
- premium 3ds max plug-ins: Ordered via Digital by Design
The following premium 3ds max plug-ins are from creative
developers around the globe.
These plug-ins are subjected to stringent
testing procedures defined by Autodesk to ensure each plug-in works well
with 3ds max and other Autodesk Certified Animation Plug-ins. Only plug-ins
that pass the testing process are eligible to use the “Autodesk Certified Animation Plugin-ins” branding.
Demo versions of some plug-ins available upon request to info@dbd.com.au
All ACAP tools are 3ds max 8 compliant. FumeFX is 3ds Max 9 compliant.
hairfx is an amazing, procedural hair and fur generation system for 3ds max , and has been designed with an artist's needs in mind. Cure your creatures' and characters' baldness quickly by applying the hairfx and furfx atmospherics to any 3D geometry in your scene, and within seconds, you've got a lush sprouting of everything from short stubble to long silky hair.
The product has evolved dramatically and now offers advanced tools including a new anti-aliasing engine to help produce smooth, beautifully rendered hair and fur, a new Cloth Mesh converter to support SimCloth3 and clothfx dynamics engines for hair motion, and much more. Since the system is designed as an atmospheric, no geometry needs to be rendered, which means that it will render faster than a geometry solution can provide.
Plus, as part of the Discreet Certified 3ds max Plug-in program, hairfx also now offers bucket-based rendering support for rendering technologies. This helps conserves memory for these powerful renderers and boosts overall performance. If you are in the market for the next big thing in virtual hair, you need to check out hairfx today.
Just look at this list of features:
FumeFX is a groundbreaking solution for incredibly realistic and breathtaking effects with fire, smoke and explosions. This unique plug-in is a powerful gaseous fluid dynamics simulator created by industry leaders at Sitni Sati for seamless integration with Autodesk Media & Entertainment's 3ds Max. Designed for use by visual effects artists, game developers, and visualization professionals who demand the utmost in realism, it is unrivalled in its ability to achieve the nuance and complexity of fluid gas behavior.
The key to the FumeFX difference is that it combines your specific aesthetic vision with real-world physics. Other plug-ins help users to fabricate artistic renditions of fire through complicated tweaking and animation of particles; the results of this time-consuming approach are ultimately limited by its basis on completely arbitrary factors. By contrast, FumeFX fire and smoke behave according to the laws of fluid dynamics and react to relevant physical forces, such as temperature and gravity; this means you can produce realistic voxel-based simulations with greater speed and ease than ever before. Furthermore, the combination of a dynamic feature set, intuitive user interface, and open architecture offer the performance and flexibility to enhance virtually any pipeline. Simply put, there is no other combustion effects tool that can compete with physics simulation power in this plug-in.
Key Features
Particle Flow ToolsT: Box 1 is a set of Particle Flow operators designed to extend Particle Flow's inherent capabilities. Written by the same developer who created Particle Flow, this set of tools is a testament to the openness of Particle Flow. Some of the PFT operators are significantly improved extensions of the features built originally into other 3rd party plug-ins, while others are completely new and add amazing functionality to Discreet's internal event-based particle system. Box 1 comes with 14 powerful operators that fall mainly into three different categories: Painting , Groups , and Utilities . The new Painting tools (which includes Particle Paint, Birth Paint, Placement Paint, Birth Texture and Mapping Object operators) give you the ability to paint particles onto any areas of your geometry and then have them emitted from those selected areas. You can even have particles emit by using animated color data from your emitters.
Next are the Utilities operators. Not only are they useful, but they can help keep your scripts compact and easy to manage. They include the Preset Flow, Lock/Bond, Initial State and Utility operators, and with them you can quickly build your own preset flows outside of the standard setup to accommodate your own workflow, and then use another operator to remove operators that are not being used within the system to better compact your flows. You can take a snapshot of your particles at any point, and have new cloned particles emit from those locations.
The Grouping operators (which includes the Group Selection, Group Operator and Split Group operators) lets you efficiently select and manage different collections of particles within your flows, or use the new Split Group test to divide your flow based on other selections within the system.
Finally, exclusive to Box 1 is the Shape Plus operator that gives you new 2D and 3D shapes you can have Particle Flow create.
The uses for these new operators are endless.
Box 3 Pro is also available. Contact us HERE to learn more.
Texture Layers 2 is the latest incarnation of Mankua's production-proven, advanced mapping and texturing system for 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ users. With Texture Layer 2, you can create and animate all of your mapping channels within a single modifier, applying different mapping styles to parts of the same object in just minutes. It's like having a modifier stack within a single modifier! The product offers advanced mapping tools unlike anything else available for 3ds max including Spline Mapping, Free Form Deformation, UVW Frame and a much needed Pelt system to give you the ultimate power to apply maps to your most detailed models.
