The plugin has been updated to work with the Fly3D SDK 2.0 beta8.

The plugin has been updated to work with the Fly3D SDK 2.0 beta8.

The plugin has been updated to work with the Fly3D SDK 2.0 beta8.

These plugins allow Max to import / export files in the FiLMBOX *.FBX format. The plugins are available in different versions for FiLMBOX v3.2 and v3.0.

They support import / export of NURBs, polygons, position and rotation animation, and morph targets. Texture support for standard material with one texture per object. If you are using Character Studio, use Physique with rigid assignment to bones from Max. Biped and deformable weighting are not supported.

Changes for v0.10.01122601 are:
- Timelock extended to February 1st, 2002
- Fixed a bug that could cause wrong shading of small textured objects
- Fixed transparent area shadows casting shadows from other lights with VRay shadows
- Antialiasing filter is now On by default
- Better atmospherics support

Here's wishing all visitors to this site a very merry Christmas (or whatever you might celebrate). I hope that everyone gets what they wanted. All the best, Dave

This plugin is designed to replace the Max default metal shader plugin. It has more control over the material, at the expense of greater complexity. The settings are: Specular Level, Roughness, Specularity, Index of Refraction. It uses the shading algorithm proposed in 'A Reflectance Model for Computer Graphics' by Robert L. Cook and Kenneth E. Torrance.

This plugin is designed to replace the Max default metal shader plugin. It has more control over the material, at the expense of greater complexity. The settings are: Specular Level, Roughness, Specularity, Index of Refraction. It uses the shading algorithm proposed in 'A Reflectance Model for Computer Graphics' by Robert L. Cook and Kenneth E. Torrance.

Changes for v1.22a are:
- Lowered the default maximum map dimension from 1024 to 256
- Fixed a memory leak
- Made improvements to the installer

Full details of the update are available here.

REYES Infográfica have released Max 4 versions of all of their plugins (ClothReyes, DirtyReyes, MetaReyes, SurfReyes, CartoonReyes and JetaReyes), as well as a new non-photorealistic renderer called NPR1Reyes. They are available as a pack (all plugins for €545 / ~$248) or individually (for individual pricing look here). They have also released a Max 3 version of NPR1Reyes, as well as updating CartoonReyes for Max 3.

You can read all of the news on these plugins here.

Chaos Group have announced their pricing policy for VRay, their rendering plugin due for release February 2002.

VRay will be available in 3 different packages:
- Free: $0 - Most advanced features will be disabled. Users will still be able to render properly and enjoy the fast raytracer.
- Basic: $299 - Most advanced features will be included. Distributed rendering and some features will be disabled.
- Advanced: $799 - All features will be available including distributed rendering.

There will be a demo trial version for every package. They will also be providing educational discounts. The complete list of features of every package will be provided as they approach the first release candidate.

There will be a 30% discount for the first 30 days to everyone. And more! Chaos Group will provide 40% discount for those who wish to pre-order a package before they officially release it!

Changes for v1.1.2a are:
- This is a maintenance release of the plugin for the new version of VirtuaLight.
- Fixes the animation timing bug with adaptive antialiasing.
- Fixes the region rendering limitation when undersampling is enabled.

The algorithm for this shader came from the book Graphics Gems II. It has been modified to incorporate the Blinn style of shading rather than Phong. It expands on the normal Blinn shader by providing two new variables, Tension and Bias.

This shader provides a continuous 'bridge' between Flat shading and Blinn shading, allowing you to vary the 'Blinn-ness' and 'Faceted-ness'. With settings of Tension = 0.0 and Bias = 1.0, the shader is equivalent to Blinn shading. With settings of Tension = 1.0 and Bias = 1.0, the shader is equivalent to Flat shading.

In addition to this, by setting Tension < 0.0 each face is rounded more than in Blinn shading resulting in a surface with each face bumping outwards. With Tension > 1.0 each face is rounded more inwards, resulting in a surface with each face bumping inwards.

Digimation are offering the very useful Scene Explorer v1.25 from Squirrely Productions for the special introductory price of $95. In 30 days time, the plugin will cost $149.

