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Found it! http://www.neilblevins.com/soulburnscripts/soulburnscripts.htm this is a collection of scripts by Neil Blevins the one u need to use is called wirebundler i have just tested it and it works exactly how u want but it only worked on mesh objects and not dummy's so you need to attach a small sphere or box to your towers. it dose kind of make the wires look a bit heavy and pulled down but not perfectly. to achieve what you want you need to add another dummy object at a fixed distance from the main tower and have it at a lower Z (height) value, then copy your towers or array them so you will have this 3rd dummy object hanging in between every 2 towers and when you run the script the wire will have to go through this 3rd dummy and up again. that should do the trick i think.

have a go at this http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/branchy not sure if it dose what you want but worth looking at. ill keep looking! found this one too http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/cathenary its almost there

hi there, not sure if tis is what you are after but take a look at linked xform modifier here is a link to a tutorial http://area.autodesk.com/tutorials/18_object_space_modifiers_linked_xform_modifier

Beautiful image!

looks to me that the scale of your waves is too large for the scene, i would use a noise map in the bump chanel and set it to fractal and use very small noise value and set the bump just under 30 and start adjusting the noise size to fit the scene.

hello there, 3ds max has become easier to use specially the 2010 version, and if you are on subscription then you can download the connection extension that allows you to import sketch-up files into max in the cleanest way possible, plus it allows you to import from most CAD packages and retain object edit-ability. i usually start modeling in 3ds max by importing a DWG file from Auto-cad and trim my lines and clean them then extrude walls and define landscape areas and slowly start adding detail using Edit poly modifier ,then assign material IDs put in a daylight system tweak my cameras and choose the right textures or use the many presets from Arch&design material and then tweak them to my needs. if you are good in modeling in Auto-cad architecture then the file link manager will be a grate tool for you so you can model in Auto-cad architecture then link the DWG to max via file link manager and if you need to add more windows walls etc.. you do it in Architecture and save the file then in max refresh the DWG and boom its all there. max is an amazing package and i highly recommend it for architectural design as the number one package out there. hope that helps. cheers.

i there, this happend to me once when i was using Vista, and the soloution was to make sure you run 3ds max as administrator by right clicking it and choosing run as administrator. haven't tried windows 7 yet.

Hi there, as Tommy L mentioned looks like some of your buildings are not casting shadows or maybe the polygons are facing inwards so make sure that your geometry is either double-sided or facing outwards, second thing i would check is the scale of the scene make sure it makes scene because that can effect the overall quality of your render specially if you are using a sun. and if you have imported your geometry from another application make sure the smoothing groups of the polygons are either 45 or 0 if you don't have any round surfaces. now not all of the above is directly answering your question but it might help. Good Luck.

sea water can have difrent settings from one scene to another,but generally it is made of a noise map in the bump or displacement channels, and a falloff map in the reflection Chanel, it also depends if you want to see whats underneath the water surface or you just want a reflective water that is not transparent. your best bet would be to download a sea water material from vray-materials.de this way you can see how others make their water and with a little bit of tweaking your good to go.

I would try to balance all 3 options really, a bit of compromise on resolution, little decrease in image sampling and just enough GI.

Hello Mohamad, i recommend if you can buy the parts from newegg.com, they have all what you want for a good price, below are some of the options for motherboard, CPU, Graphics, and Monitor Motherboard: Intel BOXDX58SO LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard 243$ * CPU Type: Core i7 * FSB: QPI 6.4GT/S * South Bridge: Intel ICH10R * Number of Memory Slots: 4×240pin * Memory Standard: DDR3 1600 * Maximum Memory Supported: 16GB * Channel Supported: Triple Channel * PCI Express 2.0 x16: 2 * Model #: BOXDX58SO CPU: Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail Customer Choice Award5x Winner of Customer Choice Award 279$ * Series: Core i7 * QPI: 4.8GT/s * L2 Cache: 4 x 256KB * L3 Cache: 8MB * Manufacturing Tech: 45 nm * 64 bit Support: Yes * Hyper-Threading Support: Yes * Virtualization Technology Support: Yes * Model #: BX80601920 Graphics: EVGA 896-P3-1255-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card 204$ * Chipset Manufacturer: NVIDIA * Core Clock: 576MHz * Stream Processors: 216 Processor Cores * Memory Clock: 1998MHz * DirectX: DirectX 10 * OpenGL: OpenGL 2.1 * HDMI: 1 (via Adapter) * DVI: 2 * Model #: 896-P3-1255-AR Monitor: SAMSUNG Toc T220HD Rose Black 22" 5ms HDMI Widescreen HDTV Monitor 249$ * Recommended Resolution: 1680 x 1050 * Viewing Angle: 170°(H) / 160°(V) * Brightness: 300 cd/m2 * Contrast Ratio: DC 10000:1(1000:1) * Display Type: WSXGA+ * Input Video Compatibility: Analog RGB, Digital * Connectors: D-sub, DVI-D, HDMI, Component, Optical Out * D-Sub: 1 * Model #: T220HD Good Luck

AJLynn if a client wants his renders in 5 days and your core i7 will take 10 days then you lost that deal my friend! even if your work is mind blowing and you cant deliver on time or at least as quick as your competitors then you lost. looks like we are in 2 different boats when im answering carols's question i put in mind worst case scenarios. im personally a big fan of build your own pc, at home i have built my own and at work i use HP workstation and there is difrance when it comes to production. its allways good to save the $$$ where you can. i wish carlos the best of luck in putting his studio together.

i see your point AJLynn, i would completely agree with you if the machine was to be used for small to medium sized freelance jobs,but in markets like we have today you have to be ready to handle what the clients will through at you and their demands are getting really high specially in the Arch Viz market, with a home built PC one will most likely loose large jobs because of the hardware restrictions they have, plus how far can you upgrade an asus board with a single CPU?? when talking about the HP Z800 you are talking about a huge upgrade capability and the Z800 is configurable so you can choose one or 2 cpu's, 1 to 192GB Ram and multiple Graphics cards, Raid arrays, powerful power supply and you name it. so i think if its for small freelance or hobbyist then build your own, but if you want to be ready for the large client demands then you should invest more in something that you make a living from. you get what you pay for at the end.

Hi Carlos, if you are going to do business with the workstation your about to buy then i advise you to get a pre-built brand and not make it your self. when building your won workstation it can be very tricky to get the hardware to work together with optimum speed,might also run into a cooling or Noise issue. what would be ideal for you as a small business is 2x quad core Intel xeon CPU's and a powerful graphics card, and more than 6GB Ram. the new Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series is the best cpu for 3D by far, if you cant afford 2 of them then one will do the job but youll have to live with longer render times. there is a company called CAD2 and they make good workstaions for good prices, but i highly recomend the HP Z800 it is a monster. take yor time and think about investing in a Brand PC. good luck.

this means that your adaptive degradation is turned ON and this helps a lot when you have large scenes, it optimizes your view port so you can tumble smoothly. if its bothering you just switch it off by clicking once on the Little white box under your time line or just hit the letter O once.