MAX Plugins.de News Archive

Archived Plugin News  –  April 2020
 

Plugin Update: Particles

Changes for v0.16084 beta are:
- CTRL must now be pressed while dragging operators in order to overwrite existing operators
- Individual operator filters can now be enabled/disabled
- The Export Particles operator Alembic point cloud mode can now export particle vertex colors
- quickType should no longer ding
- Fixes an issue when calling tyPreviewWindow without a proper camera argument
- Further optimizations to the Delete operator
- Fixes a regression where copying an operator reloaded defaults after loading param block settings
- Significantly reduces the time it takes for the Spline Paths operator to clear spline cache data
- Fixes an issue where the Rotation operator was not retaining the applied forward vector setting


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v3.1 are:
- Adds support for the Shell material
- Fixes an issue with the Standard material's Self-Illumination input not working properly
- Adds a checkbox to explicitly enable the First-Person mode for the camera
- Fixes a bug with the collision material not working with the First-Person camera
- Adds support for Max 2021
- Both Python 2 and Python 3 are now supported
- Drops support for Max 2017
- Export to .glb format now works
- Empty scenes no longer crash upon export
- V-Ray materials, lights and cameras no longer crash upon export
- Adds a 'traverse controllers' puzzle and a 'get controller property' puzzle
- Adds connected and disconnected options to the 'session event' puzzle
- Adds a debug info option to the 'get gamepad' puzzle
- Rays rendered for VR controllers now automatically adjust their length when intersecting an object
- Native browser technology WebAssembly (Wasm) is now used to run the physics engine
- Adds a new 'on before/after simulation' puzzle
- The 'get object direction' puzzle can now return a horizontal direction vector
- Adds a puzzle called 'body control' to override the state of a physics body
- From now on, all physics objects go into sleep mode after a period of inactivity
- Implements so-called ghost physics objects
- Adds new angular factor and linear factor options to the 'apply vector physics' puzzle
- Adds puzzles for vector operations to the Numbers category
- Adds a new puzzle called 'clone animation' for cutting animation and using it as a new clip
- Adds a new puzzle called 'stop sound' which not only stops playback but also rewinds the sound
- Applying materials from a non-skinned object to a skinned one now works with puzzles
- You can now select the IBL algorithm: PMREM (HQ, slow) , Light Probe + Cubemap, Light Probe (fast)
- Adds an Environment Map size setting
- HTML5 pointer events are now available in puzzles
- Adds isPrimary and pointerType options to the 'get event property' puzzle
- Verge3D can now be more easily integrated with React.js and Vue.js applications
- Changes the id of the WebGL canvas container element from 'container' to 'v3d-container'
- The Puzzles library's my_library.xml is no longer overwritten when installing a new version
- The WebGL shaders were optimized and now compile 20-25% faster
- Adds the JavaScript methods copyRGBEToLinear() and convertRGBEToLinear() to the Color class
- The documentation has been updated and expanded
- Fixes a rare issue related to non-node-based materials
- Fixes objects parented to VR controllers disappearing after being outside the camera view
- Fixes a bug with the screen-space reflection puzzle
- Fixes a bug when the Flying or First-person camera is parented to an object
- Fixes the 'is visible' puzzle which wasn't working in some cases
- Fixes a series of installation issues due to user folders containing spaces or non-latin symbols
- Fixes a bug when raycasting was applied to hidden parented objects
- Fixes various smaller bugs in Puzzles which were found by an automatic code checker

Verge3D is available for Max 2018 to 2021 and costs $290. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Animation

Changes for v1.3 are:
- Undo now works properly with all actions
- Adds a spinner to change rope stiffness
- You can now update/delete ropes
- Adds mass actions with all selected ropes