Maximum Pose II is a software package that translates animation from Poser versions 3 and 4 to Max. It is not a plugin for either software package, rather it is a stand alone application that works between the two. Maximum Pose II preserves the texture mapping perfectly as it is seen in Poser. It also preserves all aspects of the materials, including texture, bump, reflection and transparency maps. Maximum Pose offers unlimited mesh sizes, unlike the 3DS export that limits the mesh array sizes to 65535 units.

Key features of Maximum Pose II are:
- Preserves all aspects of the figure materials
- Conforming clothing works perfectly
- Unlimited mesh size
- Animations in Max behave exactly as they appear in Poser
- Improved MAXScript importing
- Saves animated figures to a single MaxPose file for future reuse

The translator works with Max 2 to 4 and normally costs $99.95. If you buy the plugin before December 31st 2001, it only costs $49.95. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.22 are:
- Improved handling of maps which are neither mirrored or tiled
- Fixed a texture mapping bug in the VR4MAX render engine

Full details are available here.

Sitni Sati are offering a pre-order deal for their DreamScape plugin, which is scheduled for release in January 2002. By pre-ordering, you can save $50 and get free shipping. They are also offering a discount of $50 to owners of the discontinued 4Elements plugin.

They have also posted some new pictures and animations here.

Changes for v4.09 Beta are:
- The time-lock has been removed (this time for real!)
- A number of bug-fixes (I have no details)

Modexp3.dle is a plugin for Max 3 that will export a .mod file, allowing you to generate models for Nascar Heat. Once installed, MGI .Mod File will be an option in the export file list.

This plugin is over a year old, but I only just found out about it...

Digimation have posted a demo version of SeaScape v1.2. You can get the demo here.

Changes for v0.10.01121301 are:
- Bitmapped bump maps fixed
- Direct lights now cast correct shadows with VRay shadows
- Translucency works with area shadows
- Refractions work with 2-sided materials turned on
- Light include/exclude lists work
- Camera clipping planes are now supported
- Multipliers added to GI and caustics
- New Environment section can override Max environment map/color for GI and reflections/refractions
- Additive transparency is now supported
- Pixel ratio now works
- Field rendering works
- Fixes a bug that could cause Max to hang on four and more processor machines
- Optimized building of filter tables for the adaptive image sampler
- Adaptive image sampler can be cancelled in the middle of a region
- Transparent parameter of VRayLight now works

Just a reminder that the Digimation birthday discounts are still running until December 21st, 2001.

They are also offering a couple of other bargains, namely FinalRender for $550 (a saving of $145) and Life Forms Studio XT for $247 (a 50% discount). For more information on the FinalRender deal, which will probably only be running until December 19th, click here. The Life Forms Studio XT deal is running until December 31st, more details here.

Di-O-Matic have released details of their upcoming plugin Facial Studio for Max.

Facial Studio promises to improve the artistic quality of facial modeling and animation as well as accelerate production cycles. Instead of simply using a linear morphing approach like some other head generation tools, it relies on its complex non-linear deformation engine. More than 500 facial controls (eyes, nose, mouth, jaw, chin, ears, cheeks, forehead, eyebrows, overall head shape, teeth, tongue, as well as controlling the shading, the textures and the muscles animation) are part of Facial Studio; these allow 3D artists to create any type of face and head, from hyper-realistic to cartoon, whatever the age, gender or ethnicity of the character.

You can read the full press release here. Facial Studio will be shipping soon at an introductory price of $499.

I have changed the links for Luminaire from Brendan Duncan / MaxShade, due to the fact that the site is down for a while. Luminaire is now available for download from my server.

Changes for v1.1.2 are:
- This is just a maintenance release of the plugin for the new version of VirtuaLight.
- There are also a load of bug-fixes and additions to the renderer. More information here.

Sitni Sati have released some more information about their DreamScape plugin, which is scheduled for release in January 2002. Read all about it here.

I have removed Auto Image Planes v1.0 from Antero Pedras from the commercial database. The script is now free.

Snoswell Design have released some more information about their Absolute Character Tools muscle animation plugin. Read all about it here.

Changes for v1.0f are:
- Resolves issues with TerraImage not regenerating properly
- Resolves issues with Volcanoes and craters not being saved or loaded properly

You can download the patch here.

Changes for v1.6f are:
- No changes, this is the long awaited port for Max 4.

You can download the patch here.