Texture Layers 2 also includes its own Sub-Object selection mode so you can choose parts of your model on the fly, while allowing you to read in saved selection sets from elsewhere in the Modifier stack. You can quickly copy, paste, save and load mapping channels within the same modifier, or from one modifier to another to suit your needs. You don't even need to use Multi/SubObject Material IDs when you assign your materials. After application, you can blend all or parts of the material into other layered materials to control how the final material is displayed. For all of you who've been looking for more sophisticated ways of mapping your objects inside of 3ds max , check out Texture Layers 2 today.
Just look at the features:
Flight
Studio is a sophisticated suite of OpenFlight® importing, editing,
and exporting tools for 3ds max 6. Most tools that read and write OpenFlight
files typically change the structure of the data, which forces timely
reworks and limits the usefulness for visual simulation. This major issue
has been addressed in Flight Studio so that the original OpenFlight structures
are preserved while allowing the simulation modeler to edit and create
new 3D elements that can be directly placed in the scene.
Flight Studio lets the user to import, edit and export OpenFlight scene graphs and databases from within Discreet"s 3ds max 6, all while retaining scene graph structure and attributes. This provides OpenFlight artists unparalleled access to the scene graph and its attributes, enabling new capabilities not currently available in any other tool. New features include scene graph and attribute editing, LOD and Switch node management and easy to use hierarchy display, all while maintaining the original scene graph structure. In addition to these features, OpenFlight artists can now use the full range of award wining content creation tools available in 3ds max 6, including polygonal and multi-resolution mesh modeling, Unwrap UV mapping, texture baking, real-world lighting, and Vertex Painting. Given the powerful creation tools available with 3ds max 6, artists will have a new platform for creating accurate, efficient and compelling OpenFlight databases.
rtre™
real time rendering allows you to instantly explore or present any 3D model,
however complex- from quick interactive studies to full multimedia presentations
of major structures. You can better convey your design intent, with richer,
superior quality images that are generated in the blink of an eye.Finally, rtre comes with a small standalone application called Texture Manager that gives you the ability to convert your bitmaps into Power of 2 files, perfect for real time usage.
Whether you`re an architect, interior designer, mechanical engineer,
land planner, 3D production studio, game designer or other professional,
rtre™ is an invaluable tool that lets you visualize your designs
and communicate your vision to clients, colleagues and consultants. It`s
a must have for anyone who is tired of waiting to see their creations.
clothfx (formerly known as "Stitch") is a production proven cloth
simulation system for 3ds max that provides users with a multitude of advanced
tools necessary to create realistic fabrics and tailor-made clothing for
their characters and creatures. Modeling clothing can be done in two ways:
creating the objects that represent cloth with standard 3ds max modeling
methods and then applying the clothfx modifier to it, or by designing virtual
clothing patterns in a more traditional way (you can even import spline
patterns from external applications) and stitching together various virtual
panels to form a full garment.Full collision detection (including cloth to cloth collisions) can be run, and provides instant feedback on how well your cloth is performing during a simulation. And for advanced users, you can also stage your simulations in sections to get just the look that’s right for you. What this means is that you can run the cloth simulation once, then edit out parts you don’t want, and re-run the simulation with similar (or wildly different) settings to get that perfect result without having to start from scratch each time.
Absolute
Character Tools 1.6 Pro (or "ACT" for short) is a sophisticated
musculature system for 3ds max™ that helps you add extra realism and
believability to characters that you create and animate. ACT gives you several
new object classes for modeling muscles and skins and also has a whole skin
deformation technology that does both sub-skin deformation and in-skin deformation.
It is extremely fast, stable, customizable, and open for scripting and wiring.
It works the way character riggers and animators expect and comes with a
comprehensive set of tools that are targeted at increasing its efficiency
in heavy production environments.And now with ACT 1.6 Pro, you now get another powerful addition: cgAdam and cgEve. These fully set up and ready-to-animate models come with complete set of bones, cgMuscles and sub-skin surface made from cgTubes. They are a great reference for you to be able to see how and where muscles are set up.
