MAX Plugins.de News Archive

Archived Plugin News  –  June 2020
 

Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.615 are:
- Adds support for V-Ray 5
- Improves border clipping in Corona
- Adds a switchable option to preview animated meshes
- Improves overall performance
- Fixes a memory leak in collisions

MultiScatter is available for Max 2014 to 2021 and costs €200.


Plugin Update: Animation

Changes for v20.1.10 are:
- Adds a quicker license check
- CDS dummy meshes are now non-renderable by default
- Parent constraint no longer crashes Maya when applied in the wrong direction
- CrawlerTracks config settings are now remembered between saves
- Fixes a problem with 2-wheeler extended going crazy on multiple recordings using autonomous mode

Craft Director Studio is available for Max 2017 to 2021 and costs $399 per year. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v9.0.14.11569 are:
- Chunk priorities can now be manually changed from Console or using the APIs
- You can now specify a different configuration for Windows drive mappings on a group/user basis
- You can now purge orphan jobs from the instances popup menu
- You can now purge jobs from the jobs popup menu, affecting all job instances in the exclusion list
- Adds a new Dispatcher configuration option to automatically purge nodes when a job is reinit

Muster is available for Max 9 to 2021 and costs $85 per node. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v3.2 are:
- There are now 6 shadow modes available allowing you to trade off between quality and performance
- Improves shadow quality by reducing artifacts as a result of better shadow volume calculations
- The documentation on shadows has been significantly expanded and updated
- Adds mute and unmute puzzles for sound and video
- Zero is now used in the number puzzle by default
- The disable rendering / anti-alias puzzle no longer causes annotations to jitter
- The disable rendering / anti-alias puzzle is now faster, and the AA checkbox is on by default
- The when moved puzzle is now more responsive due to a general overhaul and optimizations
- The delta parameter in the when moved puzzle has been replaced by velocity (in units per second)
- The new active camera puzzle helps in cases where you switch between cameras
- The performance profiling puzzle now displays more information
- You can now print the performance profile without any puzzle by quickly pressing the P key 3 times
- An FPS counter can be shown with the JavaScript API method showFPS() and hidden with hideFPS()
- The FPS counter can also be revealed using the hotkeys F F F
- Unicode is now supported by the installer
- The default name for the installation folder changed from simply verge3d to verge3d_max
- The App Manager now tries to automatically merge changes made in HTML/CSS/JS files
- The merging/overriding mechanism is now enabled by default
- To prevent possible loss of data, backups are automatically made during updating
- The AR demos Augmented Reality and Industrial Robot now work properly in Mozilla WebXR browser
- The ECMAScript6 version of the Verge3D runtime now works properly with all Verge3D scenes
- Annotations are no longer displayed by the Puzzles editor after the viewport window is closed
- Shader compilation callbacks can now be added to the App.compileCallbacks array
- Fixes a bug with JavaScript being generated in incorrect order from multiple Puzzles editor tabs
- Fixes a crash when morph targets are combined with skinning in the same object
- Fixes an issue related to the export of glTF-compliant materials from the engine
- Fixes a Max exporter issue with Z-fighting occurring in Max scenes with no camera
- Fixes a Max exporter regression with collision material and first-person camera controls
- Empty Max scenes with only one light source and no geometry no longer crash the exporter
- The exporter no longer crashes if export is cancelled during progress
- Fixes a bug related to an incorrectly assigned UV index which led to an export crash in Max 2021
- Adds a new 'Spotting Performance Bottlenecks' chapter to the User Manual
- Updates and expands the System, Useful Links, Workflow, Transparency, FAQ and Features chapters
- Adds a performance considerations subsection to the Materials and Maps Reference
- Adds a 'Contents' section to each chapter of the User Manual

Verge3D is available for Max 2018 to 2021 and costs $290. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.3.4 are:
- Adds support for V-Ray 5
- Adds a Random Seed option to the Cityscape Spline modifier for improving calculation results
- Supergrass compatibility issue with V-Ray 4.0.x has been fixed
- Zero curbed area height has been fixed
- Other minor bug fixes

