- 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

Check with us on 3ds Max version compatibility.

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:

• Improved Surface Distribution dialogs allow new ways to derive parameters from the emitter surfaces
• Random Distribution curve controls allow the user to define the exact distribution of a parameter over its range
• Separate color randomization for hue, saturation and value
• Better and more flexible export of hair to external plug-in tools and MAXScript.
• Improved anti-aliasing through a new thick strand renderer
• Rendering in buckets of any size and order to lower memory usage and allow for better integration with raytracers like finalRender and VRay
• Expanded dynamics support through the hairfxView object to cloth simulation systems

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

• Production proven results demonstrate this technology's ability to achieve realistic smoke and fire effects for cutting-edge industry applications.
• FumeFX supplements the user's artistic vision with the power of real-world physics for the ultimate in both style and realism.
• A multitude of parameters and FumeFX helpers give users incredible control of the fluid's behavior and appearance.
• Easy to use, basic effects can be created with just a few clicks.
• Options include the use of powerful AFC and Gradient controls, which are unified through all Sitni Sati products.
• Plug-in design incorporates extensive support for Particle Flow and Thinking Particles.
• Dynamic simulations allow for bi-directional influence between FumeFX and particle systems.
• Advanced scripting is possible with almost every aspect of FumeFX, including access to all simulation data.
• FumeFX is capable of dynamic interaction with other scene objects.
• finalRender GI support
• Start simulations from scratch or by using other simulation results as starting point.
• Stop, pause and continue simulations at any point.
• Simulation is multithreaded – user can select how many CPU's to dedicate to simulation.
• Simulations beyond available memory can be swapped to disk.
• User can watch the simulation progress in the interactive Preview Window.
• Draft simulations can be created in mere minutes for fast previewing.
• User has control of which data will be written to output files for rendering and other uses.
• The Preview Window gives users almost instant feedback on render settings.
• Fast self-shadowing is produced through an Illumination Map.
• A highly efficient Multiple Scattering model enhances light dispersion throughout fluid
• Fluid Mapping integrates procedural map details with fluid motion.

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 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:

• Completely re-designed UI makes creating and managing multiple texturing layers simple
• Fully compatible with Editable Mesh, Poly and Patch
• New UVViewport allows users to see their maps in UV Space within a special window
• The product comes with two special map types designed to allow mapping layers to blend seamlessly together
• Transfer and use saved selection sets of faces and edges to help control mapping boundaries
• Spline mapping supports twisting of seam edge along the length of the chosen spline

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.