MAX Plugins.de News Archive

Archived Plugin News  –  October 2009
 

Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v2.01 are:
- Too many to write here! You can find the whole changelog here (PDF)

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


Plugin Update: Particles

Changes for v1.05 are:
- NVIDIA PhysX 64-bit SDK v.2.8.3 is used making Box#2 Pro fully 64-bit compatible
- Adds a Render-Only version of Box#2 for render-farm nodes
- Miscellaneous bug fixes

Particle Flow Tools: Box#2 Pro is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $595. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.50 SP1 are:
- Adds support for the HSL/HSV controls of the ColorCorrect texture
- Adds support for the 'Additional bump' slot of the Normal bump texture
- Fixes some gamma workflows not working well with ActiveShade
- Adds an option to stop updating the ActiveShade window after a certain amount of time
- Adds support for region rendering in the ActiveShade window
- The override material options from the standard V-Ray renderer now work properly
- Adds support for environment override in VRayMtl
- Adds an option to manually restart V-Ray RT
- Adds an option to pause the RT
- Adds support for opacity maps in standard materials
- Adds support for VRayEdgesTex in bump slot
- You can now export to a .vrscene from MAXScript without starting the ActiveShade
- Adds MAXScript access to the ActiveShade bitmap
- Adds support for paletted PNG textures
- Adds support for the 'Hidden lights' switch in standard V-Ray
- Adds support for IFL file format for textures
- Adds support for the Shell Material in V-Ray RT

V-Ray RT is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $299. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Updates: nPower Software updates available

Changes for v6.10 are:
- UI simplification of the most common tools
- UVW Unwrap completion
- Sketch extents bug fix
- Massive improvement in SAT file translation
- Tessellation improvements
- Blending bug fixes
- Many other major and minor bug fixes

Power NURBS / Solids / Translators are available for Max 9 to 2010. Information on pricing can be found at the Turbosquid ACAP site. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v2.8 are:
- Adds support for Max 9 to 2010 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Adds support for reducing multiple selected objects
- Adds support for skinning information
- Adds support for the Collada format
- Adds an SDK to integrate the Simplygon technology into your own software

Simplygon is available for Max 9 to 2010.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v0.85b are:
- Adds support for V-Ray v1.5 SP4

SolidRocks is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs €64.58. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v1.0 Beta VI are:
- Fixes several small bugs


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v2.1.3 are:
- Adds a scene setting to disable mesh instance checking
- The OgreMax scene viewport camera's field of view can now be modified with the mouse wheel
- Adds MAXScript access to the OgreMax scene exporter version
- Removes the notification presented when merging a scene containing OgreMax scene settings
- Modified various OgreMax map types so that only the names are displayed
- Modified the installer to support Max Design
- Modified the 'Generate Tangents' scene setting to be false by default
- Modified the 'Always Export Skeleton' object setting to be true by default
- Modified the 'Always Export Poses' object setting to be true by default
- Fixes a bug with the billboard set type always being exported as 'point'
- Fixes a bug with bounding radius becoming too large when merging meshes
- Fixes a crash with the 'ignore all' and 'ignore some' radio buttons in the Scene Settings dialog
- The 'destination color' blending mode now exports correctly for material passes
- Fixes a crash bug when removing unnecessary bones for merged meshes
- The 'Reset' button in the material editor no longer causes OgreMax materials to crash Max
- Scene query and visibility flags are now set correctly in the Scene Settings dialog
- The 'Include Parent Material in Name' scene setting now works


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v4.1 are:
- Tangents and binormals are now imported as float (4 bytes) instead of short (2 bytes)
- Motionbuilder FBX now properly exclusive merges into SI2010 SP1
- Fixes wrong rotation order when exporting DotXSI
- Face Robot Animation Export rig now persists correctly across sessions
- ShapeWeight, FR_ICE_Import and faceRobotImporter plugins have been ported to Linux 64bit
- Fixes a weighting issue in faceRobotImporter making shapes unusually large


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v3.16.12 RC4 are:
- Fixes a problem rendering tiled/wrapped maps
- Improved sampling quality for AO, bent normals and radiosity normal maps
- Adds an option to skip back-faces for AO
- Fixes a problem in Max that was causing the Projection modifier to deform the cage
- You can now specify a background color independently for each map
- The SBM mesh exporter now works with Maya 2010
- Improved the compatibility with Windows 7
- Fixes some bugs


Plugin News: Renderers

Next Limit Technologies has announced the general release of Maxwell Render v2.0. For the last few weeks version 2 has been only available for existing clients upgrading, now they have made it available to new clients. They have also made a demo version available for download.

