MAX Plugins.de News Archive

Archived Plugin News  –  March 2021
 

Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v3.14.15 are:
- Adds support for Max 2022
- Adds the ability to specify the pivot point when rendering previews for models
- Adds the ability to add materials to templates using drag&drop
- Adds the ability to paint over xRef objects
- Speeds up merging 3D models
- Speeds up merging 3D models as xRef
- Fixes a bug that occurs in some scenes when opening the Asset Files tab
- Fixes some issues with applying textures
- Fixes an issue with fitting a proxy to the viewport when rendering previews
- Fixes an issue with removing atmospherics on rendering previews
- Fixes other some minor issues
- Updates the API example script 'PostMerge-ConvertMaterials.ms'

Project Manager is available for Max 2014 to 2022 and costs $60. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.0.37 are:
- Adds support for Max 2022
- Updates and expands the help for the SketchUp Player
- Fixes a bug with V-Ray 2 rendering in SketchUp
- Adds support for Python 3.9
- Fixes an issue where the Python 2 Extension didn't load on newer macOS versions
- Fixes mesh errors affecting a few plants
- Various material enhancements
- Miscellaneous other bug fixes

Laubwerk Plants Kits are available for Max 2010 to 2022 and cost €149 each. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v3.9991 are:
- Adds support for Max 2022
- Adds an option to enable or disable converting VRay2SidedMtl to Standard DoubleSided material
- Small changes to the script UI

V-RayMtl Converter is available for Max 2013 to 2022 and costs $30.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v3.0.41 are:
- Adds a new map in Max: RS OSL Map replaces the RS OSL Shader
- The RS OSL Shader in Max is deprecated and is replaced by an RS OSL Map when loading scenes
- Adds a new RS OSL Material in Max, providing support for closures as materials
- Adds a button in Max to reset OSL shader parameters to their default
- Fixes restrictive value ranges for scale, offset and rotation params in Max' UV Projection map
- Fixes a Max issue where Reference coordinate space was not supported in UV Projection map
- Fixes a Max bug in RS Principled Hair with incorrectly connected shader connections
- Fixes a potential Max crash related to the OSL user interface
- Fixes a Max bug where image filenames on OSL shaders are not saved correctly in the scene
- Fixes Max UI update issues in RS Principled Hair and RS OSL Shader
- Fixes incorrect default FOV values for the Stereo Spherical Camera in Max
- OSL shader compilation in Max is now disabled when a shaderball is rendering
- The OSL UV Source in Max now defaults to map channel 1
- Programmatically changed redshiftOptions in Maya are now automatically recomputed
- Fixes a Maya issue where new instances weren't being rendered
- Fixes a Maya issue where deleting instance(s) caused the incorrect meshes to be rendered
- Maya shader inputs of type 'filename' now use the improved GUI controls
- Maya now has much more robust exporting and rendering of the current selection
- Change tracking in Maya now correctly handles exporting the selection to a proxy
- Change tracking in Maya now handles when Undo system is turned off
- Adding and removing extension nodes in Maya is now handled correctly by change tracking
- Fixes a Maya issue where XGen xgmSubdPatch or xgmNurbsPatch weren't being rendered
- Fixes a Maya issue where XGen IGS wasn't being rendered
- Fixes a potential C4D hang when attempting to preview rstexbin files in the UI
- Fixes a C4D bug when instantiating an OSL node from the X-Pool
- Fixes a C4D bug where proxies would not refresh during IPR under certain conditions
- Fixes a C4D Node materials bug where relative texture paths were resolved to the first match
- Fixes a C4D bug where changes to the global environment material were not reflected during IPR
- Adds support for Houdini 18.5.499 and drops support for 18.5.351, 18.0.566 and 18.0.532
- Adds a new 'Solaris style' viewport rendering IPR to Houdini
- Houdini now has IPR live scene updating after adding new objects
- Adds IPR OBJ nodes visibility flag live scene updating in Houdini
- Fixes a Houdini IPR memory leak while adding/removing objects
- Fixes a Houdini problem with the rotation parameters in the RS Environment shader node
- 'Extract Any UVW Type Attribute With Arbitrary Name As UV Map Attribute' now enabled by default
- Fixes a Houdini crash after recompiling some OSL nodes
- Fixes a Houdini bug with UV map attributes when exporting proxy files from RS proxy output SOP
- Fixes the Houdini RenderView clay mode to always respect the ROP node material override settings
- Fixes a Blender issue updating Light node changes during the IPR session
- Adds highlight buckets corners for IPR mode in Blender
- Fixes the sharp edges bug with GGX in Blender due to the wrong default value in Samplins Gamma
- Adds Hydra support for H18.5.499
- Fixes the light linking feature in the instance objects in Hydra
- Adds a RenderView option to right click 'Flip Vertical' or 'Flip Horizontal' curves
- Fixes a RenderView bug when zooming in / out in the RV would not display correctly
- Fixes a RenderView issue where the UI for PostFX Curves were inverted
- Fixes a RenderView crash when closing the Region Configuration dialog box
- Fixes an OSL issue that caused simple closure pass through materials to render garbage
- Fixes an OSL bug that could cause textures sampled in loops to look wonky
- Fixes a bug that caused dome light user-gamma overrides to behave in bizarre ways
- Fixes a bug that reduced the quality of RoundCorners or Curvature nodes for secondary rays
- Fixes a bug that could cause 'Bad sss AOV offset!' asserts when outputting raw SSS AOVs
- Fixes a bug that caused proxies containing OSL nodes from files to crash when rendering
- Fixes a bug that would cause empty volume lighting AOVs when rendering in progressive mode
- Negative texture values are now not clamped when used outside of displacement/bump sampling
- Automatic Sampling now accepts an error threshold of 0, for highest quality sampling
- Fixes a bug that caused invalid materials to crash instead of rendering red

