MAX Plugins.de News Archive

Archived Plugin News  –  November 2018
 

Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.2.9c are:
- GPU loading optimization for a rendering speedup of 5-20%
- Adds a material transit option working as exclude for grey material mode
- Adds Forest pack override material support
- Fixes incorrect FB zooming center
- Fixes incorrect render element settings update
- Fixes a random rendering stop
- Fixes a crash during rendering

FStormRender is available for Max 2014 to 2019 and costs €20 per month. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v2.6.0 beta are:
- Adds a setting to enable/disable project's DataRefs and Commands ID usage
- Adds a setting to enable/disable project's DataRefs and Commands Sorting
- Updates Datarefs and Commands project format
- Fixes a bug when setting a custom DataRef or Command key with the DataRef or Command list open


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v2.6.29 are:
- Martin Geupel's Redshift Converter v0.25 MAXScript is now bundled
- Fixes a Maya bug that caused the Hosek-Wilkie skydome colors to get stuck when moving the sun
- Adds support for Maya Fluids
- Rectangle and disk shape physical lights now have viewport indicators in Maya
- Fixes a Maya 2016 issue where the Redshift Shelf would not load
- Adds 'Auto' input selection option to the C4D RS Ramp node
- Fixes a C4D issue with RSLight textures when using the 'Temperature and Color' mode
- Adds 'Auto' input selection option to the Houdini RS Ramp node
- Adds new logic to manage the deprecated ROP parameters and avoid warning messages in Houdini
- A new HScript command opens the floating RS RenderView window without starting IPR rendering
- A new Houdini RS ROP node option opens the RS RenderView window without starting rendering
- Adds several 'hidden' texture related render options to the Katana RedshiftRenderSettings node
- Fixes a halo bug with ray-marched volumes when interacting with global environment fog
- Fixes a bug that broke multiple importance sampling for mesh lights
- Fixes a bug that affected area lights with spread and global volume scattering
- Fixes an OIIO crash when rendering PSD textures
- Rolls back OptiX version to 5.1.0 to reinstate support for RTX/Turing GPUs
- Adds support for the 'REDSHIFT_DEBUGCAPTURE' environment variable

Redshift is available for Max 2013 to 2019 and costs $500. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Modelling

This commercial MAXScript is for editing vertex normals. It can calculate normals based on topology, a projection gizmo or projecting normals from another mesh. It uses a layer system that divides the mesh into up to 7 layers, each of which can be calculated independently.

Vertex Normal Toolkit is available for Max 2012 to 2019 and costs $20.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.1.2 are:
- Adds support for OpenVDB
- Adds a KuaFu Volume Modifier
- Adds a KuaFu Heterog Volume shader for simulating participating media
- Adds a KuaFu Tex3d texture shader
- Adds a KuaFu Material Library
- Fixes a bug in Universal Photon Mapping
- Fixes a bug with importance sampling
- Help documents have been updated


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.2.8a are:
- Adds [Distance: Evenly inbetween original and first copy] function

miauu's Extend Clone Tool is available for Max 2014 to 2019 and costs €5.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v2.5.0 are:
- Adds support for top modifiers (experimental)
- Adds support for vertex weights
- Fixes a bug where closing PolySmoother while previewing didn't release the preview channel
- Fixes a bug that could save the toolbar position out of screen size
- Sets Edges and Verts Weight lower limit to 0.0001
- Fixes Create UVW Shells from Smoothing Groups for objects with dead vertices

PolySmoother is available for Max 2014 to 2019 and costs $35.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.2 are:
- Improves the 'Pich' button so you can now quickly add multiple objects while holding CTRL
- Fixes an error when deleting objects from the list in Max 2017 and below

RC Camera Mod is available for Max 9 to 2019 and costs $7. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v4.00 - 6.10 are:
- Updated to Octane Render 4.00
- Fixes issues with tile grid (undo Clear)
- Fixes persistency issues for orbx export
- Adds persistency for static geometry (nodes not set as movable proxy)
- Adds a Film region button in the viewport window
- Renames viewport button 'Lock resolution' to 'Use window resolution'
- Fixes the regions rectangle for 'Use window resolution' mode
- Adds 'Multiple Render Passes' mode to viewport to switch render passes without a render restart
- Adds a quick mode to Octane Viewport for fast interaction with large numbers of movable proxies
- Fixes the render setting dialog issues when the liveDB path is invalid
- Improves performance of Octane proxy file loading and for some scene parsing cases

