A List of the Best 3D Plugins on the market

[Brian Smith]

Hi guys,

I am trying to develop a list of the best 3D plugins and scripts on the market right now so that I can approach the developers for the purpose of obtaining sizable discounts for readers of the 3DATS books. If you rely on any invaluable plugins or scripts, would you be so kind as to list them here along with a bullet sentence that describes what the plugin does and a web link. I am listing one to start with.

 

I will edit this 1st post regularly to update the list of plugins/scripts mentioned after this post.

 

Currently recommended plugins/scripts:

 

Onyx Tree Storm - facilitates the creation and animation of 3D vegetation

Eon Ozone - Its a fantastic procedural sky system that integrates with many applications. Its relatively inexpensive and works very well.

ProEXR - facilitates the importing of multi-layer .EXR files into photoshop

V-Ray - a leading render engine

Trapcode Suite - They are all effects based plugins for a variety of programs. Mainly used for motion graphics & special effects. They are very nice handy plugins

Knoll Light Factory - Lighting effects plug-in available for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Avid Express Pro

CoolPicker - Expands your color picker, and is free.

GroundWiz - Creates terrain maps and has a planter that can distribute lots of vegetation or anything else, including vray proxies over large areas.

Fume FX - a gaseous fluid dynamics simulator for 3ds Max useful for simulating various natural phenomena

Krakatoa - Krakatoa is a volumetric particle rendering, manipulation and management toolkit useful for dust, smoke, foam and solid objects. integrates with ParticleFlow

Realflow- Realflow is a stand-alone application with Max plugin support for fluid and dynamics simulation for both fluid and rigid bodies.

Deadline- Deadline is a powerful alternative to Backburner offering a host of renderfarm management and job queing tools for managing render farms

Reelsmart MotionBlur - works with vector render passes from Max to add convincing motion blur completely in post production

Reelsmart Twixtor - Twixtor enables you to speed up, slow down or frame rate convert your image sequences in post production so give you more flexibility with the final composition.

Syntheyes- a camera tracking (a.k.a. match-moving) and stabilization software application offering high performance and a wealth of features at an affordable price.

Grass-o-matic - Grass-O-Matic is a procedural object which generates animated grass or hair. It allows you to individually configure and animate all the major characteristics of its grass geometry, and it also includes a built-in, gust-based wind system.

Edited April 2, 2009 by Brian Smith

[Frosty]

I like Eon Ozone.

 

Its a fantastic procedural sky system that integrates with many applications. Its relatively inexpensive and works very well.

[BrianKitts]

ProEXR - facilitates the importing of multi-layer .EXR files into photoshop

 

So does this list only include plugins or is it also add-on scripts? If you're including scripts, I can't live without the Soulburn scripts, and MLplugins' Archicad Importer/Material Replacer for 3dsmax.

[Brian Smith]

ProEXR - facilitates the importing of multi-layer .EXR files into photoshop

 

So does this list only include plugins or is it also add-on scripts? If you're including scripts, I can't live without the Soulburn scripts, and MLplugins' Archicad Importer/Material Replacer for 3dsmax.

 

good call...updated the initial post to include scripts. please list them and what they do.

[rmccoy]

Vray

Knoll Light Factory - For Photoshop and After Effects

Edited April 1, 2009 by rmccoy

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

CoolPicker - Expands your color picker, and is free. Edited April 1, 2009 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[danb4026]

eon ozone isn't vray compatible, correct?

[danb4026]

Does Coolpicker work with max 2009?

[Brian Cassil]

I think the last version coolpicker worked with was version 9. Too bad because I really liked having that color picker.

[John Dollus]

under the After Effects category, i'd add:

anything from Trapcode

Reelsmart MotionBlur

Reelsmart Twixtor

 

 

For Max:

Fume FX

Krakatoa

Realflow

Deadline

 

would be great to have discounts on those

[Brian Smith]

under the After Effects category, i'd add:

anything from Trapcode

Reelsmart MotionBlur

Reelsmart Twixtor

 

 

For Max:

Fume FX

Krakatoa

Realflow

Deadline

 

would be great to have discounts on those

 

you gotta let me know what they do and the links so i can include them

[Brian Smith]

ProEXR - facilitates the importing of multi-layer .EXR files into photoshop

 

So does this list only include plugins or is it also add-on scripts? If you're including scripts, I can't live without the Soulburn scripts, and MLplugins' Archicad Importer/Material Replacer for 3dsmax.

 

need to know what they do and the links

[danb4026]

GroundWiz, http://www.gugila.com, has become very useful recently.

 

Creates terrain maps and has a planter that can distribute lots of vegitation or anything else, including vray proxies over large areas. I have had trouble with the most recent version of Vrayscatter, so started using GroundWiz instead.

[rmccoy]

To update my post earlier

Knoll Light Factory: Lighting effects plug-in available for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Avid Express Pro

 

Brian:

 

The Trapcode products can be found here:

They are all effects based plugins for a variety of programs. Mainly used for motion graphics & special effects. They are very nice handy plugins

[John Dollus]

here are the details:

 

For Max:

Fume FX - http://www.afterworks.com/FumeFX.asp FumeFX is a gaseous fluid dynamics simulator for 3ds Max useful for simulating various natural phenomena

 

Krakatoa - http://www.franticfilms.com/software/products/krakatoa/overview/ Krakatoa is a volumetric particle rendering, manipulation and management toolkit useful for dust, smoke, foam and solid objects. integrates with ParticleFlow

 

Realflow - http://www.realflow.com/ Realflow is a stand-alone application with Max plugin support for fluid and dynamics simulation for both fluid and rigid bodies.