Cityscape Pro is available for Max 2017 to 2021 and costs $299.99 per year. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v3.1.7 are:
- All tools now work while Tweaking and Aligning on the last tweaked element
- Adds automatic Unwrap for most functions
- Removes partially selected elements from the selection in Shrink to Element
- Adds Pelt seams
- Adds support for adding Unwrap to a subselection
- Improves the interactive scale average UV size in the statusbar
- Improves Align As Group for all sublevels
- Various code optimizations for improved speed
- Interactive scale now has min and max limits
- Adds "UVTools_" to macro names so they are easier to find
- Fixes a rare Tweak and Align selection bug in Max versions prior to 2017
- Fixes Manage State Sets missing on some systems
- Fixes Pelt seams select on multiple objects
- Fixes select longest edges on multiple objects

UV Tools is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $20.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v5.00.03 include:
- The VFB has been completely re-written to add layer-based compositing tools and light mixing
- V-Ray Sun has an improved sky model
- Adds a new V-Ray asset browser with over 500 material presets divided into several categories
- Adds a new material preview in the Material Editor
- Coat and Sheen layers have been added to the V-Ray material
- VRayMaterial and VRayHairNextMtl materials now have presets
- Adds a new car paint material with more precise flakes filtering and reduced memory usage
- Adds VRayUVWRandomizer to be used with VRayBitmaps and VRayTriplanarTex
- VRayMultiSubTex now has randomised hue, saturation and gamma variance options
- Adds new Random by Face material ID/Object ID/Element modes to VRayMultiSubTex
- Adds a number of new blending modes to VRayCompTex
- Adds support for rendering in ACEScg colour space
- VRayTriplanarTex now has the ability to be used as a mapping source for VRayBitmap
- VRayPointCloudColor is a new map that supports PointCloud Color Channel
- VRayLightSelect now supports environment lighting
- Light Path Expressions allow you to output any lighting information into its own render element
- Adds Blue Noise Sampling for better looking sampling with fewer samples
- Adds selective exporting to vrscenes
- Adds a Filmic Tone Mapping layer to the VFB
- Adds light path expressions support through mode of VRayLightSelect
- Adds RGB primaries override for VRayBitmap option in color management
- Adds support for Environment and Self Illumination contribution for VRayLightSelect in V-Ray GPU
- VRayNormalMap now has a map rotation parameter
- The VRayPhysicalCamera now has an EV parameter
- VRayProxy now supports common particle interface (IParticleObjExt) for Alembic
- VRayVolumeGrid now has a velocity streamline preview
- The V-Ray scene converter now has an option to convert Physical Material to VRayMtl
- Improves precision when rendering large scenes
- Adds MikkTSpace support for tangent normal maps
- The V-Ray AppSDK Python binding is now included with the installation
- Adds initial out of core support to V-Ray GPU
- Adds V-Ray GPU support for 2D displacement
- V-Ray GPU can now render Phoenix FD Particle Shader in Fog mode
- Adds support for OSL shaders to V-Ray GPU
- Adds V-Ray GPU support for the Cellular map
- Adds support for BerconTiles and Bercon Wood maps to V-Ray GPU
- Implements a per-device GPU memory tracker to V-Ray GPU
- V-Ray GPU now has resumable rendering with progressive sampling
- And much more... a full list of changes and fixes can be found here

V-Ray is available for Max 2016 to 2021 and costs €1060. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Utilities

This commercial MAXScript allows you to load multiple PBR texture sets generated using the Substance default export presets for V-Ray and Corona, and then creates materials using those texture sets with correct gamma applied. It has an option to add a color correction node for greater control, and if the texture sets have an emissive channel it has an option to create Corona or VRay light materials instead of the default material.

Substance Painter Batch Loader is available for Max 2016 to 2021 and normally costs $5. At the moment you can get it at a reduced price of $3.50.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v3.993 are:
- Adds support for converting Physical Material to V-Ray Material (optional)
- Adds an option to the 'Advanced Fix' section for resetting MtlEdit slots to V-Ray materials
- Improves the licensing system

V-RayMtl Converter is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $28.