OctaneRender is available for Max 2013 to 2019 and costs $619. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v9.0.9 are:
- Fixes an issue with mrtool using the legacy -sf -ef flags instead of the new -range flag
- Fixes an issue with the last idle and last paused timers not working as intended
- Job selection in the Dispatcher has been optimised
- Updates the way jobs and nodes are sorted after being retrieved from the Dispatcher
- Warning dialogs are now configurable in the Console preferences

Muster is available for Max 7 to 2019 and costs $85 per node. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for LwCad 2018 are:
- Adds a new parametric tool for creating windows from curves, polygons or NURBS
- Adds a new parametric tool for creating railings based on the Line Tool
- Adds a new railing tool for attaching railing parametric objects to Stair Tools
- Adds a new railing pop-up preset to the Stair Tool
- Adds a new pop-up preset for UV dimensions to Rect UV and Quad UV
- Adds new pop-up presets for size dimensions to Rectangle, Box and Window
- Adds new pop-up presets for size dimensions to Rect Roof, Rect Stair and Wall
- Adds a new optional multi-blade mode to Knife with pop-up presets for blade distances

LwCad 2018 is available for Max 2013 to 2019 and costs €199. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v3 include:
- Implements NVIDIA's GPU denoising
- Optimizes IR restarts, making it more responsive
- IR restarts with the new light solver are now significantly faster
- IR restarts in the Corona VFB are now generally faster (comparable to the docked VFB)
- Displacement improvements for better image quality without the need to sacrifice render time
- Improvements to memory consumption
- Both CoronaMultiMap and CoronaUvwRandomizer now support randomization by Mesh Element
- Adds support for additional image file formats
- Adds a first implementation of a unified Corona Lister for Corona Scatters and Corona Lights
- Numerous light solver improvements
- Various UI improvements
- And many more improvements and bug-fixes... a full list can be found here

Corona Renderer is available for Max 2013 to 2019 and costs €24.99 per month. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v2.4.0 are:
- Adds .rpr export format
- Adds adaptive subdivision
- Bilateral denoiser is now the selected default in the UI
- Changes a number of Uber3 default values from 0 to 1
- Adds a diffuse backscattering option for simple backlighting
- Adds clearcoat thickness and transmission color
- Adds refraction absorption, for glass and liquid objects that scatter light
- Adds per lobe normals
- Refractions (Glass) now default to not allow caustics for faster, less noisy images
- Render settings have been reorganized, allowing clearer user control of render settings
- Adds different device configurations for viewport and final renders
- You can now set the number of CPU threads for CPU renders
- You can now control ray depth separately for diffuse, shadow, reflections and refraction
- Adds support for Max 2019 (support for Max 2016 has been dropped)
- Adds an ambient occlusion node for various uses
- Adds support for iterative progressive resolution rendering (preview mode) in Active Shade
- Improves performance of Uber materials when mesh polygon counts are high
- Physical Lights have been made more consistent with Max native lights
- Physical Lights now work in Active Shade mode
- PBR and Uber shaders are now equivalent to the Maya and blender shaders
- Various Render settings have been cleaned up
- Clearcoat and refraction absorption on Uber is now a color instead of a float
- Normal map node now functions equivalent to Maya and Blender, the second map input is removed
- Uber metalness parameter now works as expected with 0 values
- Fixes light count from overcounting lights and not correctly reporting emissive geometry


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v0.7.4 are:
- Updates the SDK to 4.2.22


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.2.8a are:
- The FStorm frame buffer now has built-in tone mapping
- SSS/fog rendering has been reworked resulting in a speed up
- You can now copy the FStorm frame buffer to clipboard
- Adds a render time limit
- Increases the FStormMultiTexture limit from 16 to 32
- Adds Vrayfastsss2 conversion
- Fixes the material editor crashing if there is no license
- Fixes the render speed drop
- Fixes the broken render element transit option
- Fixes incorrect fb build in tone mapping placement

