Maxon Computer has released a new plugin that integrates the company's BodyPaint 3D 3D painting application with 3ds max versions 3 and 4. Download the plugin (requires BodyPaint 3D 6.3+).

The original team that created Dragon's Lair, including Don Bluth, Gary Goldman and Rick Dyer have reunited to produce a 3D remake of the old time classic. The new version will keep many of the features of the original game, including its music, creatures, sound effects, excellent character animation and colorful backgrounds (they'll be both in full 3D now) and will have much enhanced playability. The goal of the game is of course the same: you'll still have to rescue the fair princess Daphne from the clutches of an evil dragon.
Dragon's Lair 3D is being developed with Max and Character Studio and is scheduled for release later this year. Read the publisher's press release and check out Dragonstone's website for more information on Dragon's Lair 3D and to download a teaser movie. Space Ace 3D is also planned for development.   [ more... ]

If you're using László Sebõ's MeshTools for modeling check out Bay Raitt's site for some great examples and tutorials on using subdivision surfaces for character modeling. More information on this modeling technique and some examples (including pictures by subdiv. modeler John Feather) can be found at Tamás Varga's website.

Digimation has put up some information on Flatten. This new plugin works as a set of modifiers that take any procedural map, bitmap or combination of the two and collapse it down to a single bitmap with mapping coordinates. Flatten also works with complex materials such as composite or blend material types or maps. Check out the sample video.

Creating a Liquid logo (Realflow)
Creating Clouds - quick tutorial (Afterburn)
Explosion tutorial (Afterburn)

Cebas has posted recompiles of all of its freeware plugins for R4.  These include 3D Vision, Camera Distort v1.0 (camera lens distortions such as Fisheye lenses), Tables & Chairs and FreePyro (volumetric 3D smoke).
Boomerlabs has posted a new version of its Enhanced Sound plugin (v1.0d) which fixes a bug and includes an updated user manual in .chm format.

Boomer Labs announced the availability of version 2.0.1 of Foley Studio MAX. This build provides support for 6 channel rendering and custom speaker configuration options among other features. A demo version is available for download and a new animation that shows off multi-channel audio has been placed in the gallery.

R4 versions of Sisyphus' plugins are now available. Customers who have purchased Sisyphus plugins before 11/1/2001 will have to pay a small fee for the upgrades. Demo versions of Digital Nature Tools, MaxTrax, etc. for 3ds max 4 will be posted soon (hopefully along with their free Grass plugin :-).

Realflow and Realwave galleries have been updated with some new animations. Check them out.

Tracker Tools 1.0 by Dagan Potter - This script helps with camera tracking data in 3ds max. You can convert camera points into geometry nulls for exporting to other 3D applications. It is quite useful when using 3D camera trackers such as Scene Genie or Boujou. Also in the script are options to import/export camera information. The text files generated can be easily read into other 3D applications. A tutorial is also available.

PC: ftp://ftp.discreet.com/combustion/combustion_1012_Win.zip
Readme-PC: ftp://ftp.discreet.com/combustion/combustion_1012_Readme_Win.txt
Mac: ftp://ftp.discreet.com/combustion/combustion_1012_Mac.sit
Readme-MAC: ftp://ftp.discreet.com/combustion/combustion_1012_Readme_Mac.txt

Max3d has an interview up with Ben Girard about Digital Dimensions' involvement in doing 35 shots for the recent film Driven using 3dstudio max and mental ray.

Microsoft has announced two powerful new additions to its Windows operating system family, built for the forthcoming Intel Itanium 64-bit processor.

Phoenix 1.5 fire simulation plugin for Max R4 has been released. The patch is available at Maxusers.com.

There's a new version of Luminaire from MaxShade out for Max R3.x and max 4. You no longer need to register the plugin, it is a full freeware product. New stuff in this version includes: Updates for the Area Light, updates for the Radiosity Solver, updates for the Light Map Renderer including fixes and new features, Radiosity status report has been temporarily disabled due to a bug. More information and download details here.

