LPM Pro is a pass manager for Max, primarily inspired by Vanilla Pass Manager, RPManager and XSI's Pass Mananger. It is very flexible, and features include the following:
- Unlimited number of object sets
- Unlimited number of light sets
- Common properties override
- Renderer override
- Background override
- Render elements override
- Atmospheres override
- Effects override
- Load / Save presets
- Pass per light
- Pass per layer
- Network rendering using backburner
- Colored object sets
- Hide non renderable
- Copy and paste for all properties

LPM Pro is available for Max 9 to 2009 and costs $75. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.073 are:
- Adds support for Max 2009 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Fixes a few minor bugs

Changes for v1.40.03 are:
- Adds new Time Scale property for dynamic simulation
- Adds new RF_PhysX object in Helpers\RayFire Tool category
- RF_Bomb object moved to Helpers\RayFire Tool category

This version of RayFire Tool is available for Max 9 to 2009 (32-bit only) and costs $255. Updates from v1.31 / v1.32 / v1.33 cost $45. A demo version is available here.

The latest new build of Brazil r/s v2.1b (Pro-Beta / Rio), build 1621, is now available from the SplutterFish FishMarket Account (if you have upgraded to Brazil r/s v2.0). You can find a full list of enhancements and bugfixes here.

For non-customers, Brazil v2 Rio has also been updated and can be downloaded here.

Brazil r/s v2.0 is available for Max 4 to 2009 and pricing starts at $795 for the Basic Edition, and $995 for the Professional Edition.

Changes for v0.9b are:
- Adds transform override for referenced leaves
- Adds pickable leaf geometry
- Age can now be adjusted beyond growth iterations
- Removes 'visible edges' option (produced too much confusion)
- Fixes branches having flipped UV's
- Fixes a bug in root-mesh creation
- Fixes a bug in the preset-loader (leaf-size was never read)
- Fixes non-visible deselected ivy at age=0 (since Max 2009)

Adam Pletcher has kindly recompiled the ColladaMax exporter for 64-bit Max 2009. Based on ColladaMax v3.05B, you can download it here.

Changes for v4.1.12 are:
- mental ray melt shader and phenomenon are now hidden in the material browser
- Importing SD rigid bodies over existing objects now works with non-centered pivots
- RFMeshLoader objects now render properly in mental ray when using animation ranges
- Motion blur now works correctly for RFMeshLoader objects with modifiers applied
- Melt materials now work when rendering animation ranges with mental ray

Changes for v1.0.374 include:
- Optimised assignment of shaderids values for shader pass
- Adds per eye ray counts for ray types in diagnostics
- Fixes bump basis vector calculations for NURBs and Subdiv surfaces
- Adds support to maintain aspect on camera resolution change
- Fixes clearing of placed instances, potential IPR crash
- Fixes clipping filters to support changes to output channels
- Fixes Environment Settings panel to reset correctly
- Fixes camera window to swap low and high values if defined wrongly
- Fixes image decompression to handle blank filenames

Rendition is available for Max 9 to 2009 and costs $395. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v8.2 are:
- Adds support for Max 2009 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Alienbrain now comes with a 64-bit SDK for custom integration
- Enhanced bucketing support for removing old versions of assets
- Enhanced administrative features for Shared Client Caches
- Adds support for custom differencing tools for text asset types
- Performance improvements to VS integration on remote connections
- Workflow enhancements for Change Sets

Alienbrain is available for Max 9 to 2009 and pricing starts at $12,000. A demo version is available here.

Miguel A. Santiago Jr. has recompiled all of his mental ray shaders for 64-bit, as well as porting the last of his Maya shaders (anisotropicPhong) over to mental ray. I've also added the Max include file for the new shader to the Max include zipfile.

Changes for v2008.08.14 are:
- TNT files will now work in Firefox 3 with the 'Google Toolbar for Firefox' installed
- Fixes a problem with objects using 'bake texture' as light-mode
- Light sources that are turned off will no longer be exported
- Various updates and improvements to the HTML templates and Javascript files

Changes for v2.8.3.0 are:
- A full list of changes is available here

Granny Exporter is available for Max 6 to 2009, and is part of the Granny Toolkit which costs $12500.

Changes for v5.4 are:
- You can now launch Submit Dialogs from the commandline
- Enhanced Submit Dialog and Job Preferences
- Retry/Resubmit job downstream dependencies
- Adds categories for Submit menu
- Adds new MetaJob panel
- Enhanced search filter
- Enhanced 'Job Dependency' viewing
- Adds colorized text for Stdout/Stderr and Log Panels
- Adds 'Find' action
- Adds SimpleSubmit framework based on SimpleCmd interface
- Adds new parameter options
- Adds new function callbacks
- Adds search path for SimpleCmds
- Adds in-app submission capability for SimpleCmds
- Updated SimpleCmds
- Adds dynamic reloading and overriding of SimpleCmds
- Adds in-app submission for AfterEffects
- Adds in-app submission for Maya SimpleCmds
- Adds in-app submission for Nuke 5.0 SimpleCmd
- Adds categories for existing SimpleCmd interfaces
- Adds 'Studio Defaults' preferences
- Adds 'Browse Output Dirs...' right-click menu item
- Enhanced 'Output Image' viewing/browsing
- Adds new Help Menu items