FStormRender is available for Max 2014 to 2019 and costs €20 per month. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v4.3.2 are:
- Increases the Rectangle Packing padding to 256 pixels

PolyUnwrapper is available for Max 2010 to 2019 and costs $45. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v7.02c are:
- Perl versions other than 5.26 are now detected as 'unsupported' and properly rejected as such
- Fixes the Proxy program from responding to orders before the operations had completed
- Fixes a bug in some SQL queries causing issues such as unnecessary auto-complete operations
- Fixes the qblogin password registration failing on Windows 10

Qube! is available for Max 7 to 2019 and costs $300 + $60 per node. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v4.0 are:
- Nested Isolation - adds LMB + Click to select all objects from the clicked isolation level

miauu's Script Pack Volume 1 is available for Max 9 to 2019 and costs €12.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v3.5 are:
- In Edit Mode the user can now choose which segment to edit by pressing the TAB key
- While editing, press the ESC key to cancel the current edit and snap to a new vertex

Polyline Pro is available for Max 2010 to 2019 and costs €25.


Plugin Updates: ProtoTech plugins for Max 2019

ProtoTech Solutions and Services Pvt. Ltd have uploaded updated versions of their plugins for Max 2019. The following plugins are now available:
- WebGL Exporter v3.1.0.0
- OBJ Exporter v3.1.0.0
- 3D PDF Exporter v3.2.0.0

The ProtoTech Solutions and Services plugins are available for Max 2016 to 2019 and normally cost $79. For a limited time (until November 25th) you can get a license for $67.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v1.6.67 are:
- Adds support for Max 2019


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.6.4 are:
- Adds thumbnails for OBJ, FBX, 3DS, Lightwave (.lwo), Collada (.dae) and MODO (.lxo)
- File filters now display the number of files from each format and renderer
- Adds a Folders context menu option to apply the 'Show files in subfolders' to all subfolders
- You can now apply MEF (Manage External Files) to whole folders from the context menu
- A number of minor UI improvements and bug fixes to Manage External Files
- Fixes some small issues with filtering of stacked folders
- Fixes some issues with moving folders inside a cloud folder and tag management


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v0.72 are:
- Pressing two shortcut keys at once no longer leads to a crash
- The Macro ID fixer 'all' now works as expected
- Adds a 'Show Smoothing groups' shortcut to Viewport modes
- Pie menus now work as expected
- Huge stability improvements to LazerCut's InsetSG 3.0
- WheelCtrl now behaves as expected
- Personal licenses can now be registered and activated at installation time
- KeyHydra can now be used offline (until the next update)
- The terms and conditions have changed

KeyHydra is available for Max 2018 to 2019 and costs €29.99 per year. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v2.92.50 are:
- Speeds up relinking of asset files for complex scenes up to 5 times
- Adds the ability to display more information on proxies such as Faces, Frames and Bounding box
- Adds the ability to save excluded from merging classes to presets
- Images shown with the Max VFB now display in center of the active screen
- Fixes an issue with the latest versions of Fstorm when converting to Proxy
- Fixes an issue with the latest versions of Redshift when converting to Proxy
- Fixes a minor issue with rendering previews for some Max files
- Fixes a minor issue with generating bug-reports
- Fixes a bug with the reordering of directories in treeView
- Fixes some issues with dragging materials between the plugin window and the Material Editor

Project Manager is available for Max 2012 to 2019 and costs $75. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v9.0.8 are:
- Adds a Windows 7 workaround for dual NIC installations where IPV6 is disabled on one of the NIC
- Adds a render template for Katana
- Adds a formatting flag for job query (-q j) to get the total job cumulative processing time
- Fixes archived jobs inside folders being invisible when the Archive filter was enabled
- Fixes potential problems with jobs belonging to templates that are no longer available
- Fixes an issue where the Dispatcher may be stuck on Loading queue cache

