3dsmax - Version History

Version 4.2.5 - 05 Feb 2019

Fixed:

• The latest update of 3dsmax (2019.3) crashed if our plugin was installed.
• One of the Maxwell Proxies created did not cast shadows (it was actually hidden to GI) if the original object was hidden.
• Maxwell toolbar did not remember its position in 3dsmax 2019 from one session to another; this is actually only partially fixed as there's a bug on the Autodesk side related to Qt SDK; we've managed to make it remember its position but not it's docking state (we are waiting for a solution from Autodesk).
• 3dsmax crashed after using the "Send Job to Network" button from Render Setup window.
• 3dsmax crashed if you added Maxwell Scatter or Maxwell Grass without having Maxwell set as render engine.
• MxLight in Area mode was pointing to the wrong side when using the GPU engine.

Improved:

• Updated the Vray to Maxwell converter script so it can handle Metalness parameter correctly.
• Tweaked some Vray to Maxwell conversion details in the case a falloff map is used in Reflect when doing metals.

Version 4.2.4 - 05 Sep 2018

Fixed:

• In the case of Assistant Materials, when loading a bitmap the parameters disappeared from the UI.
• Maxwell bitmap was showing only part of the parameters when loaded into an assistant.
• Override Map functionality was not working at all in the case of assistants.
• Occasional crashes when manipulating the Maxwell bitmaps parameters in the assistants.

Known issues:

• Still, there are some quirkinesses in the interface when using the assistants that would require a bigger restructuring of Maxwell bitmap.

Version 4.2.3 - 22 Ago 2018

Fixed:

• Maxwell was not available as render engine in 3dsmax 2015 or older.
• Maxwell Parameters camera panel was missing from Target and Free cameras.
• The channels' output formats were including HDR and BMP, which are not supported by Maxwell; it was saving the channels as EXR. Now those formats are not available.
• Some of the channels' output formats were not showing in their drop-down menus in Windows 7, as they didn't fit in the box.
• 3dsmax was crashing when the Object Properties dialogue was called and Maxwell was not the current render engine.
• Scenes made with the previous versions of the plugin were not opening in 4.2.2. Now they will. (WARNING: please, notice that most probably the scenes saved with version 4.2.2, which was removed from downloads, won't open in 4.2.3; the ones made with 4.2.1 and older will)
• The interface of the new Material Preview Options in the Material Editor, was a bit misaligned and too tight on the sides.
• 3dsmax 2019 was getting frozen when previewing Maxwell Bitmap in Material Editor in Slate mode and in some particular cases.
• MxLight target line was disappearing from viewport as soon as the Mxlight gizmo was moved out of the viewport.
• Some lines in MxLight Projector Gizmo were showing too big or too small depending on the units used in the scene.
• The radius of the MxLight, Area type, with Geom set to Sphere was not changing in the render according to the radius shown in viewport.

Improved:

• The falloff and highlight cones of the MxLight Spot type won't show in the viewport when the light is not selected (so the viewport is cleaner and ligther).

Version 4.2.2 - 20 Jul 2018

Improved:

1. MxLight Improvements

   • Create MxLight with or without a target

   • Enable or disable the target

   • Manipulator for adjusting the MxLight parameters. Area Light Width, Height and Sphere Radius can be manipulated. For Spot Light, Cone Angle and Falloff can be manipulated from the viewport

   • Projector gizmo support for Spot Light with projector texture

   • Hidden To Camera and Hidden To Reflection/Refraction options on the MxLight panel. These can also be accessed from MAXScript

   • Handle to adjust the intensity value for MxLight.

     
     

2. VRay to Maxwell Scene Converter

   • Convert the VRay materials, lights and environments to Maxwell on a single click. It includes an option to bake unsupported maps and another to work only on selected objects.

   • A toolbar button to launch the converter script launches a dialogue for running conversion script

     
     

3. Custom Alpha Channels Editor

   • Centralized the creation of custom alpha channels

   • Now user can easily associate objects, materials with custom alpha channels in a single panel with great convenience.

   • Replaced current panel in Render Setup > Renderer > Channels > Custom Alpha by a button to open the new Studio-like panel.

   • Linked custom alphas channels information between new panel and current related information in Objects Properties and Material Editor

   • Added right click options (in quad menus) to create a custom alpha channel out from selected objects or from selected objects’ materials.

