3DMax is a very popular 3D design software, its long history can be traced back to 1996. Over the years, this has allowed developers to enrich it with a plethora of plugins that make it easier for designers to use. The main reason is that recent updates from its original developer, Autodesk, haven't really made much progress.
You might not often consider using 3DMax for VFX work over traditional 3D work. But today, we'll show you that VFX work is indeed one of the many uses for 3DMax. We'll discuss 13 of the best 3DMax VFX plugins and tools for effects and simulations .
13- Remove PullDownit (Thinkinetic)
Pulldownit is a dynamics plugin designed for destruction effects as well as large scale rigid body simulations. Using its technology, digital artists are able to shatter objects in different ways and easily simulate breaking of 3D models. It allows calculation of thousands of dynamic objects in a stable and realistic manner.
This plugin has some interesting features such as:
§ crush it
This is a pre-cut tool that is capable of producing more realistic jagged fragments than classic polygonal fragments. It is based on Voronoi because this scheme has been shown to be the best mathematical model for brittle fracture. Its technology allows 3D models to be pre-cut into hundreds of pieces in seconds, and moreover, the resulting pieces can be easily plugged into the Pulldownit solver to perform simulations in a fast and stable manner.
§ Built-in dynamics and fracture solvers
The fracture technology inside PullDownit is fantastic. It allows fracture of any type of brittle material such as stone, glass or plaster. By using it, digital artists are able to simulate the collapse of structures or cracking of terrain in minutes. Not least, its simple setup and powerful stress tools control crack initiation and drive simulations to desired results.
§ Animator friendly
PullDownit captures geometry from the viewport and calculates the final result as animation keys, it allows to reset the simulation and restart it as many times as needed, it is also possible to adjust parameters and resume the simulation at any frame, additionally, animated objects and characters can interact with the simulation .
12- Krakatoa (ThinkBox)
KRAKATOA is Thinkbox Software's volumetric particle rendering, manipulation and management toolkit.
KRAKATOA is specifically designed to process and render millions or even billions of particles and adjust its memory footprint to suit the required rendering capabilities. It provides a pipeline for acquiring, caching, transforming, modifying, coloring and rendering large numbers of particles at unprecedented speeds to represent natural phenomena such as dust, smoke, silt, ocean surface foam, plasma and even solid objects.
KRAKATOA is CPU-based, highly optimized for 64-bit computing, has extensive multi-threading, and can be used successfully on most hardware running Windows or Linux operating systems, including laptops and rendering nodes, without the need for dedicated high-end graphics accelerators.
Krakatoa has some of the following characteristics:
§KRAKATOA provides particle and voxel rendering modes using the same source data.
§It supports volumetric and additive particle shading, textures, high-quality particle self-shadowing, and casting shadows on matte objects.
§ Per-particle scattering, emission, absorption and density data channels as well as various light scattering models allow for deep control over the final image.
§ Natural support for motion blur and depth of field camera effects.
§KRAKATOA integrates with 3ds Max and Maya's native particle systems and provides data exchange capabilities to share particles with other 3D and simulation applications
11- Material IDs Random Generator (Material IDs Random Generator abbreviation: MIRG)
Randomly assign material IDs to editable poly objects with one click, and generate and assign a Multi/Sub material at the same time.
The main function:
The main functions of MIRG are as follows:
* Ability to assign random material IDs to the "polygon" sub-object of a single object.
* Ability to assign random material IDs to individual multiple selected "polygon" objects.
* Ability to assign random Material IDs per smoothing group of "Polygon" object "Faces".
* A random material ID can be assigned per the "Element" sub-object of the "Polygon" object.
10- Lightning Rayfire
Rayfire is an excellent 3Ds Max VFX plugin that can shatter, destroy, demolish, disintegrate, blow up, burst, detonate, explode and more.
It is used by some of the biggest names in the film and gaming entertainment industry. It has various functions, some of which we will try to mention here.
1. With support for Bullet and Nvidia PhysX through the RayFire user interface, you can create rigid body simulations that affect objects through forces, space warps, and mouse cursors during the simulation.
2. Interactive demolition system: Create a dynamic simulation and demolish objects during the simulation according to their material and collision strength. Each fragment can be further dismantled with appropriate collision strength.
It also has interesting modifiers such as:
§ Shatter Modifier: Tetrahedron based on destruction and fragmentation.
§ Brick Modifier: Allows to quickly fragment geometry into bricks or stones.
§Cache Object: Allows to cache geometry and animations in a single file to store them outside the scene.
§Trace object: image traced to fragment.
§ Cluster Modifier: Group simple fragments into more complex clusters.
§ Bomb Helper: This allows you to create various explosions.
§ Roughness Modifier: Add detail to simple geometries, making them more realistic.
