces
- Adds cross-section support in JTPMI modelviews
- CATIA4, CATIA5, NX, Pro/ENGINEER now supports line styles, fills and hatching

Deep Exploration CAD Edition is available for Max 5 to 2010 and costs $2995. A demo version is available here.

Next Limit are running special deals on RealFlow 4 as part of the run up to the release of RealFlow 5. All of the information can be found here.

Changes for v1.01 are:
- You can now optimize and smooth shapes with more then one spline

GTools ImageTracer is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $25.

Changes for v1.5 are:
- Adds 10 new Stucco templates
- Adds 50 new Modular Stack Bond Brick templates
- Adds 40 new Modular Running Bond Brick templates

V-Ray Material Presets Pro is available for Max 2009 to 2010 and costs €100.

Amitov Ltd. are offering a discount on their plugin Amera S2DIO for the next two months to celebrate the launch of their new website. The plugin normally costs $50, but can now be purchased for $19.99

Amera S2DIO is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $19.99 (normal price $50).

Changes for v6.0.3 include:
- Changed the way network is handled inside the Dispatcher
- Network drives mappings for Windows have been revamped
- A bug with the Renderclient time rules has been fixed
- Fixes a bug that crashed the Dispatcher when reconnecting an available client
- When editing and submitting jobs, the expected frames path is now reset
- Folder progress value can now be calculated by averaging the values of child folders
- The Renderclient can now apply kill and priority actions on the entire tree
- Templates are now cached and stored in a temporary user folder
- Mails sent by the Dispatcher now support templates

Muster is available for Max 8 to 2010 and costs $85. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.2.8.36586 are:
- Sped up selection when selecting through tree view filter box
- Added a delay to tree view search box text entry
- The top menu bar in views now auto-hides by default
- Rename dialog now has two preview lists: before and after
- Fixed some rename control UI issues
- Fixed rename dialog giving errors if an invalid regular expression is typed in
- Rename dialog is now 'Select and Rename' dialog
- Select/Rename dialog now updates preview when selection changes in a view outside of it
- Adds an option for layers to set all their objects to have 'By Layer' properties
- Adds an option to disable automatic node expansion when dragged over

Zookeeper is available for Max 2009 and 2010, and costs $249. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.1.9.0 are:
- Import/Export plugins now load and work fine
- Parameter block support!
- Automatic UI for parameter blocks

MaxDotNet is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $675 for commercial use. For non-commercial use the plugin is free. A demo version is available here.

Power Translators Universal is an extension of the popular Power Translators plugin which contains the following features:
- Native translation of Catia, Unigraphics, SolidWorks, SolidEdge, ProEngineer, Rhino models / assemblies
- Import STEP, IGES, SAT formats
- Import precise trimmed NURBS
- User control of tessellation for display / rendering
- High quality mesh generation
- Cleanup of imported data
- Optimized for large assemblies
- Intelligent snapping

Power Translators Universal is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $2995. A demo version is available here.

This global utility allows you to create and export scenes for use with Myst Online: URU Live (MO:UL), a massive multiplayer online game. It also comes with a plugin for creating lights for the scenes.

Changes for v2.02 include:
- New batch processing dialog useful for processing MXI sequences
- New option in the File menu to merge MXI sequences
- New option in the main menu to launch a scene in network
- New preference to set a minimum amount of time to save to disk
- Fixes inefficient merging of MXI files
- Fixes a bug where Maxwell Render would hang at high sampling levels
- Fixes a problem with images being overwritten instead of renamed
- Fixes several bugs with Single Sided SSS
- Fixes a bug with gamma in alpha channel
- Fixes performance issues in multi-threaded routines that generated noise patterns
- Fixes a bug in Color Multilight when using a Sky or IBL environment
- Fixes a shading bug with instances that could affect caustics
- Fixes visibility flags not working with instances
- Fixes a crash using SSS in certain scenarios
- Fixes a potential crash with emitters
- Fixes a crash with BSDFs and coatings that use .ior files
- Fixes a crash in 64-bit OS with certain scenes
- IES profiles now render correctly if the emitter parent has rotation/scale
- ICC profile is now properly embedded in the tiff 32 format
- Fixes gamma correction being incorrectly applied on some maps
- Override material flag is now properly refreshed when loading a scene
- Improved pre-processing of scene dependencies
- Fixes the ranges of the SimuLens parameters
- The sliders of the Edit MXI panel are bow logarithmic for better control
- Fixes a bug when double-clicking on an MXS file in Windows Explorer/ OSX Finder
- The render info floating text can now be toggled with the I key
- Fixes the preference for displaying/ hiding scroll bars in panels
- Fixes several small GUI issues
- The Resume Render command line parameter -resume:['path'] now works properly
- The command line -p:normal argument now works
- The '-color' command line parameter is now read correctly
- Fixes the return codes of certain scripting functions
- SDK has been improved and new functions added
- Adds a new '-extractlights' command line parameter

Maxwell Render is available for Max 7 to 2010 and costs €895. A demo version is available here.

ArtVPS are offering 4 free webinars on the subject of their render plugin Shaderlight, with a chance for the registered participants to win a copy of the plugin. The webinars will be held on Wednesday and Thursday (10th and 11th of March), all of the relevant information can be found here.

ShaderLight is available for Max 2008 to 2010 (64-bit only) and costs $895. A demo version is available here.

I've just noticed that Digimation have stopped selling SpeedTree Max as of February 1st 2010. I don't know whether the plugin is completely dead yet, we'll have to wait and see.