     
     

4. Override Map Parameters

   • The texture projection parameters like offset, rotation etc. in the Global Parameters section of Maxwell Material are now removed. The user can set the override parameters from Maxwell Bitmap dialog itself and toggle between overridden texture parameters and regular texture parameters. If you change projection parameters with Override Map active, you are changing those parameters for all the maps that have it active in that material (this is currently not working for the Assistants).

     
     

5. Material Editor Improvements:

   • The UI is made responsive when a material preview is updated. It does not freeze anymore. This is very convenient as automatic update gets much more usable while working with Maxwell materials. The floating preview image window now shows a better quality image.

   • Added a separate roll-out page for accessing the Material Preview Options per material.

   • Added a dropdown menu to select the preview scene instead of a file browse button.

   • The options in the Customize->Preferences section will now work as global parameters (default options). When creating new materials, global values like Quality, Scene, Sampling Level will be used.

   • The same parameters can be set per material basis from the Material Preview Options roll-out.

   • MxBitmap layout has been reorganized: projection properties on the left (channel, tiling, offset, etc.), image properties on the right (hue, saturation, etc.)

     
     

6. Support for 3ds Max 2019

   • Added support for 3ds Max 2019

     
     

7. Object ID overrides for MXS References

Now you have three options:

• Container ID: with this option, it will show the object ID of the mxs reference object, so you can specify it in Appearance tab; it will be the same for all the objects inside the reference; the object ID color of the objects inside the reference won't be taken into account.
• Content ID: with this option, the reference will show the object ids of the objects inside the reference, so they can be many different ones; the object ID color of the mxs reference object itself (the container), will be ignored.
• Recolor: this option will give new object IDs to every object inside the mxs reference in a consistent way, so every time you launch a render they are the same.

Fixed:

• Dependencies included in MXS references were not taken into account when doing a pack and go.

• In material editor, you could not drag and drop textures from the slots of a coating component (layered material).

• Preview scene zoomed out on updating material selection.

Version 4.2.1 - 21 Feb 2018

Changes:

• Built with Maxwell SDK 4.2.0.3.

Version 4.2.0 - 09 Feb 2018

Changes:

• Built with Maxwell SDK 4.2.0.2.
• Added channel "Triangle ID"

Version 4.1.3 - 27 Jul 2017

General:

• Added Maxwell SDK 4.1.1.1

Installer:

• Added options to the Windows installer

New Features:

• Added button "Open Maxwell Render Setting"

Fixed:

• Denoiser options weren't saved properly in scene files
• When rendering animation only the last denoised image was saved
• Some syntax errors have been fixed

Version 4.1.2 - 23 Jun 2017

General:

• Added support for 3dsmax 2018
• Added improvements to the Lights Panel

Fixed:

• Button "Change to Layered Material" didn't work properly.
• The Layered Material preview showed the last Material Assistant preview rendered.
• Objects without material were rendered with roughness 0 instead of 100.

Version 4.1.1 - 19 Jun 2017

General:

• Added Maxwell SDK 4.1.0.4

New Features:

• Added Maxwell Lights Panel

Version 4.1.0 - 08 Jun 2017

General:

• Added Maxwell SDK 4.1.0.3

New features:

• Added Denoiser options in render settings
• Added Xrite AXF Material extensions
• Added Table BRDF Material extension
• CPU Threads can have negative values.

Version 4.0.6 - 21 Dec 2016

• Integrates the 4.0.0.12 render engine.
• Added support for Maya 2016.5

Version 4.0.5 - 02 Dec 2016

• Integrates the 4.0.0.11 render engine.

Version 4.0.4 - 04 Nov 2016

• Integrates the 4.0.0.8 render engine.

Version 3.2.15 - 31 Aug 2016

• Added support for Maya 2017

Version 3.2.14 - 27 Jun 2016

• added support for the UV rotation and hue adjustment texture options
• rebuilt with the latest SDK for compatibility

Version 3.2.13 - 04 May 2016

• Added support for Maya 2016 Extension 2
• Fixed: FIRE did not work if the viewport driver was set to DirectX 11 or OpenGL core profile

Version 3.2.12 - 04 Apr 2016

• Fixed: environment preview did not work in Viewport 2.0
• Fixed: objects with semitransparent Maxwell materials did not appear correctly or at all in Viewport 2.0
• Fixed: area lights did not appear in the "Block Emitter" dialog.