BitmapTexture 2 for 3ds max 4 is a recompile of the original Bitmaptexture, the only difference being the time rollout. Dieter Morgenroth dumped the playbackrate spinner, and there is now a Framevalue that is animatable. This makes it possible to keyframe the frame of the image sequence. You can control the frame with script controllers for view-dependent texture mapping etc., allowing the creation of RealPeople-type effects. There is an AVI in the ZIP-file that demonstrates this, and the MaxScript that was used.

WildTangent have released a new version of their Exporter, which exports scenes and animations to an HTML file. This can then be viewed using the WildTangent Web Driver 3D browser plugin. There are versions for Max R3.x and max 4

Gamasutra has a very interesting article on how to use Photoshop's High Pass filter and the relationship between audio waveforms and image detail.

Stéphane Marty's VirtuaLight global illumination renderer has been updated with new features and many bug fixes.
Read on for the complete list of changes.   [ more... ]

Excellent news from Discreet for Character Studio (and all Max) users: after many requests from users, Discreet has finally released an updated version of Character Studio 2 for use with Max 4. The announcement has already sparked a thread of very positive responses at Discreet's Webboard.
Check out CS2.4's readme file for more information and some performance comparisons between CS2 and CS3.

TrueGrit by Andrew Reid - TrueGrit is a free dirt simulation plugin. As of version 0.2b, TrueGrit can use an object's vertex color channel  to store grit information instead of using a bitmap. This way users don't need to set up mapping coordinates for their objects in order for the grit generation to work (it does require added mesh density, though).

Onyx Computing has released Tree Storm 5 plugin for R4. The update for R3 users costs $29.95.

Planet3DArt.com and 3DSociety.com websites have merged into InsideCG.com. The new site features industry news, reviews, forums and a job board. We wish InsideCG the best of luck in their new endeavor.

John Burnett has released some great new MaxScripts, including:
- KeyMonkey - Do things to keys en-masse (move, reduce, delete, change tangents, etc).
- MeditClipboard - Copy/Cut/Paste all medit materials samples.
- SelectionMan - Miscellaneous selection tools (save/load object selection sets. sub-object vert. face. and edge selections. Select by normal. Select random verts. edges. faces. polys. and elements).
- MorpherMan - Util for keying and adjusting morpher animations. as well as copying morpher animation from one morpher to another.
- Bake - "Bakes out" objects into straight mesh animation, morph animation, transform animation or shape animation (lots of options).
You'll need to download one or more support files (depending on your Max version) in order to run the above scripts.

3D Gate has a review of max 4.

According to SynaPix, SynaVision will streamline the process of building textured 3D models to exactly match recorded scenes in both broadcast and film productions. SynaVision is designed to help users reconstruct an entire scene and objects within it using both geometric constructs and generative surfaces.

Animation Artist has an interesting article on the latest developments that help in building more believable CG characters (movies like Shrek, Monsters, Inc. and Final Fantasy are discussed).

A small clarification on the Lume Tools for Max news item: Lume Tools was not wholly purchased from Lume, Inc. by Mental Images. Lume Tools has a different licensing arrangement on each platform, and for the 3ds max version that Digimation is currently working on they are licensing it directly from Lume, Inc. My apologies for any confusion.

Computer Creative reviews Director 8.5.
The Alpha Channel reviews Framecycler 2.0 Studio Edition frame sequence playback application.

Check out the new warcraft iii cinematics trailer at http://www.warcraftiii.net. It's 28Mb.

Digimation is shipping Bones Pro 3, the latest version its skeletal deformation plugin. New features in Bones Pro 3: users can now add or subtract bones from an existing set up without losing any of their previous vertex inclusions/exclusions, new MetaBones and ParaBones give users advanced control over the deformation of objects (check out this movie to see MetaBones in action), quick copy feature allows users to quickly assign the Bones Pro 3 modifier to multiple objects and have the same settings between them, etc.
More information and some sample animations available at Digimation.com.