Muster is available for Max 6 to 2019 and costs $85 per node. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v4.21 are:
- Improves BRDF matching from V-Ray materials (especially for metal and glass)
- Adds support for the most commonly used Max maps for improved fidelity and reduced rework
- Adds the ability to translate Max material graphs to Unreal graphs on export


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.2 are:
- Adds a 'Set incremental or total distance between cloned objects' parameter

miauu's Extend Clone Tool is available for Max 2014 to 2019 and costs €5.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.0.0 beta are:
- Adds support for Max 2019
- Adds support for volumetric materials
- Adds BCD Denoiser controls
- Adds Adaptive Tile Sampler controls and related AOVs
- Adds non-photorealistic asToon OSL shader and related AOVs
- Adds a AsSbsPbrMaterial OSL shader
- Reorganizes the Render Setup user interface
- Adds support for global shading overrides
- Adds pixel filtering settings
- Adds per-ray type (difuse/glossy/specular) bounce limit controls
- Adds a Direct Lighting enable/disable switch
- Adds a Texture Cache Size setting
- Enables full energy compensation in the built-in Metal material
- Adds direct and environment lighting samples multipliers
- Adds a Force Default Lights Off switch to the render settings
- Adds Russian Roulette Start Bounce controls
- Adds a Roughness Clamping control
- Adds a Low Light Threshold control
- Adds a Medium Priority control to the appleseed Object Properties modifier
- Adds a material preview quality setting
- You can now translate a Physical Camera without DOF to a pinhole camera
- Adds a switch to enable an experimental Intel Embree-based intersection kernel
- CTRL+A can now select the content of the log window
- Renames the Max Global Bounces control to Max Ray Bounces
- Animated material parameters now work correctly
- Fixes compatibility with MonotoneMinimal.com's VFB+ plugin
- Fixes the built-in Plastic material when Use Max Procedural Maps is off
- Fixes film dimensions for the Physical Camera without DOF
- The Scale Multiplier is now honored when setting film dimensions
- Disables project export when Use Max Procedural Maps is on
- Unix search path separators are now used to ensure portability of exported appleseed projects
- Fixes the Render Element rollout title
- Fixes access to render engine parameters from MAXScript
- Fixes render stamp opacity differences with appleseed.studio


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v2.6.27 are:
- Adds Max support for Cryptomatte AOV
- Fixes a Max issue where Deadline wrote empty files for AOVs when using Redshift File Output
- Fixes a Maya bug that caused the Noise shader 'Billow' pattern to jump when changing time
- Updates the Houdini Volume SHOP HDA
- Houdini gets a massive IPR performance boost by fixing a critical scene update issue
- Adds instancing support to Houdini SOP level packed primitives
- Adds a new plugin build for Houdini 16.5.634 and removes the build for Houdini 16.5.496
- Fixes a Houdini crash in the scene multi-thread extraction code related to default materials
- Houdini can now recover a selected nodes state during proxy export using the proxy output node
- Fixes a naming error in the RS Ramp shader input source option
- Fixes a rare OOC texture sampler bug that could cause visual corruption when AMM is enabled
- Fixes a potential 'banding' issue when rendering lower-resolution volume grids
- Fixes a bug where proxy file tiled texture (UDIM/UVTILE) dependencies weren't being determined
- Fixes the 'Stack Allocator num bytes should be zero at this point' crash
- Fixes a bug that caused Custom AOV 'default' shaders to produce inconsistent results
- Fixes a rare bug that could cause a heap corruption crash when generating the geo node groups
- Fixes an AMM bug that could result in underutilizing VRAM for geo and texture cache
- Adds tiled texture paths (with tag) output to the RS CmdLine -printdependencies log
- Adds an output path option to the RS TextureProcessor tool
- Adds a 'Reference Object' option to the RS State node for reference positions and normals output

Redshift is available for Max 2013 to 2019 and costs $500. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Particles / Animation

