With version 4.51 BonesPro now offers full support for 3ds Max 2012 and 3ds Max Design 2012 (each in 32 bit and 64 bit versions).

List of changes and new features of BonesPro 4.51

• BonesPro now supports 3ds Max 2012 and 3ds Max Design 2012
• Incorrect MetaBone display in the Track View editor has been fixed.
• Corrected errors which occassionally caused disproportional slowdown of 3ds Max when realtime view of MetaBones was enabled.

The BonesPro plug-in and associated training materials are now available at http://www.bonespro.com

If you are a veteran user of BonesPro you can now take the next step and improve your animation workflow even more. If BonesPro is new to you, check out the tutorials and free trial to see how BonesPro can increase your productivity.

About 3d-io
3d-io games & video production GmbH is specialized company for high-end software development, modeling, animation, rendering, CG effects and 3D industrial design. 3d-io GmbH, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, has an established strong presence in game development, design & video production, digital content creation as well as in graphics and animation. We are dedicated to provide easy-to-use software products accompanied by dedicated support team, experienced programmers and top notch 3D artists.
Contact: www.3d-io.com

About Digimation Inc.
Digimation specializes in developing and delivering 3D solutions for the training and simulation industry including; Interactive Maintenance Trainers, Small Arms Trainers, Virtual Task Trainers, as well as Virtual Environments used in homeland security applications. The company’s service division produces photorealistic 3D parts used in maintenance trainers, OpenFlight 3D models used in simulations, and full 3D animation.
Contact: www.digimation.com

Following the numerous improvements and add-ons from the last releases, the 3d-io development team is proud to release a major update of BonesPro, the sophisticated skinning tool for Autodesk 3dsMax. BonesPro version 4.5 adds the production-proven fast and easy skin painting similar to ZBrush: artists can now paint weight adjustments in real-time and even smooth them out with the brush to achieve exact and elastic skin look & feel, just like using ZBrush / Mudbox.

Skin Painting and Skin Smoothing

BonesPro 4.5 introduces paint brushes for efficient skin weight painting. In addition to standard brush functions 3ds Max users are familiar with, BonesPro 4.5 brings Skin Smooth Brush, which smooths the skin, creating perfect folds, blending and equal surfaces with just using few mouse moves.

Performance Increase & History

Many core functions were improved in their calculation speed, making BonesPro faster than ever before. To make working with BonesPro more intuitive for artists the default 3ds Max undo system is now supported in addition to the original undo options from earlier versions.

Complete MAXScript interface overhaul

BonesPro 4.5 features a completely overhauled MAXScript interface, making the integration into a company production pipeline and the automated control of the skinning process easier to implement than before. Backwards compatibility for the old interface is included for already existing scripts.

List of changes and new features of BonesPro 4.50

• A new paint tool with smoothing mode allows artists to make quick local weight adjustments
• Completely new MAXScript interface for easier and more extensive third party access.
• 3ds Max default conform undo system added to the existing legacy workflow.
• MetaBones now have an optional real-time mode similar to ParaBones.
• Significant performance increases for the most often used actions in BonesPro.
• BonesPro now works natively with object types and no longer converts them internally. This improves performance with large modifier stacks and interoperability with other modifiers.
• Bone groups can now easily be turned into selection sets through a new option in the Bones rollout.
• Bones with non-orthogonal local coordinate systems can now be used like normal bones without causing distortions.
• Various minor fixes.

The BonesPro plug-in and associated training materials are available at http://www.bonespro.com

If you are a veteran user of BonesPro you can now take the next step and improve your animation workflow even more. If BonesPro is new to you, check out the tutorials and free trial to see how BonesPro can increase your productivity.

About 3d-io

3d-io games & video production GmbH is specialized company for high-end software development, modeling, animation, rendering, CG effects and 3D industrial design. 3d-io GmbH, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, has an established strong presence in game development, design & video production, digital content creation as well as in graphics and animation. We are dedicated to provide easy-to-use software products accompanied by dedicated support team, experienced programmers and top notch 3D artists.