Discreet announced licensing agreements with game developers Microsoft and Microids. Microsoft signed an agreement to create, publish and distribute gmax for their upcoming simulation series product releases, including Flight Simulator 2002 Professional Edition. Microids, based in Vélizy, France, has also finalized an agreement with Discreet to ship a gmax game pack for the upcoming 2002 edition of its tennis-themed PC game title.

More information on Cluster-O-Matic and Morph-O-Matic, as well as some sample movies are available at Diomatic.com. Demo versions of these plugins for Max R3 and R4 have also been posted. Digimation has provided more information on Bones Pro 3 in its latest newsletter, including a sample movie that shows Bones Pro 3's MetaBones and ParaBones in action.

ATI have updated their N-Patch Preview plugin for Max R3.x, adding a number of new features, as well as releasing a 3ds max 4 version. They have also released an N-Patch Exporter for Max R3.x. N-Patches are a higher-order surface primitive developed by ATI for DirectX 8.

Profund Effects Elastic Gasket allows many Adobe After Effects plugins to run under Avid editing platforms. For more information visit Profound Effects' website.

Discreet has a short article on how combustion, edit and max are being used by Modern Cartoons to produce episodes for the PBS children's series "Jay Jay the Jet Plane".

NDL announced that it has signed an agreement with Discreet that will give gmax licensees a direct export path to the NetImmerse game engine and development toolkit. Under the new agreement, developers can also use MAXImmerse to preview their content in real-time on Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC or Gamecube platforms. The new level of connectivity allows game developers to accelerate their work and have the option of publishing "gmax Game Packs" for select titles.

Yes, you've read right: as reported by Max3D, "Lume Tools Collection 1" has been added to the list of plugins at Digimation's Beta Site. The original Lume Tools set of plugins was a collection of surface/volumetric shaders, tools, and post effects developed by Lume, Inc. in conjunction with the artists and animators of Cyan (now Cyan Worlds) for use in the game "Riven". No details are available yet on which parts of the original Lume Tools will be made available in this release, but if you'd like to see what may be in store for us Max users check out the Lightwave implementation of the Lume Tools suite by Dynamic Realities. Also of note: Lume Tools Collection was purchased by Mental Images from Lume, Inc. in 1998.

Curious Labs has released an update to its Poser Pro Pack character animation and figure design tool that provides direct plugin support for 3ds max 4.

DDAG has released f-Edge, an edge smoothing plugin for Max R3 and R4. The plugin works as a procedural bump map that perturbs the normals at the objects' edges. This enables users to create smooth edge effects in less time and with less effort than the standard geometry modeling methods.

Boomer Labs has released an update to their Enhanced Sound plugin. Version 1.0 builds on v0.5 (which was incorporated into R4 by Discreet), by adding additional features and two new bug fixes.   [ more... ]

New animations have been posted at Boomer Labs' website that demonstrate some of the new features of Foley Studio MAX V2. The new version will be provided as a free upgrade to existing FSM owners, and should be available for download within a week. A demo version for R3 and R4 is already available.

Motion Media is hosting another seminar Showcasing Reactor for MAX 4 and Teaming up with Maxon, who will present BODYPAINT with there MAX and LIGHTWAVE Plug-ins. Read More for the rest of the details...   [ more... ]

Macromedia have started the Public Beta test for their Shockwave 3D Exporter for 3ds max 4. The exporter includes support for Multi-resolution mesh technology, providing streaming previews and levels of detail within 3ds max, character studio® biped and physique character animation, and preview options to view a scene as it will be rendered as Shockwave 3D content.

Dieter Morgenroth has updated his plugins Optimize Spline and TileMagic. Optimize Spline has added vertex display and fixed a bug in the fitting routine, while TileMagic has added 'Viewport Display' support and fixed a problem with bumpmaps.