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


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.25 are:
- The non-subdivided projection method now has a different algorithm
- Fixes a bug when selecting the gizmo projection shape
- Fixes the size of some buttons so they are no longer scaled and look much clearer
- Every subobject selection type is now supported

Vertex Normal Toolkit is available for Max 2012 to 2021 and costs $20.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v1.4.2d are:
- Improves displacement
- Improves kernel exposure behaviour
- Adds anamorphic/vignetting DOF
- Adds more 3ds max actions
- Improves glare

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


New Plugin: Modelling / Animation

Path Deform Pro is a modifier that deforms models along a path without causing self-intersections unlike the standard Path Deform modifier which produces a lot of self-intersections. It produces less pinching and stretching where the path bends. Additionally, it has options for volume preservation, slinky effect, rolling, rigid deformation, rotation/scaling with a curve and full control of the up vector using another spline to look at and much more.

Path Deform Pro is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs €40.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.00.42 are:
- Fixes an issue with removing Atmospherics on rendering previews
- Fixes an issue with isolated nodes when rendering previews

Sweep Profile Pro is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $12.50.


New Plugin: Texturing

QuickTiles works with tile materials and allows you to reconstruct them as you like. You load the source texture, the plugin automatically recognizes individual tiles, you specify a new pattern and dimensions and add randomizations if necessary. The whole process happens directly in Max and takes a few minutes. QuickTiles also comes with a library of patterns and scanned textures, including 3184 paving textures, 8174 shingles textures and 5102 wood plank textures. The plugin can generate materials for V-Ray, Corona and FStorm.

QuickTiles is available for Max 2018 to 2021 and costs $60 per year. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling / Animation

Changes for v7.0.7 include:
- Adds the ability to scatter lights
- Adds the ability to scatter most non-geometric objects like helpers, VDB volumes, splines, etc.
- Adds a set of colour correction tools to colour correct all objects in a scatter
- Adds the ability to scatter and control animated objects in Corona
- Adds new features making it easier to export to realtime platforms
- New library management tools can add selected objects to the library with one click
- The library browser has been entirely rewritten from the ground up
- Adds 40 high-quality photoscanned tree stumps to help bring your scenes to life
- Adds a new Hedges library with 89 cut hedge presets
- Adds a selection of free samples from The3DGarden
- The Reference mode has been improved to make it much more useful
- It is now easier than ever to select and scatter assets, starting with a new creation mode
- Adds GBuffer support for V-Ray
- A new Spotlight mode in the interface keeps only one rollout open at a time
- Forest Colour now works on instantiated items
- Improves randomness for non-image based distribution modes
- V-Ray now uses the materials assigned to each custom object
- Interactive rendering has been optimised
- Scattered items now respect the Z position of individual spline areas
- And plenty more...

Forest Pack Pro is available for Max 2012 to 2021 and costs €220. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling

A new data source was needed as the USGS website turned off the old data used by the plugin to generate the terrain objects. Chris West has now found a new data source for the DEM data and has updated the plugin to use this. The new data is also 3 times more detailed for areas outside the US (the US always had this higher res data) so allowing for more detailed Terrains to be built.