Qube! is available for Max 7 to 2009 and costs $250 (worker) / $500 (supervisor). A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.1 are:
- Adds support for the NavisWorks 2009 applications
- Adds support for Impression 2009

Changes for v1.1 are:
- Roof Designer can now put textures and shingles on meshes without remodelling the roof
- Roof Designer is now much faster and can support much larger roofs
- Selected and covered edges can now be exported into splines
- Edges can now be uniting edges, welding two adjacent faces as if they were one
- Vertices can now be moved in the viewport
- The new 'Compact Save' mode makes the saved scene much smaller
- Shingles, edges, vertices and covers can now be given random material IDs
- Covers are now cut to match their edges size
- Covers length can now be set to exactly divide an edge length

Roof Designer is available for Max 9 to 2009 (32-bit and 64-bit) and costs $75 for the next 2 months (a 25% discount). A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.43 are:
- Adds support for Max 2009 (32-bit and 64-bit)

This is the first release of the next generation plugin offering higher performance data export. In contrast to the existing COLLADA exporters for Max, this new plugin doesn't store the COLLADA document into an intermediate data model but writes it directly to file. This leads to a dramatic reduction of memory consumption and to much better performance.

Dieter Morgenroth has uploaded a new version of his VRayISO plugin for V-Ray v1.5 SP-2 in Max 9 and Max 2008. He has also removed the expiry date, due to the fact that he doesn't know when the next version will be available.

Changes for v1.0.373 are:
- Fixes a potential crash during subdiv tesselation
- Fixes filtering methods requiring clipping (to support multi-channels)
- Improved Final Gather system to create smoother scenes more rapidly
- Fix to correctly handle removal of textures during IPR
- Fixes Shader IDs output channel to handle complex shader networks
- Fix to ensure state cache is correctly reset

Rendition is available for Max 9 to 2009 and costs $395. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.22 are:
- Adds support for Max 2009 (32-bit and 64-bit)

I thought I'd give my friends at REBUSfarm a plug, because they've just increased their render capacity again. They are one of the cheapest render farms worldwide, and support a huge amount of 3D software and standalone renderers. They are also great people to deal with. I rendered a job there a while ago, and 2 hours later I had my rendered animation back. It would have taken 4 to 5 days on my little render farm!

Changes for v2.0 are:
- Adds support for Max 2008 (32-bit only)
- Adds support for sub-object imposter vertices
- Adds support for anti-aliased imposters
- Adds support for facing imposters
- Exporter and viewer now support FBX version 2009.1

Branches is available for Max 9 and 2008, and costs $70. A demo version is available here.

cebas Computer GmbH are going to be presenting finalRender Stage-1 v3.0 at SIGGRAPH 2008.
Some of the key enhancements done to R3.0 are:
- True interactive rendering with full GI and raytracing
- New iterative anti-aliasing engine
- Enhanced Physical Sky offering much more and better control
- Fast accurate physical camera model based on real world parameters
- Full OpenEXR file format support
- Output/input of unlimited layered OpenEXR files
- New fR-Photographic tone mapper render effect
- Automatic MTD animation caching technology
- New hybrid scanline rendering core for even more speed
- 3D motion blur speed-up
- Better multi-core support
- New material - fR-Layer is now a core feature (unlimited rendering)
- New material - fR-Wire is now a core feature (unlimited rendering)
- New material - fR-Volumetric is now a core feature (unlimited rendering)
- Enhanced subpixel anti-aliasing engine
- AQMC is now even better with 'Small Gap Detection' mode
- Blurry reflection sampling improvements
- New options and speed improvements to the Light material
- New memory-saving and multi-core MTD engine
- Frame-buffer enhancements

cebas will also be presenting Service Pack 2 for Thinking Particles v3.0

Changes for v1.40.01 are:
- Adds NVidia PhysX engine support (rigid body animation, explosions and demolition)
- RF_Bomb, Pbomb, Wind, Gravity and any geometry objects can now influence PhysX animation

Until there is a 64-bit version of PhysX, RayFire v1.4 will only be available in a 32-bit version. The old version (v1.34) is still available, and supports 64-bit versions of Max.

This version of RayFire Tool is available for Max 9 to 2009 (32-bit only) and costs $255. Updates from v1.31 / v1.32 / v1.33 cost $45. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.0 are:
- Adds support for Max 2009 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Changes for v3.0 are:
- Adds support for XSI 7.0
- Adds support for XSI QFE
- Adds support for Max 2009 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Adds 64-bit support for Max 9 and 2008
- More complete material import/export support in XSI (dotXSI)
- Major revamp of the installer
- Various dotXSI, COLLADA and FBX import/export fixes