Fred Moreau has released a new script called "FREEHAND TOOLS V.3". FREEHAND TOOLS is a tool to paint geotmery, splines, particles or anything on another surface. Pepeland has been updated with Two videos demostrating the usage of the script.

Presto studios has used 3ds max to create the detailed and beaufitul worlds of Myst III: Exile, the sequel to Riven. Read the article at Computer Graphics World. Also at CGW there's an interesting article on how some of the effects for "The Mummy Returns" were achieved as well as a story on new promising display technologies that do not require users to wear special viewing devices.

A patch has been released for Character Studio with some bug fixes.   [ more... ]

Boomerlabs announced the availability of release 2.0 of Foley Studio MAX for R4. Keep an eye on the downloads page at Boomerlabs' website for the upgrade patch.

CGW reviews 3ds max 4.
Digital Producer reviews 3ds max 4.
Video Systems reviews 3ds max 4.
Yes! Three in a row! :-)
Videosystems reviews Commotion 3.1 compositing and special FX package.
Computer Arts reviews some great texture and image collections.

Vertex Color Tools by Kelly Snapka - blurs vertex colors, interactively adjusts HSV, interactively adjusts contrast, allows copy/paste of colors, modifications can be made to the entire object selected or just to selected verts, etc.
ExtrudeArray v0.1 by Ali Tan Ucer - similar to Christopher Subagio's FaceLoft script but works like the array tool in max.
Tree Maker v2.5 by Shawn Lewis - creates trees *and* leaves with PCloud systems.

A new version of Terragen, Matt Fairclough's landscape rendering program is under development. The new version will include some important bug fixes as well as many improvements to Terragen's PDK (Plugin Developer Kit). No release date has been announced, but it's been hinted that it may be a few months away.
Read on for the whole list of features.   [ more... ]

How to use ChilliSkinner to produce the best results - 'Monster Truck'
How to have 3ds max email or page you when a render completes/fails
How to create realistic grass
Importing Adobe Illustrator files into Max (Beginner)
Tips and Tricks for Optimizing the 3D Compositing Process

Critical Mass Labs has just released Vertigo, a *free* plugin for 3ds max 3.1 that delivers real-time collision detection and rigid-body dynamics simulation. Vertigo features include:
· Define the mass, density, friction, inertia, torque, rotation and surface of objects.
· Pile objects as high as you want with stable stacking.
· Recreate rather than approximate bumps, smashes and crashes with mesh collisions.
· Simulate hundreds of objects at once using optimized algorithms.
Vertigo may be downloaded for free but this version will expire on October 31st. More information available at Critical Mass Labs' website.

For more information on Microsoft's Windows XP's new features check out this article at News.com.

Among the new features: A 'Shading Noise Reduction' tool that greatly improves the render quality of zero-tolerance radiosity and area/linear light shadows (this allows for much higher quality radiosity output at lower radiosity settings, resulting in greatly reduced render times).
Read the feature highlights list at Newtek's site and check out the latest renderings produced with 6.5b's GI optimizations.

VFXPro has an article on Shrek, Dreamworks/PDI's latest feature length animation.

Aware announced a software implementation of the new JPEG2000 compression standard. Approved in January 2001, JPEG2000 provides file sizes that are 40-60% smaller than traditional JPEG images and is expected to eliminate most of the artifacts around high contrast image elements usually produced by current JPEG compression algorithms. The new standard also provides lossy and lossless modes and progressive encoding/decoding by resolution, fidelity, region of interest and color component. Aware's JPEG 2000 software offering includes: an SDK, browser plugins, etc.
More information on JPEG2000 available at: JPEG.org - Designer.com - EETimes.com.