Massfx Rope Creator is available for Max 2010 to 2021 and costs $29.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v2.6.54 are:
- Adds support for Max 2021
- Fixes a potential crash in Max when deleting objects during IPR
- Fixes a Max bug where utility buffers for Altus denoising weren't saved when using Max file output
- Adds velocity-based deformation blur support for Bifrost meshes in Max
- The material override enable-state is now ignored during IPR
- Proxy export in Max now always includes a camera
- Fixes a Maya crash caused by hiding the Sun light of the environment Sky shader
- Fixes a Maya issue where turning off Motion Blur from Render Stats didn't actually turn it off
- Fixes a Maya issue where animated Meshes would not appear correctly
- Adds an 'Enable MASH Mode' checkbox to the motion blur section of the render settings in Maya
- Fixes a Maya bug in Redshift's helper functions for the Render Setup system in Maya 2019 and up
- Fixes a Maya bug that caused certain drop-down shader attributes from being off by 1 in Maya 2020
- Adds support for Cinema 4D S22
- Fixes a C4D issue with incorrect custom User-Data when used through XRefs with namespaces
- Fixes a C4D issue with tangent data generation
- Fixes a C4D issue where the Redshift menu appeared multiple times in the Cinema 4D main menu
- Fixes a C4D freeze on OSX when starting the IPR from the RenderView in Cinema versions up to R19
- Adds support for Houdini 18.0.391 and 18.0.416, drops support for 18.0.287, 17.5.391 and 17.5.425
- Fixes a Katana crash while exporting deep EXR files including the ObjectID AOV
- Adds a new custom menu for the GrafferThree Redshift light packages in Katana
- Adds Katana support for the environment variable REDSHIFT_FORCEQUITONINTERNALERROR
- Fixes a problem in Katana with the GafferThree light packages while adopting for editing
- Renames the Point type AOVs channels in Katana to X,Y,Z
- Fixes a Katana problem with tangents computation
- Fixes a bug in Redshift core that caused crashes if a 3D plugin issued many error log entries
- Fixes a hard crash in the core with State nodes driving material displacement or bump shaders
- Fixes a bug that could not update the scene if hair min pixel width settings were tweaked
- Fixes a bug where the scatter ramp color of a volume grid could affect another volume grid
- Fixes a rare texture sampling crash bug
- Fixes a volume grid bug that made color channels not work in some cases
- Fixes a bug that caused a 'Mem copy is too big for buffer' assert when using many sprite nodes
- Fixes a bug that could produce visual artifacts when VDBs overlapped
- Fixes a bug that could cause crashes during shaderball rendering

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


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v4.0.4.36 are:
- Updates to Arnold 6.0.3.0
- Adds animation support for sequences of alembic files
- Adds support for tokens in AOV output filenames
- Scenes can now be exported to a USD file from the Archive tab of the rendering options
- You can now increase the shaders' spinner accuracy
- Adds support for MikkT tangent space when baking normals
- You can now bake normals using projection
- Show at least one of the maps baking without having to dig in a drop-down
- Shutdown is now faster after rendering massive instances
- Discontinues support for Max 2018
- Fixes a crash when switching running Active Shade from Arnold to ART
- Using multiple views and AOVs in Batch Render no longer overwrites files
- Fixes an incorrect buckets setting in ASinVP
- OSL internal headers are now included by default to support new OSL types
- Shape display mode is no longer corrupted for Alembic/Procedural/USD
- Fixes an incorrect shader ball with legacy maps
- Lights converted from Photometric to Arnold no longer have incorrect targets
- Fixes the watermark showing when previewing materials
- Baking to texture no longer crashes if Active Shade is open


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v2019.1.5 - 8.21 are:
- Re-adds support for Max 2013, 2014 (removed in 8.20)
- Fixes Octane Light with Vectron mode failing to connect a Transmission texture

OctaneRender is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $619. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Global Utilities

Based on Thomas Luft's Ivy Generator, this mix of plugin and MAXScript lets you generate ivy in your scene. The plugin does all of the hard work that is the actual ivy growing and generation of the meshes, the script is for the user interface, the materials and the Corona scatter creation.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v2.2.1 are:
- Adds support for Max 2021
- Improves integration with the modifier stack in Max
- Improves statistics reporting

UVPackmaster 2 is available for Max 2017 to 2021 and costs $39. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v1.3 are:
- Adds support for Max 2021
- Adds a Transfer UVW edges to Edit Poly modifier edges function

miauu's Transfer Edges: Poly to UVW is available for Max 2009 to 2021 and costs €11.