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


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for SP4 are:
- Adds VRayAmbientLight
- Improved multithreading on multi-core machines
- You can now specify gizmo falloff for VRayEnvironmentFog
- You can now use arbitrary meshes as gizmos for VRayEnvironmentFog
- Adds an option to exclude the background from VRayEnvironmentFog
- 'Show last VFB' command now works even when there is no VFB
- Adds CIE sky models to VRaySun and VRaySky
- It is now possible to submit DR servers list for DR though backburner
- Adds an option for the VRayIES light to not use area speculars
- Adds Kelvin temperature settings for the color of VRayLights
- VFB history is now turned off when Max is in slave mode
- Output .vrimg and split channel paths are listed in the Asset Tracker
- GI cache files (irradiance maps, light cache etc) are now listed in the Asset Tracker
- DR no longer fails with large .max files
- Fixes a crash with Remove button for gizmos and lights in VRayEnvironmentFog
- Fixes a crash with Hair&Fur in Max Design 2010
- Fixes an issue with Arch&Design materials in multi/sub-object material
- You can no longer export already created VRayProxy objects as .vrmesh files
- Fixes invalid colors with texture-mapped lights when the texture contains black areas
- Fixes occasional license errors with codes (-209), (-9) and (1000) on slow networks
- Fixes a crash when using a combination of VRayLightMtl materials and VrayDirt
- Cloning the V-Ray renderer now clone the override material exclusion list
- Fixes problems with velocity channel and objects close to the camera
- VRayToon is no longer black on directly visible dome lights
- Fixes an issue with VRayToon and opacity mapped objects
- Fixes a problem with hilights in VRayFastSSS2 material
- Fixes different buckets with interpolated glossy reflections and DR
- Multi-matte render element now works with VRaySphereFade
- Fixes a crash with DR in specific cases
- .vrscene exporter now exports 'RGB Multiply', 'RGB Tint', 'ColorCorrect' and 'ColorCorrection' textures

V-Ray is available for Max 6 to 2010 and costs $999. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling / Animation

Changes for v3.2.9 beta are:
- Improved scattering speed for large number of small area splines
- Scenes saved with 3.2.9b can be loaded with Forest 3.2.4
- Fixes issues of collision detection with camera clipping
- Fixes a crash when merging Forest objects from an external scene while editing a Forest object
- Fixes assertion error when rendering a cloned Forest object in Mental Ray
- Complex area splines no longer trigger a wrong 'Maximum Density' error
- Item's scale and rotation no longer change when being edited in Custom Edit mode
- Distribution bitmap is no longer affected by gamma settings
- Consolidate Materials no longer creates null materials when using non-sequential IDs
- Fixes redrawing issues on viewport when using camera motion

Forest Pack Pro is available for Max 7 to 2010 and normally costs €250. For a limited time it is on sale for €200. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v1.2.0.7 are:
- Adds animation support for user specified ranges
- Extended the start and end frame support for camera animation
- Increased vertex animation budget to 2 Gigabytes
- Adds GUI elements for startframe and endframe
- Model export now has a material merging option
- Removed particle export option from the sgpuExportOption dialog
- Reversed the vertex order of subdivision surface faces with left-handed transform
- Fixes the time associated with the smdlVertexFrame: it is now curTime - startTime
- Replaced all occurrences of TIME_EXPORT_START with OPTS.m_StartTime
- Changed Debug Info for Max 2010 config to 'Program Database'
- Enabled debug info in the 'Debug 2010' configuration