Changes for v1.7.1 are:
- Fixes SSS with instances
- Fixes SSS + MXI/ HDR emission textures
- Fixes coatings without BSDF
- ISO/Shutter sliders in the MXI tab and Multilight panel are now synchronized
- Fixes problem loading/saving presets with some locale settings
- Fixes several network rendering issues with Mac OSX
- Fixes potential crash loading scenes with corrupted geometry
- 'Look at selection' now only moves the camera target
- Fixes texture display refresh issue when applying materials with textures
- Fixes issues when switching 'UV projector type' from 'Locked' to another type
- Fixes loading materials by clicking on the material column in the object list
- Fixes grouping objects that are already inside a group
- Fixes some other issues grouping objects
- Grouping objects now has an 'undo' CTRL+Z option
- 'Merge objects' has been fixed so the geometry is kept in its place
- Fixes issue loading objects with an invalid transformation matrix
- Fixes bad normals on mirrored objects in the Max plugin
- Fixes Max plugin incompatibility with V-Ray materials in Max MultiMaterials

Maxwell Render is available for Max 7 to 2009 and costs €895. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.4.0 are:
- Minor bugfixes

Changes for v2.4.1 are:
- Minor bugfixes

Changes for v1.0 are:
- Adds support for 32-bit Max 2009

Changes for v4.0 are:
- Adds new Adv2 mode of chamfering
- Adds segment chamfering for Stand and Adv2 mode
- The plugin is no longer freeware

Edge Chamfer/Extrude is available for Max 8 to 2009 and costs $40. A demo version is available here.

Autodesk, Inc. have released a few new Object Enablers for Max 2009:

- AutoCAD MEP 2009 Object Enabler v1.0 (32-bit)
- AutoCAD MEP 2009 Object Enabler v1.0 (64-bit)
- AutoCAD Architecture 2009 Object Enabler v1.0 (32-bit)
- AutoCAD Architecture 2009 Object Enabler v1.0 (64-bit)
- Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 2009 Object Enabler v1.0 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Changes for v1.0.4 are:
- Fixes a proxy related bug which caused problems with pxJoint
- Adds support for ForceField in SDK Versions 2.8.0 and 2.8.1
- Adds support for Metal Cloth
- Adds support for Sleep with Rigid Body
- Adds an anitigravity sample to show ForceField
- Adds a metalBarrel sample to show MetalCloth

Changes for v1.34.02 are:
- Fixes a bug with small objects fragmentation

RayFire Tool is available for Max 9 to 2009 and costs $225. A demo version is available here.

A few months ago, Darkling Simulations stopped distributing SimbiontMax as a free plugin, restricting it registered users of DarkTree. This was a bit rough for people who had used the free shaders in projects, making it impossible to work on old projects without buying DarkTree for $399.

They have now loosened the restrictions a bit, making the plugin for Max 6 to 8 free again, and the newer version for Max 9 to 2009 available with limited features (no tweaks, no mapping). Big thanks to Skyler from Darkling Simulations for making the plugins available to everyone again.

Changes for v4.2 are:
- Adds support for Max 2009 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Adds support for 64-bit Max 9 and Max 2008
- Adds the new 'Forest Preview' feature
- Adds static mesh export capabilities (Collada and OBJ)
- Fixes 'Retention %' for both branch and frond LOD
- Composite Maps with large numbers of trees no longer causes unknown exceptions
- Fixes the leaf card/mesh aspect ratio problems
- Manual compute on certain trees no longer required on MS Vista
- Fixes crashes related to switching apps

SpeedTree MAX is available for Max 9 to 2009 and costs $495. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.0.372 are:
- Minor memory handling and leak fixes
- Fixes script db_access to handle missing elements correctly
- Fixes LDA approximation for NURBs surfaces

Rendition is available for Max 9 to 2009 and costs $395. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v5.5.4.2708 are:
- Fixes issues with bad ref counting for dimension nodes
- Sketchup v7 files created in Deep Exploration 5.5 can now be opened in Google Sketchup
- Opacity state items are now being refreshed
- Deep Exploration will now launch on Vista machines
- Fixes an issue with thrustlines not appearing when exported to 3D PDF
- Duplicate parts or sub-assemblies are now updated when the original is changed

Deep Exploration CAD Edition is available for Max 4 to 2009 and costs $1995. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v1.0.371 include:
- Fixes incremental texture changes with identical filenames
- Fixes support for NURBs (LDA) approximation for surfaces and trim curves
- Fixes navigation to ensure navigation importance is reset upon completion
- Adds 'Environment Settings' panel
- Fix to generalise interactive update rate to allow changes other than navigation

Rendition is available for Max 9 to 2009 and costs $395. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v3.42 are:
- IK thresholds are now set very small so you can build very small puppets
- Spider Leg has a 'Flip Swivel' option in case the swivel was created on the wrong side

Puppetshop is available for Max 8 to 2009, and costs $249. A demo version is available here.

Changes for v2.09 are:
- Fixes a bug with painting weights in 64-bit Max 2009

Skin FX is available for Max 6 to 2009, and costs $189. A demo version is available here.

Thinking Apes GmbH are running a special offer on NodeJoe. The SIGGRAPH / GAMES CONVENTION special offer starts today (August 1st) and runs until the middle of September, giving a 20% discount on all single-seat licenses. That means €231 instead of €289.

NodeJoe is available for Max 6 to 2009 and normally costs €289. A demo version is available here.