Contact: www.3d-io.com

About Digimation Inc.

Digimation specializes in developing and delivering 3D solutions for the training and simulation industry including; Interactive Maintenance Trainers, Small Arms Trainers, Virtual Task Trainers, as well as Virtual Environments used in homeland security applications. The company’s service division produces photorealistic 3D parts used in maintenance trainers, OpenFlight 3D models used in simulations, and full 3D animation.

Contact: www.digimation.com

We invite all 3d artists, producers and designers to come to the 3DPOWERSTORE Ultimate Render Bash 2010, on 06. 12. 2010 in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Igor Posavec, the software designer and Christian Kandler, the chief developer behind the the 3d-io Plugins, will present for the first time FLATIRON 1.6 features in combination with V-Ray and Nova RT Engine.

You can meet members of our team for discussion and receive a personal presentation of BonesPro, Flatiron and our other plug-ins at the same time. The 3d-io plug-in team will inform you about the latest 3d-plugin updates and demonstrates how to use them in the production workflow for full advantage.

The Presentation, organized by 3DPOWERSTORE, starts at 12:45h – see you there!
Visit the 3DPOWERSTORE Event 2010 Homepage and sign up:

Visit the 3d-plugin Homepage

We invite all 3d artists, producers and designers to come and visit our booth area at FMX 2010, from 04.05.2010 to 07.05.2010 in Stuttgart, Germany.
You can meet members of our team for discussion and receive a personal presentation of BonesPro, Flatiron and our other plug-ins. The 3d-io plug-in team will inform you about the latest 3d-plugin updates and demonstrates how to use them in the production workflow for full advantage.

In addition Igor Posavec and Christian Kandler will provide a 3ds Max Masterclass presentation about Visual Development and CG-Prototyping in game and video productions.

Our booth, organized by Weltenbauer, is directly next to the bar – you can’t miss it!
Visit the FMX2010 Homepage and sign up for an appointment:

Visit the 3d-plugin Homepage

List of changes and new features of BonesPro 4.20

• Added support for Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011.
• BonesPro now accepts shape objects as bones.
• Added support for various additional object types as bones (i.e. dummy helpers) and improved handling and accuracy of certain types like CAT muscles.
• Soft selection now supports custom falloff curves.
• Various minor fixes, including improved *.bpm file handling of CAT bones.

The BonesPro plug-in and associated training materials are available at http://www.bonespro.com

BonesPro 4.20 is compatible, both as 32bit and 64bit:

• 3ds Max 2011, 3ds Max Design 2011
• 3ds Max 2010, 3ds Max Design 2010
• 3ds Max 2009, 3ds Max Design 2009
• 3ds Max 2008
• 3ds Max 9

About 3d-io
3d-io games & video production GmbH is specialized company for high-end software development, modeling, animation, rendering, CG effects and 3D industrial design. 3d-io GmbH, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, has an established strong presence in game development, design & video production, digital content creation as well as in graphics and animation. We are dedicated to provide easy-to-use software products accompanied by dedicated support team, experienced programmers and top notch 3D artists. Contact: http://www.3d-io.com

About Digimation Inc.
Digimation specializes in developing and delivering 3D solutions for the training and simulation industry including; Interactive Maintenance Trainers, Small Arms Trainers, Virtual Task Trainers, as well as Virtual Environments used in homeland security applications. The company’s service division produces photorealistic 3D parts used in maintenance trainers, OpenFlight 3D models used in simulations, and full 3D animation. Contact: http://www.digimation.com

• Added support for Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011.
• Added the option to place automatic seams at grooves in the mesh where they are better hidden.
• Added the option to place automatic seams at ridges in the mesh to provide clear cuts for hard surface models.
• Source map channel from which seams are kept can now be different to target channel. This allows you to create multiple different unwraps for your mesh with ease.
• Simplified user interface to make using the plug-in even more intuitive.
• Enhanced unwrap results for specific cases. This results in less fragmentation of coherent surfaces.