Changes for v3.12.00 are:
- Adds texture support for volume rendering with V-Ray Next GPU
- Adds support for all V-Ray and Max Physical Camera parameters when creating an Ocean Mesh
- Adds support for all V-Ray camera types when creating an Ocean Mesh
- Adds instancing and referencing for rendering and preview of Simulators in non-mesh render modes
- Adds instancing and referencing of Simulators during simulation
- Adds support for Simulators and Particle Shaders in Scene and Object XRefs
- New MAXScript interface can get grid data and load render presets directly from Simulator nodes
- Adds new MAXScript functions for saving a Simulator render preset to file
- Adds new MAXScript functions for saving and loading a Simulator's simulation preset to file
- WetMap now has different sticky effect against different liquid viscosities
- Exposes the hidden grid-based motion blur algorithm from Phoenix FD 3.00.01
- Adds support for the new transformation model of OpenVDB caches from FumeFX 5
- And much more... a full list of updates and fixes can be found here

Phoenix FD is available for Max 2014 to 2019 and costs €600. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.51 are:
- Fixes button event handlers that caused the script to not run properly in older Max versions

Normal Tools is available for Max 9 to 2019 and costs $15.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v12.05 are:
- Fixes the Max plugin incorrectly handling UV's on certain objects
- Fixes UVW's sometimes being altered if the W value is defined
- Fixes the move textures option leading to a crash when exporting
- Fixes light being modified when zooming, leading to a darker visualization
- The view is now correctly updated when objects are deleted
- The view is now correctly update when materials are shown or hidden
- Fixes wireframe view, particularly with Sketchup files
- Fixes UV's sometimes being incorrectly assigned to materials on FBX export
- Fixes UV's sometimes being incorrectly assigned on FBX import
- Fixes object position sometimes being incorrect on FBX import

Polygon Cruncher is available for Max 2009 to 2019 and costs $129. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v14.05 are:
- Merge by Materials now works with Sketchup files
- Fixes some 3DBrowser preferences not being taken into account
- Fixes computing of thumbnails sometimes leading to an application crash
- Multi folders view in the 3DBrowser now correctly displays the folders content
- Fixes Polygon Cruncher sometimes altering UVW's if the W value is defined
- You can now use both the Maya and Max plugin at the same time
- Fixes the move textures option leading to a crash when exporting
- Fixes light being modified when zooming, leading to a darker visualization
- The view is now correctly updated when objects are deleted
- The view is now correctly update when materials are shown or hidden
- Fixes wireframe view, particularly with Sketchup files
- Fixes UV's sometimes being incorrectly assigned to materials on FBX export
- Fixes UV's sometimes being incorrectly assigned on FBX import
- Fixes object position sometimes being incorrect on FBX import

3D Browser for 3D Users is available for Max 2010 to 2019 and costs $69. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.71.07 are:
- Adds 'Resize images by Percent' to the Resize Bitmaps dialog
- Adds 'Save to Cropped Jpg' to find / crop scene bitmaps and replace them with the cropped JPG
- Fixes drag and dropping materials from the 'Show Material By' browser to the Material Editor
- Fixes a crash error in Multi-threaded Autorelink

Bitmap Tracking/Resizing is available for Max 2009 to 2019 and costs $9. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v0.93.16 are:
- Adds 'Resize by Percent' to the Resize Bitmaps dialog
- Fixes 'Convert scene to FStorm' for newer versions of FStorm

Library Track and Relink is available for Max 2010 to 2019 and costs $9. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Modelling

Laubwerk Plants are your easy way to use high quality, botanically approved plants with multiple variations, ages and seasons in your 3D application. Visual plant library browsing, a wide range of Level of Detail Options and much more comes through the bundled Laubwerk Player, a piece of software that brings the plant dataset to life.

Plants Kit 13 includes the following temperate deciduous trees: Columnar Norway Maple, Faassen's Black Norway Maple, Japanese Angelica Tree, Paper Birch, Turkish Hazel, European Beech, 'Merrill' Magnolia, Showy Crab Apple, Black Locust, Salix Alba.

The Laubwerk Player provides quick visual access to the plant library on your computer, automatic generation of default materials, dynamic control for level of detail. You get multiple viewport drawing options (like a simple hull shape or a skeleton) for quick and feedback and low memory footprint while editing the scene and generates the fully detailed model dynamically at render time.

Laubwerk Plants Kit 13 is available for Max 2010 to 2019 and costs €149. A demo version is available here.