Changes for v1.01.14 are:
- Added an option to align strand orientation to the initial bending/leaning direction (good for feathers)
- Fixed crash when loading scenes with orphaned ShagView's
- Fixed a few rendering defects
- Fixed incorrect rendering of ShagViews with space-warps applied
- Fixed a hanging bug with ShagViews using the Cloth Mesh conversion option
- Strand density was different with the Fix Density on and off - fixed
- Fixed incorrectly derived parameters from maps using the Show Map On Back option
- Changes in the rendering buffers, about 20% lower memory usage, at the cost of a little bit slower rendering

You can download the patches here (R3.x) and here (R4.x).

Changes for v4.08 Beta are:
- The time-lock has been removed
- A number of bug-fixes (I have no details)

Changes for v0.10.01120501 are:
- Fixed texture coordinates on mirrored objects
- Alpha channel with adaptive image sampler works
- Force 2-sided render option works
- Enhancements to VRayMap: added texmap slots for reflect/refract filter color, and a light multiplier for translucent effects

WaveAnalyzer is an audio frequency controller plugin system for Max 4. WaveAnalyzer uses two separate plugins, Audio server and WaveAnalyzer controller, that can be combined together and give the ability to create a synchronized 3D music scene from the scratch. Audio server gives Max the ability to use MPEG compressed audio files. The sound loaded in audio server can then be shared by multiple WaveAnalyzer controllers, so it can be analyzed to its base frequencies using different settings for each controller. With this process it is possible to produce a 'sound driven' animation where actions are associated with frequencies.

The plugin is available for Max 4 and costs €295. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v0.10.01120401 are:
- Fixed normals (with mirrored objects)
- Fixed matte/shadow materials

The sample project files have been separated from the renderer download, and are now available here.

Digimation are offering a special bundle price on Illustrate! v5.2 and Morph-O-Matic. This special offer is available for $415, a saving of $180!

The Illustrate! / Morph-O-Matic bundle gives users the ability to create sophisticated facial character animation and render it as if it were traditional 2D cartoon animation.

Changes for v0.10.01120302 are:
- Fixed textured materials
- Fixed multi-materials
- Crash on ray-traced shadows fixed
- Secondary diffuse bounces fixed
- Fixed crash with Environment maps and Explicit texture coords map type

Changes for v0.10.01120301 are:
- Major materials bug fixed
- Caustics sample scene added
- Secondary diffuse bounces bug fixed

There is now a VRay Delphi forum which you can use for discussing problems and receiving direct support.

Changes for v0.10.01120201 are:
- Improved light support and bug fixes
- Bump mapped refraction added
- Some documentation added

There is now a VRay public beta page on the website, which will soon be offering more sample scenes, and a message board.

VRay v0.10 from Chaos Group is an advanced raytracing system that has just gone into public beta-testing. Equipped with modern raytracing techniques it offers its users most advanced features.

Capable of making accurate reflections and refractions clean or glossy and blurred it helps achieve astonishing realism in the computer generated realm. Simulation of focusing (Depth-of-Field) helps in simulating real-life cameras. Different methods of illumination simulation as well as caustics calculations help artists achieve great rendering performance or fineart photorealistic images. Adaptive antialiasing is one of its advanced features. It includes sophisticated multipass methods as well as simple approaches.

VRay supports subsurface scattering which gives you the power to create true photorealistic materials like wax smoked glass jelly etc.

VRay offers network distributed rendering, giving incredible power to the studios with many computer boxes to use all the CPU power connected to the network for rendering within a single frame. No limitations on the size amount type of your computers as long as Max can run on them.

VRay is an advanced raytracing system that has just gone into public beta-testing. Equipped with modern raytracing techniques it offers its users most advanced features.

Capable of making accurate reflections and refractions clean or glossy and blurred it helps achieve astonishing realism in the computer generated realm. Simulation of focusing (Depth-of-Field) helps in simulating real-life cameras. Different methods of illumination simulation as well as caustics calculations help artists achieve great rendering performance or fineart photorealistic images. Adaptive antialiasing is one of its advanced features. It includes sophisticated multipass methods as well as simple approaches.

VRay supports subsurface scattering which gives you the power to create true photorealistic materials like wax smoked glass jelly etc.

VRay offers network distributed rendering, giving incredible power to the studios with many computer boxes to use all the CPU power connected to the network for rendering within a single frame. No limitations on the size amount type of your computers as long as Max can run on them.