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v6.0 are:
- Adds support for Max 2010 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Adds support for Vista and Windows 7
- Improved multi-threading render engine
- Fully integrated ODE physics engine
- Adds support for Archvision RPC 3.17.1
- Adds hardware accelerated character animation
- Adds a new infinite water object
- Adds a new Wire object to add dynamic wires to your model
- Enhanced sessions for recording and playback in VR4MAX Navigator Pro
- A new Calculate Angle helper object measures angles between two objects
- A new Calculate Distance helper object measures distances between two objects
- The VMX2MAX import module now allows converting LODs to normal objects
- VMX2MAX now adds an option to ignore vertex colors originating from Open Flight databases
- Adds properties to limit auto-clipping values for eye separation and convergence distance
- Adds a number of options to store unique IDs of objects in your VMX file inside Max
- Stereo rendering for most stereoscopic formats (used to be Option Pack 1)
- Tree manipulation (used to be Option Pack 1)
- Redlining for adding comments to your model (used to be Option Pack 1)
- Static and dynamic measuring tool (used to be Option Pack 1)
- Archvision RPC support for rich photorealistic content (used to be Option Pack 3)
- Basic support of peripherals like pointing and tracking devices (used to be Option Pack 4)
- Augmented reality: Integrate your VR models in the real world (used to be Option Pack 6)

VR4MAX is available for Max 6 to 2010 and costs €1100. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.4 are:
- Adds Batzal Sidings, which allows shingle and tile covering on every angle
- Each edge now has its own modifiable Z offset
- Roof Designer now handles large rooves much faster
- Additional rotation allows manipulation of each face's angle of tiling separately
- The plugin now prints a warning to the viewport when a face has too many constraints
- The new Random Shape spinner can randomize tiles' shape and placing
- Fixes the half tile shingles angle issue
- Overlapping vertices are now welded on initialization
- The Shingle Z Scale was renamed to height and uses the current unit type
- Fixes the Max 2010 UI defects
- Mesh validity is now checked after loading
- The vertex sub-object rollup now shows the number of selected vertices
- When selecting a polygon made of several faces, all face edges are now highlighted
- Adds a new edge cover prototype, the Valley prototype

Roof Designer is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $55. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v1.5 are:
- Adds support for Max 2010 (32-bit only)

QUIDAM to Max is available for Max 5 to 2010 and costs €75.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v5.5.8 are:
- Addresses some minor issue with the Windows installers
- Adds support for Maxwell Render
- Adds support for V-Ray for Maya

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


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v2009.10.20 are:
- Adds additional brush options like Aspect, Angle, Airbrush and Pressure
- Adds a Clone tool
- Adds support for layers Blending Mode and Opacity
- Blur and Smudge tools were fixed and improved
- Easy installer added (no more zip extract)
- Many bugs were fixed in the Texture Painting tool as well as in other areas of CrackArt
- Painting Code was cleaned and optimized


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v5.5 are:
- A full list of changes can be found here (PDF)

Qube! is available for Max 7 to 2010 and costs $300 (worker license) / $600 (supervisor license). A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Materials

Changes for v1.6.0 are:
- The internal computation of the 4 'bitmap-areas' has been removed to enhance the workflow


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.1.5.5 are:
- Contains some fixes for when max.NET is loading up assemblies
- IViewWindow interface is now pluggable so making 'extended viewport' plugins is now possible


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v3.16.12 RC3 are:
- Fixes a problem rendering tiled/wrapped maps
- Improved sampling quality for AO, bent normals and radiosity normal maps
- Adds an option to skip back-faces for AO
- Fixes a problem importing SBM meshes into Max
- You can now specify a background color independently for each map
- Adds support for Maya 2010
- Fixes some bugs


Plugin Update: Modelling / Texturing

Changes for v2.5.6 are:
- Adds new option 'Density' in 'Distribution' settings
- You can now control animation of proxies by texture
- Adds full support for Windows Vista and Windows 7
- Fixes an installation problem in Max Design

VRayScatter is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs €200 for a workstation license. This is a free upgrade for owners of version 2.0. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for Build 1718 are:
- Adds per channel JPEG-2000 export quality control
- Adds DirectX material export with support for Infinity shaders from within Max
- Adds normal, specular, and reflection map export
- Bug-fixes


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Further to the post below about the Japanese version of the Metasequoia Importer for use on a Japanese OS, one of the members of the Hallucino forum has kindly done a 64-bit version of the importer and both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the exporter.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v1.0 are:
- A load of updates to the XSI exporter
- Adds a new utility function, GrannySetCameraFOVX
- The intro material has been reorganized to be more easily found
- Corrects a few bad pointer specifications in the SSE accel deformers
- Adds an iteration API for the granny_pointer_hash
- New log message type: GrannyCameraLogMessage
- Fixes the plugin installer so that the Maya 2010 exporter is now properly installed

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


New Plugin: Utilities

This is a utility for rendering animations and static scenes in 2 stages from an animated camera. The first stage calculates the LightCache in fly-through mode and the Irradiance Map in incremental add to current map mode for the entire scene. The second stage is the final rendering. This approach allows all frames to receive the same high-quality Irradiance map in less time.

