MAX Plugins.de News Archive

Archived Plugin News  –  October 2020
 

Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v3.2.0 are:
- Adds two customizable tabs to the GUI
- Adds a function to automatically guess size from object material maps
- Adds support for more map classes for 'Show maps in viewport'
- You can now distribute elements evenly
- You can now sort elements by height/width
- You can now randomly spread elements in multiple stacks
- Adds a Flip to Left/Right function and an Up/Down function (Shift+Click)
- You can now scale uniformly by texture aspect ratio
- UV vertices can now be collapsed by distance threshold
- Adds a function to convert real-world mapping to regular tiling
- The default packing method can now chosen (non-convex added in Max 2017+)
- The UV Editor can now be closed with a right click
- You can now open the UV Editor with Filter Selection (Ctrl+Click)
- Improves planar mapping to have better alignment (similar to UVW Map - Normal Align)
- Show/Hide maps in the viewport is now faster
- The Tweaker/Aligner now has better mouse hit detection
- Improves the speed of UV Smooth
- Invert Rotate 90 can now be disabled
- Rename Unwrap to 'UV Tools Unwrap' can now be disabled
- Fixes a Save Unwrap Setup error
- Fixes issues with Undo in some functions
- Fixes the UV Editor selection flickering when nothing is selected
- Fixes a Pick Morpher error
- Fixes the Max 2021 Rollouts bug if the taskbar is on top
- Fixes the background color on Max 2018 icons
- Fixes bad icons when Windows UI Scaling is enabled

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


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.3.0 are:
- Adds multi-language option for all UI text: English, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Vietnamese
- Adds a save options feature
- Adds an install option to register Stock Model Fixer menu in the Main Menu
- Button 'Open Model to Apply' (current scene)
- Adds HiDPI icons
- Updates the About rollout UI
- Updates the License rollout UI
- Updates the Installer UI
- Updates the license window UI
- Updates license information
- Removes the old payment system and adds 2Checkout so you can now pay with PayPal
- License keys now work permanently, version dependence has been removed
- Small bug fixes
- Adopts color hyperlinks and some buttons for light and dark themes in Max
- Fixes a bug where you couldn't rename textures because of empty paths

Stock Model Fixer is available for Max 2016 to 2021 and costs $5.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.4.1b are:
- Adds bitmap compression on GPU
- Improves rendering interactivity
- Adds faster and more accurate relative power clamp estimation
- Fixes incorrect volumetric bounding box calculation
- Fixes distance texture high memory use
- Fixes an RT rendering crash
- Fixes black HDRI texture preview
- Fixes black region render

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


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v3.0.31 are:
- Fixes Max issues with a decline in performance to do with Render View and Feedback Display
- Fixes Max issues with disabled controls in user interface for AOV Processing settings
- Adds a potential fix for unsolicited IPR updates triggered by Save / Auto-Save in Max
- The Max denoise UI in Render Setup now hides options unused by the selected Denoise Engine
- Adds initial C4D support for Node materials in the Asset Manager
- Adds initial support for C4D-style material overrides though a new 'Material Override' option
- Addresses a C4D issue where undoing certain actions would not be reflected in the IPR
- Adds Houdini support for H18.0.597 and drops support for H18.0.499
- Addresses the live IPR updating of the RS strands parameters in Houdini
- Fixes a Houdini memory leak while rendering volume objects in update mode
- Refactors tangents computation code in Houdini to handle an arbitrary number of UV maps
- Adds a new 'RS OGL Material' HDA including viewport OpenGL tags in Houdini
- Adds Houdini support for H18.0.597 and drops support for H18.0.499
- Fixes a Katana crash while rendering instance arrays with motion blur
- Adds Hydra support for H18.0.597 and drops support for H18.0.499
- Addresses a Hydra incompatibility issue between our delegate and other renderers
- Addresses Hydra support of primitive level UV maps in meshes and curves
- Fixes a Hydra problem with the dome light texture file path while rendering from husk
- Fixes a RenderView issue that caused serious performance issues in Max when rendering sequences
- Fixes issues that caused degraded performance even when Feedback Display was hidden
- Fixes a bug that was leaking a small amount of CPU memory but could affect overnight renders
- Fixes a bug with OptiX hair and points that could produce visual artifacts
- Refraction by default no longer contributes to the alpha channel
- Adds a new system legacy option to enable alpha channel contribution from refractions
- Fixes a bug that caused random crashes when using switch shader nodes for transparent materials
- Fixes an issue with volumes using a shader ramp that doesn't start with a zero/black value
- Cleans up the messages in the redshiftBenchmark tool
- Adds extra sanity check code to prevent cases of 'Mem copy is too big for buffer' asserts
- Fixes a bug when light is reflected through an object with the same IOR as its surroundings
- Rendering now aborts if the sprite node textures exceed 2GB in size
- Fixes a potential crash when rendering materials with material blend nodes and shader switches