The Unwrella unwrapping plug-in for Autodesk 3ds Max 9, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 is now available for sale and as a freely downloadable trial version on its homepage: http://www.unwrella.com For all Maya users: A corresponding new version of Unwrella for Autodesk Maya will be released shortly. Unwrella was developed for the high demands of graphics designers in real world production environments and provides a fast, simple and reliable unwrapping solution. It is the first tool of this kind on the market, allowing the unwrapping of 3d models to be done with a single mouse click while simultaneously providing optimal results that combine the minimized texture stretching of automated unwrapping techniques with the efficient space utilization and chunk distribution of UV space that is achieved with manual pelt wrapping methods. This allows users to quickly solve complex tasks like the creation of seamless 3d models, more accurate lightmaps and productive subsequent processing of the UV maps in other 3d applications like ZBrush or Mudbox.

Unwrella is compatible with:

• 3D Studio MAX 9 32 bit
• 3D Studio MAX 9 64 bit
• 3D Studio MAX 2008 32 bit
• 3D Studio MAX 2008 64 bit
• 3D Studio MAX 2009 32 bit
• 3D Studio MAX 2009 64 bit
• 3D Studio MAX 2010 32 bit
• 3D Studio MAX 2010 64 bit
• 3D Studio MAX 2011 32 bit
• 3D Studio MAX 2011 64 bit
• Maya 8.5 32 bit
• Maya 8.5 64 bit
• Maya 2008 32 bit
• Maya 2008 64 bit
• Maya 2009 32 bit
• Maya 2009 64 bit
• Maya 2010 32 bit
• Maya 2010 64 bit

Requirements:

• Microsoft .NET 2.0 installed
• Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista (32bit and 64bit)
• Microsoft DirectX 9.0c (August 2008)

About 3d-io 3d-io games & video production GmbH is specialised company for high-end software development, modeling, animation, rendering, CG effects and 3D industrial design. 3d-io GmbH, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, has an established strong presence in game development, design & video production, digital content creation as well as in graphics and animation. We are dedicated to provide easy-to-use software products accompanied by dedicated support team, experienced programmers and top notch 3D artists. Our latest product on the gaming market was nominated for the German Game Developers Award 2008 in best graphics category, and CG products are used by many famous Game and Design Studios worldwide. Contact: www.3d-plugin.com / info@3d-plugin.com

The rapid development of visualisation and rendering engines requires new techniqes for the creation of interior and exterior scene solutions. Today 3d-io announces the immediate availability of the most anticipated scene baking plug-in for Autodesk 3ds MAX. With a focus on supporting all major 3ds Max renderers and enhancing the unwrapping and packing of UV maps for 3d scenes in a simple yet powerful way, Flatiron 1.50 brings benefits to all customers working in game development, architecture or CG visualisation.

Highlights of Flatiron 1.50

Single pass rendering

Flatiron now provides the option to bake all objects at once into the texture map. This speeds up the whole baking process significantly because it avoids repeated reinitialization of the renderer and combines all objects on the fly instead of using a separate merge pass afterwards. The speed improvement is especially significant when baking a lot of small objects.

The bake method of previous Flatiron versions is still available as an option.

Multi-map mode

Flatiron now supports unwrapping and baking into multiple texture maps. Instead of using Flatiron individually with different selections the user can now assign selection sets and then let Flatiron handle multiple groups of objects at once.

The multi map mode can also be used in combination with automatic distribution. Instead of manually assigning objects into groups, users can just take all the objects and have them automatically distributed among a selected number of textures.