VrayMultiStageRender is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $10. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Objects

Changes for v0.93b are:
- Adds a new setting to control the aspect of branch crossections
- Fixes a multithreading bug, it should now really use all cores and be faster
- Drops support for Max 7 and 8


Plugin Update: Particles / Animation

Changes for v1.46 are:
- Adds a wood splinter fragmentation type
- You can now deactivate animated impact objects
- Adds interactive demolition using RF_Bomb
- Adds a demolition depth ratio to define iterations used to demolish fragments from each depth level
- Adds a reduce keys function which is more then 200 x faster than the Max function
- You can now define the glue distance between objects you want to glue

RayFire Tool is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $285. A demo version is available here.


Site News: No updates for the next week...

I'm going to be out of the office for the next week, so there will be no updates until the 20th of October.

Dave


Plugin Update: Import / Export

For some reason, the version of the importer that I compiled didn't work in a Japanese OS, so this version has been compiled to fix that. Thanks to whoever did it!


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v1.2.4 are:
- Performance improvement for exporter
- Bug fix for meshes that contain linestrips
- Rename from NextGen to OpenCOLLADA
- Import nodes of type joint as bones into Max


Misc Update: New hotfix for Max 2010 released...

Autodesk have released a new hotfix for Max 2010 and Max Design 2010 which addresses the following issues:

- Fixes a bug in the Camera Map texture and modifier
- Customer Error Reports now work under Windows 7
- The DirectX Shader material now respects the vertex normal
- Adds support for DWG Files containing double-byte characters
- Fixes a number of issues with the InfoCenter
- Fixes a problem with FX files losimg parameters
- Adds support in the Material Editor for material map sources containing double-byte characters
- The MAXScript command filenameFromPath now returns the filename as expected
- You can now query a server list with MAXScript in the 32-bit version of Max
- mental ray no longer has problems with overlay scripts
- Fixes an issue when rotating and scaling while using Non-Uniform Scale
- When you try to restore a material with ProCutter, the original UVs are now retained
- When using ProCutter, smoothing groups are no longer lost
- You can now save images to a path that contains double-byte characters
- Fixes a Lightscape issue when lights were copied
- Drag and drop operations no longer causes third-party plugins to stop working
- Vertex colors are no longer overwritten when switching between Vertex and Polygon sub-object modes
- Issues which were causing dramatic system slowdown with the SpecAPC scene have been resolved


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v1.4.3 are:
- Adds support for 64-bit Max versions
- Fixes corrupt shader path when exporting from Max 2010
- Fixes missing shortcut to separately installed plugins
- Fixes wrong tangent basis being exported
- Fixes installation on localized versions of Max
- Fixes Windows Installer version problem
- Adds an option to install plugins only (doesn't require Max to be installed)


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for Alpha 3 are:
- All of the materials are now available


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v1.1 are:
- Combines RAL Classic and RAL Design into one interface
- Fixes parameters resetting when repeatedly opening the plugin

Siger Texmap RAL Color Solid is available for Max 2009 and 2010, and costs €19.50.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.1 are:
- Adds support for Max Design
- The installers have now been integrated

Studio Clouds is available for Max 2009 and 2010, and costs €1800. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.1 are:
- Adds support for Max 2010 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Adds support for 2D flash overlays
- Adds global illumination
- Adds dynamic Depth-Of-Field
- Adds real-time area shadows
- Adds support for V-Ray lightmaps and materials

Click-VR Visualizer is available for Max 5 to 2010 and costs €1,180. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.01 are:
- Adds support for Max 2009 and 2010 (32-bit and 64-bit)


Plugin Update: Connection

Changes for Build 46408 are:
- Optimizes region render with Max 2010 when Vue GI is enabled
- Fixes a crash when launching Vue final gather rays into the mental ray scene
- Fixes slower GI renders when camera aperture is set to something other than 36mm
- Improves overall compatibility with MacOS 10.6
- Fixes locked plant reading on MacOS 10.6
- Fixes scale mismatch when baking parametric terrains to polygons
- Fixes glowing water issue within planet shadow
- Fixes cumulated atmosphere quality drop each time a scene file is reloaded
- Fixes macro issues with Metablobs
- Improves network rendering with Hypervue