Redshift is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $500. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v2.5.0 are:
- Fixes memory leaks in the plugin
- Adds 16 new Interior Plaster | Stucco materials for V-Ray, Corona and Octane
- Adds 32 new texture maps

XS Material Presets Pro is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs €180.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.22 are:
- Fixes a problem with refreshing MacID's on Windows 10 PCs
- Icons in Desipher are no longer pixelated
- Fixes Max 2021 Workflow Tab switching out wrong rollouts in Springboard
- Springboard playblast stability fixes
- Various Springboard playblast advanced window updates
- Disperse now fully supports V-Ray proxies
- Scatter now fully supports V-Ray proxies

SiNi Software is available for Max 2015 to 2021 and costs £180 per year. A demo version is available here.


Plugin News: 3ds Max scripter needed

Design Connected Ltd., the company behind the Connecter digital assets manager, is searching for a seasoned, full-time 3ds Max scripter to join their compact team. The position is remote (preferably in the GMT+0 to GMT+3 time zones) or in their office in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. You can find all of the details about the job here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v3.996 are:
- Adds transfer of Diffuse color animation keys from source material to target material
- Fixes gamma handling when converting CoronaBitmap texturemap to VrayBitmap (VrayHDRI)
- Optimizes script loading and adds a loading bar
- Improves handling of unexpected errors that may occur during material conversion

V-RayMtl Converter is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $30.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.28 are:
- Adds V-Ray 5 VrayBitmap default color space transfer
- Adds V-Ray 5 VrayBitmap default RGB color space
- Fixes a Dotnet escape related bug
- Fixes the Resizer aspect ratio bug
- Fixes a Resizer Substance2 support bug
- Fixes drag n drop conflicts with other scripts

DropToSlate is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $10.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v2.0 are:
- Adds a completely new user interface for the node editor
- This version is incompatible with version 1.x, but you can use both versions at the same time
- Adds support for Velocity Trails to ParticleToLevelset
- Adds support for UVW channels to ObjectToLevelset
- Adds support for alembic export to LevelsetToMesh
- Adds support for mask and trim functions to the Smooth Filter
- Adds support for new filter types, mask and trim functions to the Erode/Dilate Filter
- Adds a reNormalize node
- Adds a Resample node
- Adds a Transform node
- Adds a Reset Transform node
- Adds a Segment node
- Adds support for masks on Levelset Morph
- Improves the speed of the Add Map function
- Adds an LOD node
- Adds support for channel naming on VDB export
- Adds a Visualize node
- Adds a GridInfo node
- Adds support for channel naming on VDB file import
- Adds many nodes for control of the various functions
- Many minor core process bug-fixes

AqMesher2 is available for Max 2017 to 2021 and costs $245. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.3 are:
- Adds import of Sketchup cameras
- The checked state of the linked files is now saved
- Clean, Fix, Split per material now works much faster

miauu's Manage Links is available for Max 2017 to 2021 and costs €23.


New Plugin: Animation

Dynamo is a (real-time) GPU-accelerated cloth dynamics plugin that performs 10-100x faster than the native cloth modifier. Being real-time, it enables natural interactions in real-time and moves the creation process from trial and error to something that is playful and fun. This shortens the test loop that designers go through when creating new objects. The underlying physics engine is written in C++ and CUDA C. It exploits the parallel computational capabilities of the multi-core CPU and the GPU to achieve exceptional performance and scalability, while producing accurate and reliable animations. Multithreaded and extensively optimized, this simulator is built for speed.

Dynamo is available for Max 2018 to 2021 and costs €99. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Modelling

Hardmesh is primarily used to create complex objects starting from simple shapes, but it can also be used to add details to any hard surface model. You can blend together any kind of mesh without having to worry about the topology and by just concentrating on the creative process of modelling. Everything remains editable until you are satisfied with the shape. Any kind of modelling operation can be done on the input meshes, from moving vertices to splitting or deleting faces. A rich set of operations gives you the freedom to blend your meshes in many ways. You can always switch among the operations, from an union operation to the new panel operation.