CoreVision announced the release of DeepValley, a commercial MaxScript that lets users create various types of terrains from within 3ds max. DeepValley has four kinds of interactive Generator algorithms that can be combined for more complex results and an erosion algorithm that can be later applied to wear away the terrain. Preset materials optimized for the different terrain erosion simulations are provided. A demo version (that deletes the objects after rendering them) and a free version (that can be used to generate complex terrains but lacks some of the features of the full version) can be downloaded from CoreVision's site.

Discreet has a short article on how WildTangent used 3ds max and Character Studio (along with propietary Internet streaming software) to create the first 3D play-by-e-mail game to promote the Columbia Pictures film, 'A Knight's Tale,' a Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) production.

Flix 1.5 is an application that encodes video into SWF, the Macromedia Flash format. Users can easily insert links, create video banner ads and e-mails, and deploy customized media players.

New images have been added to Chaotic Dimension's gallery. Shag:Fur samples as well as first VRay renderer samples with render information.

Vue d'Esprit 4 is the latest version of e-on software's 3D scenery animation and rendering software. Version 4 features include a new volumetric atmosphere system with volumetric clouds, materials and lights, stellar and atmospheric objects such as planets and stars, etc. Vue 4 will also feature a completely rewritten rendering engine that will increase rendering speed by 40%. Besides the regular import and export of 3ds format objects there is no mention of communcation or interaction with Max (or other 3D programs). Check out the whole press release.

Artist Eni Oken offers a couple of online workshops: Creative Textures for 3D Art and 3-D SciFi Textures for Realtime.

TileMagic is a new freeware plugin for 3ds max 4 from Dieter Morgenroth. This is a checker texture that randomly chooses the Checkercolor from 4 different Colors/Maps. This can be used to minimize obvious tiling of textures, etc.

BlurBeta have updated their plugins for r4.0. Plugins are available as seperater downloads, or in a BlurPack4_0.zip that contains all the plugins in a single file.

True 3D flat-panel LCD display without the glasses: read the review at Digit Magazine Online.
Max3D has an in-depth review of 3ds max 4. Includes some illustrative movies of Max 4's new features.

Here's another major texture resource site. Jeremy Engleman's public textures are a collection of more than 600(!) texture images.

Digital Anarchy announced the release of its Elements of Anarchy: Text plug-in package for Adobe After Effects and other applications that support After Effects plug-ins. The three filter plug-in set enables After Effects users to easily create text elements that were previously time consuming and difficult to accomplish.   [ more... ]

Some new examples of Macromedia Shockwave's 3D capabilities can be found at Intel's site.

A new trailer has been released for Square's film.

Optimize Spline is a new freeware plugin for 3ds max 4 from Dieter Morgenroth. This modifier is similar to the optimize plugin. The difference is that it works on splines. It tries to approximate the given spline with a spline that looks the same but has fewer knots. You can get it here.

Sean D Siem has just released a bunch of free textures on his website.

IRIDAS Digital Interaction Design today announced they have started shipping the final version of FrameCycler 2.0 Studio Edition, a tool designed to be the ultimate sequence playback tool.   [ more... ]

Arete's Psunami has been ported to Electric Image's Universe. Not only the ocean surface generating algorithms have been ported but also the ocean surface shaders. Check out some animations produced with this plugin. In other news Arete's Advanced Fluid Simulator pages have been updated with some more information and many new animation samples. It seems that AFS will only be available on a per project basis.

Chaoticdimension.com has opened its doors to the public. The site has information on plugins developed by Chaosgroup and Dimension Design (including Phoenix, SimCloth, shag:Hair and f-Edge), a profile and history of both companies and information on some new projects:
- VRay - A raytracing engine capable of computing quickly and accurately various light effects like (glossy) reflections/refractions, secondary illumination and depth-of-field.
- SimCloth 3 - A new dynamics engine for SimCloth. The third version will include various explicit and implicit integration schemes as well as fast and reliable collision detection/response.
- NPC - A networking module that allows tasks to be run simultaneously on many computers thus increasing performance of specially designed applications.