Version 3.1.9 - June 8th 2015

• added support for Max 2016
• if the time output mode is set to single, Export MXS writes a single frame even if animation is requested
• pack'n'go resolves missing file paths in the same way the renderer does, before attempting to copy the files
• the exporter looks for missing IOR files and MXM files in the same way it does for textures
• fixed: pack'n'go crashed with some types of materials
• fixed: the hue adjustment parameter was inverted in the bitmap preview window
• fixed: crash on export when the Maxwell extensions cannot be loaded
• fixed: the animation setting in the export MXS dialog and maxwellExportMXS command was not taken into account
• renamed the "appendFrameNrToImg" flag for the maxwellExportMXS command to "appendFrameNr", because it also affects the output MXS file name, not just the image files
• added support for extra sampling
• updated the range of the devignetting parameter to match Studio
• added MAXScript functions for manipulating visibility flags: maxwellGetObjectFlag and maxwellSetObjectFlag
• added support for UDIM (tiled textures)
• the MXS extension is always appended to the name of the output scene files, even when they already contain a dot in their names
• added a frame offset parameter for the volumetric object
• fixed: clicking the "hide to camera in shadow pass" checkbox could set it to an indeterminate state (checked but grayed out)
• the environment intensity multiplier is exported to Maxwell so that the value correctly appears in the multilight panel
• renamed default item in the FIRE window camera menu to make its purpose clearer
• the material displacement component is exported even when it is disabled, so that it does not disappear when editing a material with MXED
• fixed: the density parameter for the scatter modifier did not allow decimals
• fixed: wrong file names for custom alpha channels
• fixed: crash in Max 2012 when changing a viewport to ActiveShade
• fixed: crash in some cases when closing the object properties dialog when Maxwell is not the active renderer
• fixed: viewport slowdown when using many MxLights set to correlated color emission
• fixed: the range of the emitter correlated color and coating thickness parameters did not match Studio
• added support for multiple selection in the light linking UI
• added support for per-material custom alphas
• decreased the time needed to open the object properties dialog on scenes with many referenced materials
• fixed: the "use global settings" texture parameter was not set correctly when importing a MXM file
• fixed: constant density volumetric objects were not exported correctly
• fixed: floating reflections/shadows were not working when rendering in draft mode
• fixed: visibility flags were not exported correctly for Max instances
• fixed: incorrect names exported for Max instances, causing blocked emitters to break if they were instanced (among other things)

Version 3.0.35 - October 14th 2014

• added the maxwellGetCorrelatedColor() MAXScript function
• fixed: maxwell MAXScript functions didn't work anymore

• assistant materials retaui their name when converted to layered materials
• added the Hair appearance for the material assistant
• the plug-in no longer reserves a license when Max starts. The license is acquired when exporting or rendering for the first time.
• fixed: wrong UVs when importing a mesh with multiple UV sets from a MXS file
• fixed: the flip flags on the global normal map of the Maxwell material were not exported correctly
• fixed: wrong Nd for the the ghost BSDF component created for MxLights
• fixed: the Maxwell object properties rollup for MxLight objects was truncated
• fixed: area light rectangles created by MxLight objects were twice as big as they should have been
• fixed: emitter textures (HDR and projected image) were not copied by Pack'n'Go

• Pack'n'go now exports asset files introduced with the new v3 features
• fixed: Maxscript error when calling MaxwellRenderer()
• fixed: assitant materials couldn't be cloned
• fixed: maxwell material import and export functions couldn't be called from Maxscript

• fixed: axis conversion wasn't applied to scatter values
• fixed: converting assistant materials into layered materials removed top level multi materials

• fixed: No viewport display for maxwell nodes
• fixed: Crash in mxlight
• fixed: Displacement was always exported as on
• fixed: Location settings were disabled when the sun was turned off
• fixed: Maxscript error when cameras contain newline characters

Version 3.0.30 - April 29th 2014

Changes

• added support for Max 2015
• re-added support for Max 2011
• Max double-sided materials are exported as front/back face materials
• added pre- and post-animation behaviors to referenced MXS nodes
• added controls for selecting the padding and format of MXS sequences
• added region rendering controls to cameras
• added support for hue adjustment to MxBitmap
• MultiScatter instances use the render flags from the original object
• added focus camera button to FIRE window and toolbar
• added the name of the material to the backface material button
• added rotation parameter in MxBitmap
• negative values can be used in the offset attribute of MXS reference nodes
• double clicking a material in the MXS material overrides window selects the material for that override
• added a way to set the MXS reference material overrides from MAXScript
• exposed gsChannelDeep and gsUseGlobalMaterial to the maxwell renderer MAXScript interface
• added global settings for textures
• added use global, mirror X and mirror Y flags to MxBitmap
• increased the limit for the depth channel max depth
• added back the MXS sequence rendering flag