Terrain is available for Max 2015 to 2021 and costs $199. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Modelling / Animation

Changes for v2.0.0 include:
- Implements a node-based editor that allows you to manage all GrowFX components in one window
- Adds a new Public Parameter node to create animated parameters
- Adds a Math node to perform math operations, can be used instead of the Affect node
- Adds a Random Generator node which allows you to generate random values for any parameters
- Adds a Switch node to redirect the computing process between various branches of the node graph
- Adds an Attribute Position / Distance node to pass attributes to an Affect or Math node
- Adds a Value node to set values across other nodes
- The random generation algorithm has been completely redesigned
- Improves the algorithm for the Path Reaction modifier
- Fixes many bugs

GrowFX is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $325. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v2.5.0 are:
- Adds support for resizing and zooming in the render window
- Adds native support for RTX 30xx GPUs
- Topology analysis improvements
- Adds a fix for the Normalize Islands option
- Minor performance optimizations

UVPackmaster 2 is available for Max 2017 to 2021 and costs $29. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.4 are:
- Adds a new 'Delete Empty Layers' function
- New 'Skip Hidden Objects' option lets you choose whether to import hidden objects or not
- In Max 2020+ the script will always use the new importer regardless of the SKP file version

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


Plugin Update: Particles

Changes for v0.16110 beta are:
- Raises the tyFlow CUDA version requirements to CUDA 11.2
- Adds a 'De-activate smoothed particles' option to the Temporal Smooth operator
- The Temporal Smooth operator now evaluates at the end of the timestep
- Adds object index tracking to the Position Object operator
- Fixes a crash that occurred when duplicating an object in a layer referenced by a tyCollection
- Fixes the tySpline retimer settings remaining greyed out despite the checkbox being enabled
- Fixes clicking the 'Create New' button in the Spline Paths rollout sometimes crashing Max
- Fixes operator settings not appearing in the rollup panel when first dragged into a flow
- Fixes a bug where quaternion values saved to exported Alembic point cloud files were incorrect
- Fixes a rare issue where convex hull generation could hang during PhysX calculations
- Fixes a crash bug when more than one PhysX sim is present in the same scene
- Improves performance of PhysX Convex/Mesh hull cooking


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v3.0.39 are:
- Fixes a potential Max crash when using RS OSL Shader or RS Principled Hair material
- Fixes a Max bug where OSL rollouts appeared in the wrong order
- Fixes a Max bug that caused RS Bitmap node sampling gamma override to be ignored
- Fixes a Maya bug where adding/removing objects in display layers didn't trigger a render update
- Fixes a Maya bug where transform visibility changes weren't propogated to the child shapes
- Maya can now explicitly reload an OSL source file by clicking on the Reload button
- The new Hair2 shader in Maya is now listed as 'RedshiftPrincipledHair' in Hypershade
- The OSL shader's name is now displayed at the top of the Attribute Editor in Maya
- Fixes Maya not traversing all incoming connections when exporting the scene for shading
- Renames Maya's rsOSL command to rsOSLShader command to show it's only used for OSL shaders
- Renames Maya's RedshiftOSLMaterial to RedshiftOSLShader to reflect its more versatile usage
- The RedshiftOSLMaterial in Maya is now also listed as a Utility shader node
- Fixes a RenderView bug where color picker picked wrong colors due to color management settings
- Adds Blender support for highlighting bucket corners for the final render
- Fixes an OSL bug that caused tangent attributes to be dropped when used for procedural textures
- Makes OSL kernel compiler error fallback more robust
- Fixes an OSL issue that could cause the kernel to fail to compile
- Fixes an OSL kernel compiler memory leak
- Fixes a crash bug when rendering scenes with AOVs that are not used/deemed invalid
- Fixes a bug that caused rays to get 'stuck' when using matte-shadow objects or materials
- Fixes a bug that caused random crashes at the beginning of the frame

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


New Plugin: Modelling

HairCards Tool is a commercial MAXScript that speeds up your work when creating hair for realtime rendering. It allows you to create layers of hairs much faster than usual. HairCards Tool only works with Max 2021.3 (Update 3) and higher.

HairCards Tool is available for Max 2021 and costs $25.


New Plugin: Utilities

This commercial MAXScript helps you to prepare your 3D models for sending to 3D stocks or asset libraries. The script can add only those textures to the archive that are needed, add export files (3ds, fbx, obj), add previews, rename textures / objects / materials, remove unnecessary helpers, remove garbage, etc. Model Packer supports different packaging standards for different 3D stocks. Thanks to the manifest files (json, xml, txt, ini), this script is the standard for asset libraries and personal model libraries.

Model Packer is available for Max 2012 to 2021 and costs $6. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v1.38.00 are:
- Fixes support for older Max versions (2015 and lower)
- Fixes the preview list updating when entering the Base name in Add to Render Elements dialog

Material ID Organizer is available for Max 2009 to 2021 and costs $6. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v3.1.4 are:
- Adds new cleaning options
- Adds new virus signatures: PhysX Plugin Mfx, Desire FX CA, AlienBrains, ALC2, AD Web CA
- Adds a multi-language interface (English, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Vietnamese, Chinese)
- Adds a feature to Batch Disinfect files in Selective Scan
- By default clear options in the Main rollout are now disabled
- Updates the UI for some rollouts and installer
- Many smaller fixes and improvements

Prune Scene is available for Max 2012 to 2021 and costs $7. A demo version is available here.