Changes and new features in Flatiron 1.50

• Single Pass Rendering for multiple objects. Flatiron can now bake a whole set of objects in a single render operation instead of rendering them all separately. This reduces render times significantly and improves compatibility with render output formats. See below for details about supported renderers.
• Surface angle based seam assignments. This improves the unwrap results of hard surface meshes.
• Flatiron can now automatically distribute the objects over multiple texture maps to allow for greater fine tuning of output sizes.
• Support for selection sets added. Group your objects into sets and Flatiron can create separate texture maps for each sets.
• MAXScript support for all the new features
• A few minor user interface improvements
• Various minor fixes

The single pass render mode is fully supported for 3ds Max Scanline Renderer, Mental Ray, finalRender and V-Ray (version 1.50 SP4a and up). Brazil and older versions of V-Ray support a compatibility mode that also allows to bake multiple objects at once but this mode ignores object specific settings (i.e. ‘don’t cast shadows’).

About 3d-io

3d-io games & video production GmbH is specialized company for high-end software development, modeling, animation, rendering, CG effects and 3D industrial design. 3d-io GmbH, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, has an established strong presence in game development, design & video production, digital content creation as well as in graphics and animation. We are dedicated to provide easy-to-use software products accompanied by dedicated support team, experienced programmers and top notch 3D artists.

Contact: http://www.3d-io.com, http://www.3d-plugin.com

3d-io Developers and Designers are proud to announce the resurrection of the popular and reliable organic skinning plug-in for Autodesk 3ds Max. In cooperation with Digimation Inc. 3d-io has rebuild, improved and optimized this unique character skinning tool in order to further enhance artist productivity. The new BonesPro continues the tradition of incomparably fast and easy skinning setup and smooth skin deformations. In the current, extremely high demanding world of CG animation every possible increase of quality and speed is crucial to succeed over the competition. For convincing animations it is mandatory that the mesh deforms and follows the movements of the skeleton accurately. Creating realistic looking movements while the deadlines loom in the near future is a very challenging task. This is where BonesPro steps in. It provides you with the ability to achieve impressive results in record time and master the daily challenges of the animation industry.

Key Features of BonesPro
Speed BonesPro delivers fast results through a quick assignment set-up and convenient adjustment options.

Quality Meshes deform like elastic skin, avoid face clipping and don’t tear vertices too far apart from each other.

Flexibility Hypodermic deformer objects can handle the most problematic areas in an animated mesh with ease.

Teamwork API access allows integration into existing pipelines and Teams can collaborate on scenes without having to supply everyone with licenses.

And Beyond BonesPro can not only be used for traditional character skinning but also for many specialized animation effects. The BonesPro plug-in and associated training materials are now available at http://www.bonespro.com If you are a veteran user of BonesPro you can now take the next step and improve your animation workflow even more. If BonesPro is new to you, check out the tutorials and free trial to see how BonesPro can increase your productivity.

About 3d-io 3d-io games & video production GmbH is specialized company for high-end software development, modeling, animation, rendering, CG effects and 3D industrial design. 3d-io GmbH, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, has an established strong presence in game development, design & video production, digital content creation as well as in graphics and animation. We are dedicated to provide easy-to-use software products accompanied by dedicated support team, experienced programmers and top notch 3D artists. Contact: www.3d-io.com
About Digimation Inc. Digimation specializes in developing and delivering 3D solutions for the training and simulation industry including; Interactive Maintenance Trainers, Small Arms Trainers, Virtual Task Trainers, as well as Virtual Environments used in homeland security applications. The company’s service division produces photorealistic 3D parts used in maintenance trainers, OpenFlight 3D models used in simulations, and full 3D animation. Contact: www.digimation.com

On 30. 09. 2009 you can visit a part of the 3d-io Development Team on Third Dimension 2009, organized by WeltenBauer in 2009 Walhalla Studio Theater, Wiesbaden – from 9.00 AM. Please sign up for free and visit us on that day – we are presenting for the first time our very new and unseen 3d-plugin! Visit Third Dimension Homepage and sign up for free: Visit 3d-plugin Homepage