Fixes

• MAXScript error when loading some scenes with corrupted cameras
• incorrect export of particle flow motion data
• particle flow systems with a dynamic material node were exported with a default material
• crash in the MXS reference object when no material overrides are set
• MXS references didn't display in the Nitrous viewport
• wrong bounding box for Almebic reference objects
• emitters beneath an IES emitter in the material tree got assigned the same IES file on export
• UV scale wasn't exported when tiling was off
• material overrides weren't saved with the proxy object
• crash when previewing some materials
• crash with vray cameras
• IES files were ignored when importing materials from MXM
• Alembic and MXS material overrides disappeared when the mesh was reloaded
• Alembic material overrides were exported improperly
• wrong normals for Alembic objects imported with CRATE
• objects with no name or that only contained numbers in their name were exported incorrectly
• the plugin reserved a license in node mode when the active renderer wasn't Maxwell
• wrong camera position in FIRE in some cases
• Alembic crash when the abc file had material references
• the enable sequence checkbox in MxBitmap gets disabled when turning off viewport preview
• xref scenes that are hidden in the viewport were still exported
• MXS references updated their geometry even when show in viewport was off
• MxBitmap previews appeared darker when using show in viewport
• Maxwell material viewport preview ignored the hue shift parameter
• 3dsmax 2012 used a seat license even in node mode
• MAXScript error when loading scenes made with older versions of the plugin
• custom bokeh was not exported
• the offset parameter of the MXS reference object wasn't working correctly
• wrong output paths in some cases
• render error when materials contain empty bitmaps
• the viewport preview of MXS references still showed the old object after trying to load a new file or sequence which contains errors
• crash when displaying Maxwell materials in the slate editor
• the textured material wizard created materials with empty bitmaps
• garbage text in the log window when material translation failed in FIRE
• IES file names weren't saved
• crash when converting wizard materials to layered materials inside the slate editor
• crash when the wizard material was loaded as part of a multi-material
• memory leak in the material UI
• wrong size for the viewport preview of the volumetric object
• missing frame number in channel file names when rendering sequences

Version 2.7.30 - July 8th, 2013

Changes

• added support for ornatrix v2 and removed support for ornatrix v1
• hair vertex colors are gamma-corrected
• the plugin no longer checks the save file flag, only the existence of the file name

Fixes

• the V texture coordinate was flipped when importing MXS files

• the viewport texture display used the wrong UVW channel for referenced materials when the display driver was Direct3D

• improper mesh import when it has a single material assigned per face instead of being assigned on the whole mesh

• the proxy and RFRK objects crashed when used with some modifiers

• crash when using multiscatter with MXS references and proxies

• wrong transformation matrix for Max instances of Maxwell proxy objects

• objects imported from MXS were invisible when the viewport was set to wireframe mode

• objects imported from MXS became corrupted when converted to editable poly

Version 2.7.27 - April 25th, 2013

Changes

• added support for Max 2014
• added support for Multiscatter
• camera manipulation in FIRE uses an orbit camera model now

Fixes

• the UI of the Maxwell material isn’t shown if you select sub-components in the material navigator
• gamma was applied twice in the Max render image view if the alpha channel was enabled
• the draft quality setting in the render options panel wasn’t working
• wrong position for Max Hair objects with non-identity pivots

Version 2.7.24 - March 11th, 2013

• added support for moving camera in FIRE
• the link camera FIRE option is accessible directly from the ActiveShade window menu
• added support for solo layers
• a warning is issued when PFlow instances cannot be exported due to duplicated group names
• fixed: the API methods MaxwellMaxExtensionParams::SetIntArray() and MaxwellMaxExtensionParams::SetDoubleArray() did not work correctly
• fixed: Chinese characters in exported IES paths
• fixed: wrong camera used by send job to network
• fixed: crash when rendering a RFRKMesher without any files
• fixed: not all PFlow particles were exported when a system contained empty groups
• fixed: the "extra particles" parameter of the MxParticles object was not exported
• fixed: send job to network didn't start when the output file didn't already exist

