3ds Max Plugin Development

[franz]

I’ll use this thread to post regular updates on the development of appleseed-max, a native appleseed plugin for Autodesk 3ds Max.

The latest release and all previous releases of the plugin can be found on GitHub:

appleseedhq/appleseed-max

You can also track daily improvements by following the commits on GitHub:

Fix Sun button title

The plugin is available for 3ds Max 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Feedback appreciated in this thread!

[franz]

[franz]

At this point the plugin can render objects using appleseed’s “Shading Normals” diagnostic mode.

3ds Max 2015 build: appleseed-max2015-20151112.zip (8.6 MB)

[makit3d]

Is this compatible with 2013? Many plugins tend to work between 2013 through 2015.

EDIT: Ran Max 2013 to see if it would work with appleseed without success. Tried placing the .dll in the plugins and root directories. Had to try, you never know until you do.

[franz]

I updated the first post with installation instruction.

I’m pretty sure the plugin is compatible with 3ds Max 2013, but I may need to change the compatibility declaration in the code to allow the plugin to work with it. I’ll investigate.

[makit3d]

I had the files in the correct place and the dialog box I get states Error Code 127 - The specified procedure could not be found.

[Pistols]

Great news !

[franz]

Proper handling of smoothing groups:

Also:

• Rendering of orthographic views
• Handling of frame resolution
• Handling of camera’s horizontal field of view

64-bit 3ds Max 2015/2016 plugin (see installation instructions in first post):
appleseed-max2015-20151118.zip (8.6 MB)

[franz]

Implemented tiled update of the render window:

64-bit 3ds Max 2015/2016 plugin (see installation instructions in first post):
appleseed-max2015-20151119.zip (8.6 MB)

[makit3d]

I can confirm that it works for me in 2016.

yay.

[franz]

Brilliant, thanks!

[Pistols]

Here is what happens when you load a relatively heavy scene in 3dsmax 2015 and wildly hit the render button.

The mesh looks like it should, as well as the camera fov. It takes some time to display the frame buffer, but the render itself takes less than a second as it should be.

Cool and promising !

[franz]

Many improvements:

• Added support for most standard lights (Omni, Target Spot, Free Spot, Target Direct and Free Direct)
• Added support for background color
• Added Pixel Samples and CPU Cores settings
• Output sRGB pixels (until we get to choose)
• Sharper reconstruction filter by default (renders are less blurry)
• Fixed handling of instancing

64-bit 3ds Max 2015/2016 plugin (see installation instructions in first post):
appleseed-max2015-20151123.zip (8.6 MB)

[Pistols]

308 objects, 5M+ polys, 2 spotlights, 512 samples : 1m39s on a I7 5820K / 16GB

[franz]

Pretty awesome!

[Narann]

Time for motion blur tests!

[franz]

Definitely, it’s high up in my TODO list.

[franz]

More improvements:

• Added support for multi-pass rendering
• Added the ability to export the scene
• Render settings are now saved to .max files
• Render settings are reset when creating a new scene

64-bit 3ds Max 2015/2016 plugin (see installation instructions in first post):
appleseed-max2015-20151125.zip (8.6 MB)

[franz]

Download 64-bit 3ds Max 2015/2016 plugin: appleseed-max2015-20151127.zip (8.6 MB)

To install or update the plugin:

1. Unzip the archive somewhere
2. Copy the appleseed.dll file to the root folder of 3ds Max
3. Copy the appleseed-renderer-max2015.dlr file to the plugins folder of 3ds Max

New in this release:

• Add global illumination settings
• Intensity of omni lights now matches between 3ds Max and appleseed
• Better color matching between 3ds Max and appleseed
• Switch back to linear RGB pixels (gamma correction is performed by Max’s framebuffer)
• Fixed issue #3 reported by Vladimir Abushinov

[franz]

Download 64-bit 3ds Max 2015/2016 plugin: appleseed-max2015-0.1.0-alpha.zip

To install or update the plugin:

1. Unzip the archive somewhere
2. Copy the appleseed.dll file to the root folder of 3ds Max
3. Copy the appleseed-renderer-max2015.dlr file to the plugins folder of 3ds Max

New in this release:

• The intensity of spot lights now matches between 3ds Max and appleseed
• Improved intensity matching for omni lights
• Added support for default (viewport) lights