Cycles for Max

News

New Release Coming Soon

It has now been a few weeks since Blender 2.80 has released and I'd like to provide a quick update about the next release of this plugin.

I had initially planned to have this release ready early this month, but I have run into a few issues that have slowed me down. Right now I am working to track down the source of some bugs that can sometimes cause 3ds Max to completely crash during a render, and this has proven more difficult than I expected. I will definitely be holding the next release back until I get this all fixed up as random crashes are just no good.

In addition to the small bit of remaining programming work, I still need to update the documentation and do some thorough testing, which means this next release will still be at least a week away from today. Right now I expect it will be ready some time in early september.

This release will include a lot of goodies from Blender 2.80 including but not limited to:

Expect more news on this release to be coming soon.

Posted Aug. 23, 2019 - 7 comments

PDF Manual Now Available

The user manual for this plugin is now available as a PDF. You can download the manual here.

Additionally, I have updated the gallery with a new render from Pavel Kuzin.

Posted July 8, 2019 - 0 comments

Beta 2.06 Release

Today I am releasing version Beta 2.06 of the Cycles plugin. This is a maintenance release to fix a few bugs that were reported in version Beta 2.05. You can download the plugin and read the full changelog on the download page.

Along with this release, I have added a Known Issues page in the manual. This page tracks bugs that are currently known to exist in this plugin and documents workarounds for those bugs.

Posted May 27, 2019 - 0 comments

Beta 2.05 Release

I'm happy to announce the release of plugin version Beta 2.05 today. You can download the plugin and read the full changelog on the download page.

This release brings support for 3ds Max 2020, region rendering, spot lights, backplate images, and numerous bug fixes. The manual has also been updated with information about these new features.

Posted May 14, 2019 - 0 comments

Beta 2.04 Release

Today I am releasing version Beta 2.04 of this plugin, you can download it and read the changelog on the Download page. This is an important bugfix release and all users should update as soon as possible.

The main issue fixed in this release is an error that was causing render parameters to load incorrectly. This error would cause Cycles to perform renders with a huge MIS map for the environment which would eat up a lot of RAM, slow down render speed, and potentially crash CUDA renders due to limited GPU memory.

This release also includes experimental CUDA support for the latest NVIDIA cards. I lack the hardware to test this myself, but I expect that it will work. If you have one of these cards, please give it a try and let me know if you find any problems.

Posted March 16, 2019 - 0 comments

Discord Server is Now Available

Following the launch of the forums, I have also just started a discord channel for this plugin.

Links to both of these resources are now available on the new Community page.

Posted March 12, 2019 - 0 comments

Forums are Live

I'm happy to announce that user forums for this plugin are now available at https://forums.cyclesformax.net/

All users are welcome to post about any questions or requests they have about the plugin.

If you encounter any problems with the forum software itself, please either post about it or email me at contact@cyclesformax.net

Posted Feb. 8, 2019 - 2 comments

New Year, New Roadmap

It is January once again, which means it is time for an updated roadmap. Last year I wasn't quite able to finish everything I mentioned in the 2018 roadmap, but I was able to get through most of the list. Here is an updated roadmap for this year that reflects my current priorities for plugin development.


User Forums

A few users have requested some forums on this website and I'm happy to say they will be available very soon. The forums will be a place to ask questions, share tips, request features, report bugs, and share your creations. The forum software is nearly ready now and I expect to launch the forums before the end of January.

Shader Graph Editor Updates

More improvements will be coming to the shader graph editor in the next plugin release. My immediate focus here is to finish adding support for all Cycles nodes, including Color Ramp and Mapping which are currently unsupported.

I also plan on making some workflow improvements to the shader graph editor including support for copy/paste and enhancements to the curve editor UI.

Blender 2.80

Once Blender 2.80 has been released, I'll be updating this plugin to support some of the new Cycles features that come along with it. This may not immediately include every new Cycles feature in 2.80, but I plan to support the new Principled Hair, Principled Volume, and Bevel shaders at the very least.

Updating to parity with Blender 2.80 will also mean the end of support for CUDA renders with some older NVIDIA GPUs. Following this release, CUDA renders will require a GTX 650 or newer GPU. This release will also bring support for RTX 20-series cards.

Lamps and Portals

Currently point and directional lamps are supported in the plugin. In the next year I plan to expand this support to include spot lights and IES lights as well.

I will also be adding support for portals, which should be particularly useful for interior arch-vis style renders.

Denoising

Not a lot to say about this one. Cycles itself includes denoising now and I'll be adding support for using this from within Max.

OpenCL

I've had to push this back a bit as the only AMD GPU I own seems to have died while it was sitting in my drawer, so I can't currently give this feature any proper testing. I'll likely be buying a new AMD card later this year so I can add and test this feature.

More

There will also be some other minor features coming this year including support for Max 2020 whenever it is released. As always, if there is some feature you would like to see that isn't mentioned here please post a comment or send an email to contact@cyclesformax.net

Posted Jan. 7, 2019 - 3 comments

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