Shawn Olson has announced that all his Wall Worm tools for 3DS Max are now free. The comprehensive suite of Wall Worm tools has been designed to create a modelling pipeline in 3DS Max for exporting assets to the Source game engine. Even if you are not using the Source engine though, there are many handy features that can accelerate your work. Some of these include:
- Corvex – a procedural spline-based wall builder with consistent UVs
- An Arch primitive
- Carver – an enhanced carving tool similar to the one found in Hammer. Unlike booleans, the results remain as separate blocks or sealed elements.
- Several primitives for making billboards
- Normal tools
- ProPal – a plugin for converting modelled geometry into seamlessly tiling textures
- ProPalBoard, a geometry class for texture baking multiple projections of an object to a sprite sheet. Useful for creating lightweight foliage
- A modifier to randomise a mesh’s elements
- Propline – a procedural tool that allows the user to distribute items along a spline.
- Plus many more.
In a blog post, Shawn reveals that the new distribution model is thanks to his new job at Autodesk as a Product Owner for 3DS Max in Montreal. In a comment thanking the community for their support, he says he wants to “make sure that as many people as possible can continue to take advantage of all the tools I’ve devoted my time to developing. I also want this gesture to be a sign of thanks to all the people who have kindly supported me over the years. Had Wall Worm Model Tools not been embraced so widely and enthusiastically for so long, I may well not have been able to have this wonderful opportunity to work on 3ds Max itself.”
This does not mark the end for Wall Worm which will apparently continue to be developer, albeit with a less regular release schedule.
Read more about Wall Worm tools on the product’s website.