Plugin Update: Renderers

Changes for v4.30.02 are:
- Adds support for Max 2021
- Adds support for 'Bake to Texture' in Max 2021
- Improves performance scaling with 2nd gen Epyc dual 64-core setups 128 and more threads
- The view graph XML file for viewport IPR is now looked for relative to the V-Ray dlr file location
- Adds matte and visibility control to VRayScene
- Add the ability to VRayOSL to connect an OSL triple float output to a OSL single float input
- Adds MAXScript control for test resolution through vfbcontrol
- Updates SettingsPresenZ export in the .vrscene exporter
- Fixes the 'Get resolution from Max' option
- Fixes any click on the Light Cache preset dropdown changing the mode
- Fixes a crash after baking to texture in Max 2021
- EXR metadata in the VRayOptionRE is now saved with deep images
- Fume FX render elements are no longer missing in V-Ray renders
- Fixes a random crash when rendering scenes with VRayFur
- Tiled EXR textures no longer cause scenes to render considerably slower compared to 4.1
- VRayRenderID by node handle is now saved correctly in deep EXR output
- Fixes the wrong 3ds Max Render output JPEG image with Test resolution
- Fixes incorrect internal reflection in glass when glossy Fresnel is enabled in V-Ray and V-Ray GPU
- Fixes problems in V-Ray IPR when deleting/updating a VRayInstancer or assigned materials
- Fixes Anima AXYZ having no animation when exported to vrscene for V-Ray Cloud
- Fixes BerconMaps not rendering properly when exported to Standalone
- Fixes differing BerconNoise results in with some combinations of Noise Function and Fractal
- Tile UV mapping of the Bercon tile is now rendered properly in V-Ray GPU and V-Ray Cloud
- Fixes VRayMtlID render element from rendering black in V-Ray GPU and V-Ray Cloud
- Bucket rendering in V-Ray GPU no longer produces black output when AA Filter size drops below 1.41
- Fixes a V-Ray GPU crash when rendering VRMesh files with more than 16 mapping channels
- Fixes a V-Ray GPU crash with VRayLightMtl with Direct illumination enabled applied to tySpline
- Fixes a V-Ray GPU crash with VRayEnvironmentFog when switching from bucket to IPR
- Rendering on GPU with NVLink spanning more than 2 cards no longer results in a crash
- VRayMtl now has back side glossy reflections if 'Reflect on back side' is enabled in V-Ray GPU
- V-Ray Standalone's -skipExistingFrames no longer breaks file output to the current directory
- V-Ray Standalone's -skipExistingFrames no longer creates extra files in animation
- Fixes VRayEnvironmentFog artifacts with custom geometry fog gizmo in specific scenes
- VRayEnvironmentFog can now render with VRayNoiseTex used as density map
- Fixes VRayEnvironmentFog rendering significantly slower with Scatter GI in V-Ray Next
- The VRayFastSSS2 material now composes back to beauty properly
- VRayLightSelect in full mode now matches the beauty pass when diffuse amount is above 0
- Float to int vector casts in shaders no longer leads to crashes in VRayGLSL
- Fixes incorrect matrix multiplication results in VRayGLSL
- Fixes missing return statements in non-void GLSL functions leading to crashes
- Fixes 100% white opacity maps from affecting material reflection in VRayMtl
- Fixes a crash in material editor preview rendering after editing an OSL texture from MAXScript
- Fixes a crash with Bitmap texture vray attached to VRayOSLTex while exporting for V-Ray GPU
- Fixes geometry compile time increasing on each frame when rendering animation in V-Ray Standalone
- Fixes a volumetric rendering slow-down with Volume Light Cache enabled with V-Ray memtracker

V-Ray Next is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs $850. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v1.82 are:
- Adds support for Max 2021
- Fixes dummy objects ignoring extents

Din3D Importer is available for Max 2010 to 2021 and costs €59. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Import / Export

Changes for v20200410.2 are:
- Inverts KHR_texture_transform vScale due to babylon using a bottom left texture coordinate origin


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v2.8.1.0 are:
- Fixes multiple error messages being displayed when opening Max
- Fixes UI Reset and cleanup after uninstall or reinstall to work properly
- Multi-Language compatibility improvements
- Fixes the random transform option in the UVW transform tool
- Fixes a problem in Max 2015 and 2016 causing tools to be disabled, UI issues and startup errors
- Removes the use of no longer present default icons in ribbon or macros in Max 2021
- You can now choose to not install the update checker

DesignToolBox is available for Max 2015 to 2021 and costs $22.99. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Texturing

Changes for v1.30 are:
- Adds support for Octane
- Adds support for creating and adjusting displacement modifiers
- Adds support for the UVW Map modifier
- Adds gamma input options
- Adds a switch between dockable and window mode
- Improves the UV mapping size controls

Material Texture Loader is available for Max 2016 to 2021 and costs $20.


Plugin Update: Modelling

Changes for v1.15 are:
- Adds copy/paste of material IDs
- Adds support for assigning custom sequences of material IDs

SubSpline is available for Max 2012 to 2021 and costs $18.