§ Slice Modifier: An advanced slice modifier with all the features you could ever need.
§ Crack Modifier: Animated 3D cracks inside refracted objects.
§ Voxel Modifier: Creates voxels using geometric volumes.
9- Razor
Razor is a tool built specifically for the production needs of artists. With the ability to fully restore objects, customer-specific changes can be easily addressed without spending hours re-cutting geometry.
A razor is a cutting tool designed by Paul Fuller. Razor's simple interface is easy to learn, use, and allows artists to spend their time being creative instead of wasting time.
Shaver features include:
§ Hand-painted cutting, you can fully control the shape of the destruction.
§ Auto-cutting quickly breaks down objects when specific controls are not required.
§ Fully restore all objects at any time. As you develop your simulation, you can always go back and make adjustments to specific parts. You can even go all the way back to the original object if you like.
§ Hotkeys for cut, auto-cut and restore functions for a smooth and efficient workflow.
§ Custom normal based noise to help avoid boolean errors and achieve the cleanest clipping possible.
§ Crack cutting option.
§ Layered Max Noise.
§ Advanced error checking to ensure cut geometry is clean.
§ Switch between multiple objects, maintaining all relationships and attributes.
Use proxies to speed up dynamics in the viewport.
8- Frost
Frost allows you to build meshes from multiple sources, it uses various isosurface and geometry cloning techniques to generate a single mesh from particle, vertex cloud, object position and point data files.
Frost takes full advantage of multi-core processors and is able to generate polygonal meshes from millions of points in seconds without using excessive memory.
Frost supports all custom geometry features, including particle channel propagation, material and shape ID controls, animation timing offsets, and motion blur for particle velocities.
When combined with Thinkbox's Krakatoa MX's particle generation and Magma data channel manipulation capabilities, V-Ray's Instancing becomes a more flexible and effective tool for Frost users.
Frost increases speed by removing much of the computational burden typically associated with data-intensive particle mesh and fluid simulations. Artists can work more dynamically and see their work come to life faster. "
7- Demolition Master
Demolition Master is a Thinking Particles based 3Ds Max VFX plugin for quick and easy destruction. Demolition Master uses Thinking Particles, a dynamic solver which is more robust and stable than PhysX, enables bumpy objects, and can also use Bullet physics.
For Demolition Master you need 3ds max with Thinking Particles installed. FumeFx is also supported, but not required.
Demolition Master has many features such as:
§ Interactive dynamic demolition system.
§ Procedural bullet and joint system.
§ Concrete, wood, glass and steel with specific parameters.
§ Full destruction control, fragment objects pass different states through different friction forces defined by the user.
§ Instantly create fragments of concrete, wood, steel, glass materials and bullets.
§ Instantly interact with FumeFx.
§ Ability to export geometry
§ Bullet Physics
6- Fastcutter
FastCutter is an artistic mesh cutting tool for 3ds Max, developed in 2006 and 2007 to help manually cut thousands of geometry in the road destruction sequence of the movie "2012". Since then, it has been used in dozens of Hollywood films and other independent projects.
The beauty of FastCutter is its speed and artistic control - cuts are applied exactly the way you draw, and there is an "auto cut" mode to quickly apply cuts after drawing.
It works by extruding "cutting splines" by hand and applying a noise modifier, and includes various other options and undo functions. You can also select specific objects as cutters or sources and apply the cut.
It can cut multiple objects at once, and the pro version includes the option to update the noise parameters of each cut object for a beautiful staggered offset cut look.
FastCutter is perfect for preparing geometry for the Thinking Particles destruction shot, and can also be used for creative mesh modeling.
5- Real Fluid RealFlow (NextLimit)
RealFlow is a liquid simulator that works with 3Ds Max and gives you incredible capabilities. Sand can be washed with water, cream can be floated on coffee, and much more, your creativity is the limit.
§ The entire range of fluids and materials are GPU accelerated.
§ It features an artist-friendly interface, fast and effective filters, and advanced meshing technology that lets you create and fine-tune millions of polygons in seconds.
§RealFlow stores data like age or velocity for a flawless rendering experience. Weight maps can create colorful blending effects.
§ You can directly turn objects into obstacles, containers and emitters, render complex meshes or create particles from shapes.
§ It allows animated objects to collide with fluids, creating impressive splashes and controlling the interaction through various physical properties such as friction, stickiness or elasticity.
§Forces are a key element in RealFlow and they can have a large impact when applied in a simulation. Typical examples are gravity, attraction or wind.
§RealFlow has many creative tools, such as crown splatters, winding spline emitters, rotating splatters, and thin layers of fluid in slow motion motion.
§ Initial states can be created from arbitrary simulation frames and used as the starting point for new simulation channels.
