Four Favorite Plug-ins
This month I am presenting four of my favorite plug-ins for 3ds Max®. I start with those developed by JokerMartini, a creative studio founded by John Martini. With over a decade of experience in a wide range of fields using 3ds Max, JokerMartini produces some of the most useful plug-ins for production in use today.
JokerMartini’s Zippy Painter
Figure 1: Zippy Painter
Zippy Painter is a simplified tool to simulate the effect of gravity on objects we place (paint) in our scenes. The plug-in is simple. Select the object to paint on, then the object to paint with, and start painting. As soon as the mouse is released, gravity and physics kick in and simulate the collision and settling of the objects.
JokerMartini’s Kit Basher
Figure 2: Kit Basher
Kit Basher allows us to store and automate the attachment and placement of apparatuses and parts to our objects to quickly produce exciting work. The interface is intuitive. We select a brush (mesh), then select the face or faces on our object where we can choose to preview and commit the change.
JokerMartini’s Others
JokerMartini has exceptional developers with experience across a wide range of fields. Over 40 plug-ins and scripts are available for various prices and can be purchased and downloaded from their website (https://jokermartini.com).
SigerShaders V-Ray Material Presets Pro
For those in the visualization industry, SigerShaders V-Ray Material Presets Pro comes with high-quality materials available through a user-friendly and intuitive interface. The included material library is enormous, but the application also allows users to generate libraries of their own that can be accessed and applied using the interface. See Figure 3 for a sample of a few of the materials available.
Figure 3: SigerShaders V-Ray Material Presets Pro
FastCutter Pro
FastCutter Pro is a tool developed by Joe Scarr, which can be purchased and downloaded from Effectivetds.com. Simply put, it is the most powerful tool I have come across for fractal cutting objects to allow us to generate rough and unique meshes. At first, the interface can appear complicated, but I found that in most cases I hardly needed to adjust any of the settings. By dragging the mouse across my object, it generated the fractal cut I wanted. See Figure 4 for an example.
Figure 4: Fractal cut with FastCutter Pro