Hardmesh is available for Max 2018 to 2020 and costs €80. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v2.6.0 are:
- Adds actions for setting hard/soft edges and a hard/soft edges toggle
- Actions are now activated/deactivated with the 'Keyboard Shortcut Override Toggle' button
- You can now uninstall the tool from its Help menu
- Improves startup error handling
- Improves the installer and uninstaller
- Fixes a .NET issue when FIPS is enabled

PolySmoother is available for Max 2014 to 2021 and costs $35.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v3.0.30 are:
- Fixes a Max bug where Render View Post FX parameters are not updated correctly after scene reset
- Render View Post FX controls no longer enable in Max on creating Redshift Camera Effects modifier
- Fixes various spinner ranges in user interface for Maxon Noise in Max
- Effects overridden by Redshift Camera Effects modifier are now indicated in the Max Render View UI
- Addresses the selected ROP node while opening the RenderView from the RS ROPs in Houdini
- Improves volume extraction code in Houdini to try to avoid problems with some vector grids
- Improves Houdini support to create Cryptomatte IDs for not available materials
- Addresses a Houdini problem with the 'opdef:' HDAs texture referencing
- Fixes a Houdini problem with the proxy export 'Ignore OBJ Level Transformations' option
- Fixes a Houdini problem with the DOF settings and the RenderView related to the enable state
- Fixes a Katana crash while working with image filenames without extension
- Fixes a Hydra rendering problem related to the center time topology computation
- Addresses several Hydra issues with object motion blur
- Fixes a RenderView issue where the zoom menu wouldn't zoom when selected
- Fixes a handful of issues in the Matte-Shadow-Catcher shader relating to AO and alpha
- Fixes garbage backplate colors being used on matte objects when no texture is specified
- Fixes a bug that disabled the OptiX denoiser on macOS CUDA builds
- Fixes a bug where switching material on a volume grid could make the grid not render
- Fixes an ancient bug that on very rare occasions could cause random crashes
- Fixes edge-case procedural texture bump-mapping anomalies when rays are very warped
- Fixes puzzle-matte reflection/refraction stoppin when more than 8 puzzle matte AOVs are added

Redshift is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $500. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v4.1.2.1 are:
- Upgrades to Arnold 6.0.4.1
- Fixes an Alembic crash with bezier curves with radius
- Fixes Alembic curves not creating instances with make_instance enabled
- Fixes Alembic curves:radius not overriding the radius of curves in archive
- Fixes Alembic remapping not working with alembic procedural
- Allows camera matrices with small scaling values
- Applies remapping and environment variables to the ocio_color_manager config file
- No longer allows zero epsilon in bump3d
- Fixes duplicate output detection with non existent paths
- Fixes incorrect results with some LPEs in Arnold GPU
- Fixes a hang when rendering thin OpenVDB volumes
- kick --help now has a 'session is already started' warning
- min_pixel_width now properly applies to objects within transformed procedurals
- Fixes an error when OSL plugins are not loaded
- Fixes linking of closure parameters in OSL
- The reported AOV sample memory usage is no longer too high
- Setting texture wrap to MISSING mode no longer results in a black border
- Implements USD HdRenderDelegate::CreateRenderDelegate(const HdRenderSettingsMap& settingsMap)
- Fixes reading the matrix in points viewport mode in USD
- The varname parameter now accepts both string and token when translating preview materials
- Fixes the cylinder light orientation in USD


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v6.1 are:
- Reverts the behavior of the 'no tiling' mode in the CoronaBitmap
- Fixes incorrect gamma in the 'Concrete plates dirty' material in the Material Library
- Fixes DR getting stuck when rendering the second frame of an animation
- Fixes the issue where having Norwegian locale lead to a Max crash at startup
- Scatter no longer misses an update in IR, fixing instances 'popping' when timeline scrubbing
- Fixes a crash when a Falloff Map is applied to refraction
- Fixes LEGION_STOP in a scene with a combination of Falloff and RGB multiply maps
- Fixes the Falloff map built-in color mixing
- Fixes crashes in some legacy Corona Scatter scenes that used a scale map

Corona Renderer is available for Max 2014 to 2021 and costs €24.99 per month. A demo version is available here.