Vue 7 xStream is available for Max 7 to 2010 and costs $1495. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v0.3 are:
- The Art Professional Material has been redesigned to be more flexible and usable
- Shaderlight can now render interactively to any custom resolution up to 1920x1920
- Speed has been increased by up to 100 percent for complex production scenes
- Progressive image refinement has been improved
- A message window has been added to track log messages during interactive rendering
- Invisible objects no longer get rendered
- Several bugs have been fixed to improve overall stability

ShaderLight is available for Max 2008 to 2010 (64-bit only) and costs $75 during the beta phase.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v2.5.08 are:
- Fixes issues with retarget files speed
- Fixes issues with 'Image view' mode

FilePathFinder Pro is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $25. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v1.1 are:
- Fixes all templates
- Changed licensing (license locked to the computer hardware)
- Adds support for V-Ray SP3/SP3a
- Adds support for Max 2010 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Adds support for the Blend material (VRayBlendMtl not supported)
- Adds support for the Multi/Sub-Object material
- Adds Help & Samples rollout

SigerShaders VMosaic is available for Max 2009 and 2010, and costs €25.


Plugin Update: Particles

Changes for v1.074 are:
- Adds support for Max 2010 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Made changes to the Camera IMBlur operator to accommodate the fixes in Max 2010


Plugin Update: Modelling / Animation

Changes for v1.3.0 are:
- Adds a new direction modifier: Deviation direction
- Adds a version of the plugin for render nodes
- Adds new parameters for Path distributor: Range parameters
- Adds new parameters for Path Position distributor: Absolute position and Angle Axis
- Adds new parameters for Distributor in point: Angle bend and Chaos angle
- Adds new parameter for Distributor in point: Chaos offset
- Adds a new Scale factor parameter for all graphs
- Minor bugs fixed

GrowFX is available for Max 9 to 2010 and costs $325. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v1.2.3 are:
- Corrects ID/SID handling for Max import
- ATL Security Merge embedded into MSI for x64
- Other minor fixes

The OpenCollada guys have also kindly compiled a version of the plugin for Max 7(!), which can be downloaded here.


Plugin Update: Particles

Changes for v1.5.1.38002 are:
- Adds multiple sorting options to the Channel Input and Output nodes
- A Krakatoa Delete modifier can now be added to a PRT Loader or PRT Volume
- The Krakatoa Delete Modifier now supports two modes: Selection > 0 and using Soft-Selection

Krakatoa is available for Max 8 to 2010 and costs $995 plus support ($248.75) for the standard bundle (1 workstation license and 2 rendering licenses). A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling / Animation

Changes for v3.2.8 beta are:
- New parameter in Geometry->Geometry List - Color ID
- New feature Distribution Map->Diversity for defining how items are scattered
- Scale Falloff from area splines
- Scattering process now is fully multithreaded
- The collision detection system has been rewritten completely
- Adds a new collision parameter - Height
- Preview on Viewport is now disabled by default
- Distribution Map can now get UVW coordinates from Surface
- Adds parameters to set mapping channel for Distribution and Tint maps
- Geometry->Probability now uses decimal values
- New display parameter to disable auto rebuilding of the Forest object
- Number of CPU Threads is now set automatically from available processors
- Fixes random Self-illum problem when using billboards in Mental Ray
- Undo Buffer is not cleared anymore after rendering
- Fixes popping trees issue when using spline density falloff
- Fixes a bug in random translation on Y axis
- XRef objects from VRay or MR proxies are no longer taken as meshes
- Camera->Expand default value increased to 25%
- Random Translation default set to 20%
- Removes Distribution->Draw Gizmo parameter

Forest Pack Pro is available for Max 7 to 2010 and normally costs €250. For a limited time it is on sale for €200. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling / Animation

Changes for v3.0.28 are:
- Adds support for Max 2010 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Fixes a licensing issue (registered users will need a new key)

LipService with LBrush is available for Max 8 to 2010 and costs $99. A demo version is available here.


Site News: Advertising space...

As soon as work allows, I'm going to be making some changes to the site so that I can put in a leaderboard banner at the top of the page. The changes have got to be made to the backend of the site to enable statistics for the banner.

If you would be interested in advertising here, just drop me a line at the email address above.