Kaldera
is a powerful texturing plug-in that gives users the ability to render full
scene information (lighting, opacity, texturing, displacement) into special
texture maps based on your object"s appearance and relationship to
other objects or elements within your scene. These maps are then directly
baked into your object and can be used to display your assets rapidly on
Direct3D devices such as graphics display cards or game engines. As you
can imagine, this makes Kaldera a huge timesaver for game content creators
or any other artist looking to create complex models and sets. Architects
and designers can also gain significant performance increases in their scenes
since they can display all of the detail in their models without having
the associated overhead.This is all achieved through the use of Kaldera"s sophisticated processing engine that traverses an object"s UVW coordinates like a scanline renderer. When it finds a "hit", it captures that point on the surface and all attributes associated with that point (including normals direction and distance, color, opacity, etc.). Once it finishes scanning the object, it can build up to 10 different maps that can be applied to the object. Lighting, Alpha, Shadow, Atmospheric, Diffuse, Height and Custom maps can all be generated independently for your all of your assets. Just look at the features and controls Kaldera offers:
--- The Source objects don"t need to have any mapping channels applied
--- You can have as many Source Objects as you want
--- You have a big arsenal of tools to resolve hits between the Source
and Target objects. This includes:
--- Use of two cage meshes to define the ray shooting start position and
ray length
--- Use of different Material IDs or face selections to include and exclude
faces from the Source object in the render
--- You can use 3ds max standard modifiers like Select Mesh and Delete
Mesh to temporarily delete unwanted faces before processing Kaldera mapping
--- You can mix different normals results using the alpha channel to blend
the Normals Map without adding any extra geometry
--- A Normals Map is included with Kaldera to let you render and preview
normals map results
DreamScape
2.5 provides users with cutting edge tools for creating realistic landscapes,
seascapes, skies, outdoor lighting and more. This incredible tool is actually
a tightly integrated suite of modeling and animation tools for building
complete environments including mountainous landscapes, realistic skies
and bodies of water.You can also build convincing skies in a matter of minutes that mimic the advanced illumination properties of the real sky and contain multiple layers of animatable clouds. From bright, sunny days to overcast, dreary afternoons, DreamScape 2.5 can deliver the look that you need. And beautifully animated sunsets and sunrises are handled automatically; just animate DreamScape`s Sun light and the sky will react accordingly.
Lastly, DreamScape`s SeaMaterial can help you generate realistic sea surfaces including reflections, refraction, bump mapping, procedurally generated foam and underwater scenery. This material is then applied to DreamScape’s procedural Sea Surface object. The Sea Surface has built-in deformation based on oceanographic studies and is powered by advanced FOV-based mesh creation algorithms. This means that beyond superb motion, everything outside the camera’s field of view will be eliminated so that expansive ocean scenes won’t bring your system to it’s knees when rendering. And with the addition of new naval dynamics, you can toss objects into your water and have them interact in a realistic and accurate fashion.
So if you need a powerful and robust tool for creating "real world" environments, then DreamScape 2 is the right choice.
AfterBurn
is the de facto standard when it comes to creating volumetric particle
effects for 3ds max and will unleash your imagination in ways you never
imagined. AfterBurn"s pedigree is unquestionable: it has been production-proven
in many amazing cinematic events such as Armageddon, Dracula 2000, Coronado
and various IMAX films. It has also been an essential tool for a number
of hit computer games such as Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Diablo 2, Final Fantasy
X, Sin, Mechwarrior 3, and many others. So it"s no wonder that AfterBurn
is chosen by graphics professionals when they need superior output and
solid technology.Every detail has been addressed within AfterBurn. Specialized "Daemons" give you the power to create wind that can move even the smallest wisp of smoke in any desired direction. Some of these Daemons will even allow you to drill holes through your volumetric clouds!
Another powerful feature is the ability to control and fine-tune the coloration, opacity and illumination of your AfterBurn effects based on factors like particle age, particle velocity, distance from the emitter and much more. You can even render out your volumetrics using G-Buffer channels and apply glows or other post processes to your AfterBurn effects selectively!
AfterBurn also includes a special shader called the Octane Shader; an insanely fast renderer designed specifically to handle thin smoke and similar effects that do not require full 3D shading.
For existing users, look at what has been added:
AFCs: AfterBurn has always used Animation Flow Curves to vary parameters over particle age. Besides corner and smooth knot types, AFC"s now supports the Bezier key type, which allows more control over the curve shape. Bezier knots and handles can even be animated over the time!
Gradients: Along with linear interpolation, Gradients now support TCB interpolation as well. With this new addition, it is much easier to achieve non-linear color transitions between keys.
Interpolation Controllers: In AfterBurn, both AFCs and Gradients have many new ways of interpolation. User will be able to choose between particle age, particle velocity, distance from emitter, distance from any object and expression editor. By using these new controllers, it is possible to create astonishing animations that were practically impossible to create before.
Xplode Daemon: With new algorithms, calculations are up to several times faster! New color blending
Cluster-O-Matic
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Morph-O-Matic
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This product provides the tools to create and animate realistic human characters based on standard templates. The models and animations created in LIFESTUDIO:HEAD editor can be exported to 3ds max projects or rendered as AVI movies. This package allows creating movies, adverts and web graphic. It also comprises standard libraries of Animations.
MACRO-MUSCLES TECHNOLOGY
LIFESTUDIO:HEAD operation is based on the original MACRO-MUSCLES technology.
The major advantages of the MACRO-MUSCLES technology are its high speed,
dramatically
reduced memory requirements (when compared to morph-targets based animation),
nonlinear
output in real-time, and cross-compatibility of all graphics assets (models,
textures, animations).
These technological benefits go along with the cinematic quality of visuals
produced
by artists with the help of LIFESTUDIO:HEAD 2.6 in a shorter time and
with less effort.