§You can use object textures to emit particles, customize their properties such as friction, or generate new textures where particles leave wet marks on the object's surface.
4- Smoke FX (FumeFX)
FumeFx is a powerful 3ds Max fluid dynamics plug-in designed for simulating and rendering realistic flames, smoke, explosions and other gas phenomena. It is able to capture the subtlety and complexity of fluid-gas behavior. It is favored by visual effects artists, game developers, visualization professionals, and anyone else who wants to produce stunning effects.
FumeFX has many features, such as:
§ A unique set of tools that unleash creative thinking and reduce tedious tasks even further than before.
§ Various irregular objects can be used for simulation without worrying about solver instability.
§GPU-accelerated 3ds Max viewport for faster simulations The GPU-accelerated viewport produces rendering-equivalent images to provide instant feedback on how the simulation will look and behave.
§ The FumeFX user interface combines all major fluid simulation components, making simulation setup simple and efficient.
§ It allows the user to change parameters during the simulation and get instant feedback.
§FumeFX interface integrates simulation, rendering, presets and source parameters in one place. It provides quick and easy navigation through the simulation cache and provides intuitive control over simulation parameters.
§ The FumeFX simulation core is continuously improved and refined to deliver a high level of realism with minimal simulation time.
3 - Phoenix FD (Pheonix FD)
Phoenix FD is an all-in-one fluid dynamics solution. It can simulate flames, smoke, liquids, waves, splashes, sprays, mist, and more.
It is designed for 3D artists who want to create dynamic effects using quick presets, quick settings and intuitive controls.
Phoenix FD previews and renders interactively in the viewport to dynamically adjust the simulation. It creates all types of physically-based fluid effects with fast, flexible rendering, retiming, and detailed simulation controls.
It is seamlessly integrated into 3ds Max and optimized for rendering with V-Ray. Pheonix FD is compatible with top industry tools like OpenVDB, Alembic, Krakatoa, and Thinking Particles.
With Phoenix FD, you can create realistic liquid simulations with splashes and foam directly in 3ds Max. Create any type of fire and smoke effect with Phoenix FD's powerful adaptive mesh dynamics engine.
It's great for generating small plumes of smoke and steam, and rendering particles as bubbles, droplets, dots, or fog.
Phoenix FD simulates highly realistic and complex vortex effects with full control over large-scale vortex strength and ultra-fine detail, and increases resolution without changing the shape or behavior of the simulation. Additionally, you can import and export mesh objects and particles to OpenVDB, Alembic, Krakatoa, XMesh and V-Ray proxy files.
2- TY Flow
TyFlow is basically a complete rewrite of Particle Flow developed by Tyson Ibele. It is similar to Particle Flow, but more powerful.
TyFlow is a particle simulator that takes simple concepts like position, rotation, scale and velocity and applies them to a large number of individual points in 3D space. When simple rules are applied to many similar things at once, complex patterns and behaviors result, which can then be used to create a variety of different visual effects.
TyFlow itself is not a stand-alone application - it is a plugin that runs within Autodesk 3ds Max.
TyFlow is a plugin created by Tyson, who works for a company called MAKE. He was frustrated with Particle Flow, which was lagging behind in particular due to slow performance, bugs, and lack of updates. We've seen progress in particle simulators over the past few years.
Particle flow was advanced at one point, but couldn't keep up, so Tyson took it upon himself and rewrote the entire process in his spare time, creating Tyflow.
Tyflow has many features, we will try to mention some of them here:
§ It has a ton of new ops, including granular solvers, cloth, rope, correct path following, DLA growth, constraints, and more, and each op is fully multi-threaded.
§All operations of PFlow that make it completely unusable for production have been properly accelerated.
§ Spline operator and super fast spline meshing modifier for converting particle trajectories/neighbors/constraints/
and other stuff to spline meshes.
§ Fast automatic caching, similar to how Houdini dynamically caches content.
Simulation retiming, latest PhysX support and more.
1-Thinking Particles
Countless blockbusters and productions have relied on Thinking Particles' limitless ability to reproduce advanced physics-based particle effects in a fully procedural and rules-based fashion.
Some of its features are:
§ Advanced multiphysics simulation.
§ Optimized fluid simulation and optimized rigid body interactions, similar to real world physics behavior.
§ Increased simulation accuracy without affecting render time.
§ More powerful procedural volume controls and shape operators. And enhanced SPH Solver, providing excellent stability and more.
Some new features in the new version:
§ enhanced fluid
§ Surface force
§ water level
§ Open VDB shape
§ Shape deformation
§Molding knives
§ Volume Diffusion
§ Multiphysics
These 3DMax VFX plugins can make your work fast and easy!