 

Deadline - http://www.franticfilms.com/software/products/deadline/overview/ Deadline is a powerful alternative to Backburner offering a host of renderfarm management and job queing tools for managing render farms

 

 

For After Effects:

 

Reelsmart MotionBlur - http://www.revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/ works with vector render passes from Max to add convincing motion blur completely in post production

 

Reelsmart Twixtor - http://www.revisionfx.com/products/twixtor/ Twixtor enables you to speed up, slow down or frame rate convert your image sequences in post production so give you more flexibility with the final composition.

 

Also wanted to add:

Syntheyes - http://www.ssontech.com/ a camera tracking (a.k.a. match-moving) and stabilization software application offering high performance and a wealth of features at an affordable price.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Does Coolpicker work with max 2009?

 

I think the last version coolpicker worked with was version 9. Too bad because I really liked having that color picker.

 

I use it with Max2009, and can't live without it. The version I have installed is 2.04, 64 bit.

[rmccoy]

I use it with Max2009, and can't live without it. The version I have installed is 2.04, 64 bit.

 

How did you get it to work? I keep trying (v2.1) with Vista 64 and Design 2009 64-bit with no luck. keeps telling me it is the wrong version

[Brian Cassil]

How did you get it to work? I keep trying (v2.1) with Vista 64 and Design 2009 64-bit with no luck. keeps telling me it is the wrong version

 

Same here.

[Ky Lane]

Grass-o-matic - Grass-O-Matic is a procedural object which generates animated grass or hair. It allows you to individually configure and animate all the major characteristics of its grass geometry, and it also includes a built-in, gust-based wind system.

Edited April 2, 2009 by Ky Lane

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Well, if we are going to include scripts in this thread... Here are ones I use daily besides the SoulBurn Collection. Though maybe a seperate thread should be started for the script list.

 

All of these are free.

 

Blur Scripts - Many useful scripts, similar to Soulbrun.

 

Individual Scripts that I use several times a week to facilitate a smoother workflow.......

 

Random Rotate - Quizzy's script that rotates individual objects on their own axis when selected as a group.

 

Read Material Lib - Quizzy script that loads a material library from a directory. Good for quickly opening materials.

 

Collapse - Dave Buchhofer's script that disables undo's for very fast attaching of objects using very little RAM.

 

Copy and Paste - Christopher Grant's copy and paste script. Incredibly useful.

Open Clean Material Editor, or Selected Objects - Opens a clean material editor or a material editor with just the selected object materials shown. This reduces the need for large bitmaps to be loaded into the material editor when they are not needed, therefore speeding up your work.

 

Advanced Painter - Useful script for painting items into a scene, I use it for painting proxy bushes.

 

Layers from Materials - Generates layers according to their material.

 

AutoEdges - Pierre-Felix Breton script. Hides triangulation on imported FBX files.

 

MR Proxy Objects - Zap's script that helps with the creation of MR proxies.

 

Render Tab - Illusion script. A replacement for the default render tab that helps automate the queuing and rendering of scenes both locally, and to backburner.

 

EraseEmptyLayers - Bernie Lomax script, deletes layers with no information on them.

Edited April 2, 2009 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[Brian Cassil]

I use it with Max2009, and can't live without it. The version I have installed is 2.04, 64 bit.

 

Where did you get a 64 bit version of 2.04? I checked his website and couldn't find anything for 2.04 64 bit. I've been trying to use 2.1 which I thought was the only version that was compiled for 64bit. I went ahead and tried the 32 bit version of 2.04 and it wouldn't work. I really miss being able to use this.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Where did you get a 64 bit version of 2.04? I checked his website and couldn't find anything for 2.04 64 bit. I've been trying to use 2.1 which I thought was the only version that was compiled for 64bit. I went ahead and tried the 32 bit version of 2.04 and it wouldn't work. I really miss being able to use this.

 

I am going to rehost it, but if Chris chimes in, I will pull it. This compiled version is for Max2008 and Max2009 both 32bit and 64bit versions.

 

Oh, the zip file lists it as 2.1.1, but the interface lists it as 2.04. Either way, it lives, and works.

 

http://www.phase22.com/misc/CoolPicker_v2.1.1_Max2009.zip

[Brian Cassil]

Thanks Travis! I really doubt Chris will have a problem with it but I'm sure he would like to know that we still love the plugin he helped create.

[Brian Smith]

Travis,

I will add all those scripts over the weekend.

[Chris Johnson]

Thanks Travis! I really doubt Chris will have a problem with it but I'm sure he would like to know that we still love the plugin he helped create.

 

Did someone mention my name?

I posted the source to this tool 4 years ago, before I joined Autodesk at:

http://www.idigitalhouse/tech/dh_tech.html

 

But I'm pretty sure some guy at maxplugins.de took the source code and compiled it for future versions of max. {edit} yep, go here:

http://www.maxplugins.de/max2010_32.php

This site I linked above looks like a really good place to look for plugins by the way.

 

I'm way behind on making my old personal projects public, and in updating them. Sheesh, I've worked on and basically completed my second version of my old layer manager (Fangorn2... stupid name by the way), (rewritten from the ground up), but I've no time to manage it much anymore.

Edited April 3, 2009 by Chris Johnson