Changes for v6.x.70.0 are:
- Updated plugin to use more of the IGame Interface
- Recompiled with VS2008 SP1 and DirectX August 2008 libraries

Changes for v1.0.29 are:
- Adds a new option to remove Hair Farm modifiers from the modifier stack
- Adds a new modifier: Hair Direction on Poly
- Mental ray shaders can now receive global illumination (and final gather)
- HairTo Instances can now copy and Combine UVW channels from root object to instance object
- Adds a new parameter in Hair Farm Renderer to control Z-Depth antialiasing
- HairStyle Wisps no longer crash if viewport wisp count is zero and render wisp count is non-zero
- Fixes HairMesh Edit operation delete-undo sometimes working incorrectly
- The HairMesh Brush now modifies the root object as it should
- HairMesh Edit no longer removes UVW coordinates on creation
- Vertex color maps used with HairStyle Wisps are now predictable
- Fixes HairStyle PushOut WSM only using a singe collision object
- HairMesh Sim no longer crashes when used in scenes with mental ray lights
- Custom face colors no longer delete previously assigned colors when a new color is assigned
- Material copy/paste now properly copies specular level map from standard material
- Fixes density maps causing flickering
- Ctrl+click selection mode change of HairMesh Edit now properly converts selections
- Fixes HairMesh Sim freezing if the progress window was moved
- HairMesh Sim no longer needs another HairMesh modifier right below it to work properly
- HairMesh Edit Prev.Layer and Next Layer command now works for layer selection
- HairGenerate density maps combined with HairStyle Wisps and HairStyle Cluster no longer crash
- HairMesh Brush now works correctly while brushing with 'selected faces only' on
- HairMesh Brush undo/redo operations now work correctly with 'Reset' commands
- Fixes inconsistencies between render buckets due to clipping and shadow filtering
- Stability fixes to Hair Farm Demo only open/save operations
- The render time mental ray hair primitive object now uses the root object layer
- HairTo Instances now aligns instance directions based on a UVW channel
- All MAXScript parameters are now properly named
- Rescale world units now affects Hair Farm data as well
- Ctrl+click added for HairMesh Edit Prev.Layer and Next Layer buttons
- Fix Transformation option in Hair Display now also fixes inverted objects
- The 'selected faces only' parameter of HairMesh Brush and Hair is now off on creation
- Changes to HairFarm menu
- The StartSimulation command of HairMesh Sim can now be called using MAXScript
- The Hair Farm toolbar can now be reset from Hair Farm Options
- Hair Farm Renderer can now disable hair generation / rendering / shadows separately
- Turning off the Hair Farm Renderer atmospheric effect disables hair generation
- With mental ray, hair generation is disabled if hair renderer is not enabled
- With mental ray, hair generation is disabled if the atmospheric effect is not active
- Hair Farm Demo automatically prevents saving if a Hair Farm component exists

Hair Farm is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $699.95 for a single node-locked license. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v4.0 are:
- Adds support for 64-bit Max 9 to 2010
- Adds support for Flash CS5 FLA and XFL formats
- Adds support for Papervision3D v2.0 and Collada .DAE format
- Adds direct export to AVI / MOV video (Quicktime export only in 32-bit version)
- Adds Flash FLV video export
- Adds Microsoft WPF / Silverlight export
- Adds Swift 3D v6 (T3D) and ZAM 3D v2 (Z3D) export
- Adds multicore rendering support

Swift 3D MAX is available for Max 8 to 2010 and costs $295. A demo version is available here.

This commercial MAXScript takes a black and white image and creates a spline representing the contour of the black pixel areas. You have control of the image resolution and the threshold value. Once the image is traced you can smooth and optimize the resulting spline.

GTools ImageTracer is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $25.

Changes for v1.01 are:
- Fixes some Max 2010 icon issues

GTools MultiLight is available for Max 2009 and 2010 and costs $30.

Changes for v1.4.0 are:
- Updated to support MachStudio Pro version 1.4.0

Changes for SP2 are:
- Stability has been improved
- Adds an enhanced Explicit Surface Normal method
- Applying volumeBreaker to a mesh no longer creates broken smoothing on the outer surface
- Improved compatibility with Max-specific tools

volumeBreaker is available for Max 2008 to 2010 and costs €395. This is a free download to all registered customers.

Changes for v2.8.32.0 include:
- New undocumented granny_file_builder API: GrannySetFileDiskAlignment
- Fixes a material connection error in XSI
- The Maya exporter no longer duplicates animated granny_vector_track attributes
- The Max exporter now correctly finds and exports texture maps in custom attribute containers
- Switched GrannyConvertPixelFormat to work by bytes rather than DWORDs
- Adds accelerated deformers on the Xenon target for granny_pwngbt343332_vertex
- Fixes a crash in the Max exporter relating to collapsing the modifier stack
- The Granny exporter now creates a minidump to assist in debugging if it crashes
- Fixes a 'Morpher' modifier extraction problem with Max 2010
- Compatability Note: Removed GrannyAlignWriter macro from granny.h
- 360 project shifted to VS.NET 2008 from 2005
- Adds an Autodesk-suggested fix for a Softimage crash on unloaded reference objects

Granny Exporter is available for Max 6 to 2010, and is part of the Granny Toolkit which costs $12500.

If you are a developer of freeware plugins and are hosting your plugins on a site with restricted download traffic, then maybe I can help out.

I can offer a subdomain (eg: yourname.maxplugins.de) here with space to host your plugins and HTML stuff for free. There will also be a link to the hosted pages in the menu on the left. Interested? Just drop me a line at the email address at the top of the page.

You can also contact me if you have got source code for plugins that you don't develop anymore. I would be glad to recompile as many old plugins as possible. Just mail me to let me know what sort of stuff you've got.

Dave

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). My main areas of work are commercials, industrial and technical animation, as well as programming / scripting. All of the relevant information can be found on my other site http://www.anidesign.de, along with some videos of my work to give you an idea of what I can do. I finally managed to update the site with some new stuff last month.

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