Version 2.7.20 - December 17th, 2012

• when importing MXM files, the plug-in looks for missing textures in the "textures" subdirectory of the MXM path
• added the "maxwellRestartFire" MAXScript function 
• meshes and materials can be imported from MXS files 
• Max gamma correction no longer affects Maxwell material preview slots
• added support for meshes with specified normals
• added an object setting on legacy particle system which controls if they are exported as meshes or Maxwell procedurals
• the exporter writes all the cameras present in the scene to the MXS file
• added 2048 and 4096 to the list of allowed resolutions for viewport preview
• the viewport preview looks for textures in alternative paths when they cannot be found, just like the exporter
• the send job to network button supports animations
• fixed: MAXScript error when trying to render from the command line 
• fixed: grass modifiers were exported even when they were disabled
• fixed: crash on systems with video cards or drivers that don't support DirectX 9
• fixed: wrong motion blur for PFlow instances when more than 2 motion steps were used
• fixed: FIRE was not restarted after changing IBL settings
• fixed: the material UI was not refreshed after importing a MXM file
• fixed: the renderer was still started in some cases even though the export process failed
• fixed: crash when a MXS reference object was using animation sequences
• fixed: crash when switching to a non-Maxwell material after editing a Maxwell bitmap
• fixed: crash when trying to export HairFarm objects with density textures applied

Version 2.7.12 - October 16th, 2012

• added support for textured material preview in Nitrous
• added support for HairFarm
• removed support for Max 8, 9 and VIZ
• the Max gamma value does not influence the rendered image or material preview swatches
• added plug-in API
• FBX import and export supports Maxwell materials
• set the default for use Max instancing to on
• fixed: proxies and MXS references did not show the preview point cloud in Nitrous
• fixed: crash when creating MXS reference objects with pivot snap enabled
• fixed: the UV Mapping dropdown in the RFRK particle object contained Chinese characters in Max 2013
• fixed: hidden objects referenced by Maxwell proxies were rendered
• fixed: crash when adding a second sequence to a RFRK mesher under some circumstances
• fixed: no viewport texture preview for referenced materials
• fixed: search paths were not used when locating BIN files for the viewport preview of RFRK meshers and particle objects
• fixed: the viewport preview of RFRK meshers was not refreshed after adding a new sequence
• fixed: crash when unchecking and checking back the display in viewport checkbox in a MXS reference object
• fixed: RFRK particles were skewed when rotated
• fixed: the viewport preview of RFRK objects and MXS references were not using the same search paths as the render
• fixed: crash in older versions of Max which sometimes occurred when loading a scene
• fixed: legacy particle systems were not exported from Max 2013
• fixed: extension parameters which were strings (mesher BIN path, mesher realwave path etc.) were not exported correctly in Max 2013
• fixed: saving a sky to a HDR file didn't work in Max 2013

Version 2.7.6 - July 27th, 2012

• added support for custom bokeh camera parameters
• added support for negative offset values in the IBL parameters
• the particle loader can display PXY sequence files in the viewport
• default axis setup for the RFRK mesher set to YZX
• fixed: browsing the material library and gallery did not work
• fixed: render options strings (MXI path, MXS path, default material etc.) were lost after reopening a scene in Max 2013
• fixed: bogus characters in the geographical location dropdown in Max 2013
• fixed: bogus names for the renderer properties in MAXScript in Max 2013
• fixed: the legacy material was not working
• fixed: plug-in preferences (preview scene path, preview quality etc.) were not saved correctly in Max 2013
• fixed: the bitmap viewer didn't work in Max 2013
• fixed: wrong maximum value for grass bend angle, root radius, tip radius and density
• fixed: file -> export didn't work if a perspective viewport was selected
• fixed: FIRE did not work in Max 2013
• fixed: RFRK objects were flipped in the viewport compared to the render
• fixed: the MXI path was not exported correctly in Max 2013
• fixed: BIN mesh loaders without a file assigned printed a non-descriptive warning on render Version 2.7.4 - June 18th, 2012

Version 2.6.18 - January 30th, 2012

• added support for the Reaflow extensions: BIN mesher and BIN particles
• added support for multi-step camera motion blur
• added support for silent installs (pass /S on the installer command line)
• custom Maxwell objects (MXS references, proxies etc.) are compatible with the Nitrous viewport
• fixed: slowdown when exporting many instances
• fixed: under some circumstances, PFlow systems were exported as a single mesh instead of using instances
• fixed: crash when rendering a proxy that has no source object
• fixed: the rendered image was offset by 1 pixel horizontally in the Max framebuffer
• fixed: ActiveShade crashed when used in viewport
• fixed: wrong output image format when exporting from the File menu
• fixed: wrong state management for the IES controls in Maxwell lights
• fixed: once the LOD of a MXS reference was set to 0, it stayed invisible even after the LOD was increased again
• fixed: wrong bounding box for proxies after the objects they reference was removed