Plugin News: CameraMapGemini 2020 / 2021 crowdfunding

Markus Boos, author of the very useful CameraMapGemini camera mapping plugin, has started a crowdfunding project to sponsor the release of the plugin for Max 2020 and 2021.

This is not just a straight recompile, Markus has added a new feature: Camera and resolution settings are now available in the per-pixel rendering map. All objects with this map will use this projection setup. You can apply this map to multiple objects without a need for the modifier. This facilitates many cases where you have a single image and a single camera that you need projected onto multiple objects.

If you are interested in seeing the plugin released, then head over to the crowdfunding page and show your appreciation for the work that goes into developing the plugin and keeping it up-to-date.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v3.10.27 are:
- Adds the ability to create PBR materials when dragging multiple bitmaps
- Adds the ability to change an item's preview size in the list using CTRL with mouse wheel
- Adds buttons to the toolbar on the Textures tab for creating materials from selected bitmaps
- Adds new BatchModes to the 'Batch Render&Relink' API - #RelinkPreSave and #RelinkPostSave
- Fixes an issue displaying search results when searching in comments is on
- Fixes a bug with merging models when Corona Interactive rendering is running
- Fixes an issue placing materials in Slate Material Editor when 'Convert file paths to UNC' is on
- Fixes an issue with creating PBR materials from SBSAR files in Max 2017 and below
- Fixes an issue with getting information about bitmaps from the cache

Project Manager is available for Max 2014 to 2021 and costs $60. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v4.4 are:
- Adds support for Max 2021
- Fixes a bug in the Align Tool when Action center is set to Pivot
- Fixes bugs in Set Edge Length for Multi Loops and Edit Poly support

miauu's Script Pack Volume 1 is available for Max 9 to 2021 and costs €12.


New Plugin: Modelling

FormCutter is a tool for cutting inward or outward in objects along a freehand path, which you also draw with the tool. It covers a range of uses, from quick ideation to final output, to developing interactive projects and playing with your ideas, and includes a few options to help you to improve the aesthetics of your designs.

FormCutter is available for Max 2016 to 2021 and costs $35.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for 4.0.5.31 are:
- Baking: projection handling intersecting low-hi res objects
- Baking: projection limiting rendering to the reference geometries
- Baking: roughness, metalness, advanced_map, map_override working in projection setups
- Adds a menu link to the tutorials
- Adds tooltips for the Arnold procedural objects
- Exposes the alembic's FPS
- Fixes a crash when editing OSL arrays through the OSL editor
- Fixes a crash exporting .ASS materials from the Import/Export Materials menu
- Fixes displacement turning objects black in Active Shade and GPU
- Installing MAXtoA for 2022 (beta) prevents users from installing MAXtoA for 2021
- Fixes a Scene Converter error when converting standard lights to Arnold lights


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.3.6f are:
- Minor bug-fixes in materials shading

FStormRender is available for Max 2014 to 2021 and costs €20 per month. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Modelling

Radial Symmetry is a C++ based modifier that can create complex designs in a few seconds. It has a powerful animatable gizmo, preserves UVs and other face properties, and has an option to add planar symmetry for perfect matching seams. It slices the geometry along the mirror planes, welds seams, has mirror axis options for quick alignment and comes with a visual gizmo to help you make easy adjustments.

Radial Symmetry is available for Max 2016 to 2021 and costs $29.


New Plugin: Utilities

This commercial MAXScript was originally written for internal use at Moso Studio. It streamlines the process of working with HDRI files in V-Ray and Corona renderers. This version was written in collaboration with Obaida Lofti, who developed the new interface and browser library system.

Quick Environment Script is available for Max 2016 to 2021 and costs $10.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.3.6e are:
- Improves the scratches texture
- Fixes incorrect highlights with 1.0 glossy
- Fixes the broken instance option

FStormRender is available for Max 2014 to 2021 and costs €20 per month. A demo version is available here.