New Plugin: Modelling

Voxel Remesh is a multi-threaded C++, volume-based remeshing plugin. Features include:
- Create closed surfaces from self-intersecting meshes
- Create a high-poly mesh for baking with round edges
- Create a lowpoly mesh from highpoly
- Generate a better topology for 3D scan meshes
- Create level designs
- Create organic meshes in Max
- Create an evenly distributed polygonal mesh for physics simulations
- A dynamesh like workflow

Voxel Remesh is available for Max 2016 to 2021 and costs $59.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for 3.10.06 are:
- Adds support for Max 2021
- Adds the ability to create Physically Based Rendering (PBR) materials from SBSAR files
- Adds the ability to create 'OSL Map' texturemaps from OSL files
- Adds the ability to create 'HDRI Environment' texturemaps from HDR and EXR files
- Adds a fuzzy search setting to specify the level of filename similarity for thumbnails
- Adds the ability to create new Favorites in the 'Favorites' dialog
- Adds the ability to move selected external asset files using the new menu-item 'Move to'
- Displays the number of items in the file's gallery
- Fixes an issue with relinking asset files in version 3.09.15
- Fixes an issue with getting a preview for some DWG files

Project Manager is available for Max 2014 to 2021 and costs $75. A demo version is available here.


New Plugin: Utilities

miauu's Manage Links helps you to link Sketchup, Rhino, Autocad or your preferred BIM or CAD program with Max. It is incredibly fast and will save a lot of time. Heavy files with millions of polygons are processed smoothly and fast. What it does is to import the models, clean and fix the imported geometry and split it in one object per material. The resulting objects are saved as an .fbx file which you can link to Max manually or miauu's Manage Links can link it for you automatically.

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


Plugin Update: Animation

Changes for 4.0.1 include:
- 'Download' and 'Update' options are now in the right-click menu on multiple selections of actors
- Adds support for Max 2021
- Material improvements for V-Ray and Corona renderers in Max
- Some of the new messages have been changed
- Fixes a rare crash caused when using alive due to an interface error
- Version updates downloaded from the application are now verified to ensure they're not corrupt
- Fixes an issue where the video preview capture could generate a corrupt file
- Fixes an issue where the simplified boxes for actors would show up when toggling a camera active
- Fixes an incorrect message when detecting new available product downloads from your account
- Fixes the need to restart the plugin when activating or deactivating an anima license
- Fixes an FBX exporter issue where rigged and ambient actor animations would not export correctly
- Fixes a Max issue with dropping ambient actors as ready-posed models from the drag and drop panel
- Fixes a Max issue where bump maps showed up incorrectly for 4D actors in combination with V-Ray

Anima is available for Max 2013 to 2021 and costs €279. A demo version is available here.


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v2.0 are:
- New Previews Panel for exploring thumbnails, previews, Max external files and material libraries
- You can now explore and manage Max material libraries inside Connecter
- New dedicated 3ds Max option that runs silently while you explore the material libraries
- Adds a Refresh button to reload the content of a folder without leaving it
- Fixes an issue with dropping .mat assets in the Max viewport
- Various other bug-fixes and UI improvements in the Max integration
- New Blender installation routine ensures that the plugin works in future versions and daily builds


Plugin Update: Particles

Changes for v0.16080 beta are:
- Adds a 'Show Axis' option to the PhysX Bind operator to visualize the twist and swing axis
- Adds a twist axis orientation setting to control the twist vector direction of bind transforms
- Adds copy/paste filter options to the operator right-click menus
- Adds an option to display the operator depot to the left of the editor grid
- Fixes an issue where filters were not working correctly in the Particle Break operator
- Fixes an issue where alembic export wouldn't respect the 'export particles' checkbox
- Fixes an issue where alembic export wouldn't properly export mesh normals
- Adds an Unreal Engine compatibility setting to alembic export
- Fixes an issue in the PhysX Bind operator where displaying binds was not working properly


Plugin Update: Rendering

Changes for Beta 3.01 Preview are:
- Updates Cycles to parity with Blender 2.82
- Updates the Blender shader exporter to work with Blender 2.80-2.82
- Modifies various shader graph nodes to match Blender 2.82
- Nodes in the shader graph editor now have colored titles
- The 3ds Max Texmap node now has a 'vector' input
- Adds support for RTX-accelerated rendering
- Adds support for instanced meshes
- Adds a number of new shader graph nodes
- Adds a new MAXScript variable to control using the CPU with CUDA renders
- Fixes incorrect camera translation when the camera has non-zero roll
- The 'random' output of the Object Info node will now work correctly
- Fixes a bug that caused UV maps to be applied incorrectly in some cases
- Fixes a crash when rendering some shader graphs
- Clearcoat normal maps on the Principled BSDF material now work again
- Updates third-party libraries


Plugin Update: Utilities

Changes for v6.3 are:
- Fixes a bug in the Quad Cap Holes script
- Adds support for Max 2021

miauu's Script Pack Volume 2 is available for Max 2009 to 2021 and costs €17.