Boomer Labs announced the release of GeoMaps, its 3DS Max plugin that offers a collection of maps that allow to shade an object based on its geometry. Two main maps are included in v1.0:
Curvature – this map will adjust its output based on curvature of the underlying object. Especially suited for weathering and highlighting object details, this map includes advanced capabilities including distortion and directional biasing.
Tension – this map will adjust its output based on the tension of the underlying object over time. A unique capability that allows the user to dynamically illustrate changes to a mesh.
With additional maps including Velocity coming soon, GeoMaps will change the way artists think about shading their models in 3DS Max.
GeoMaps plugins are fully multithreaded and provide results fast with very little overhead. GeoMaps is available for 64-bit versions of 3DS Max 2010 through 2015. List price is $60 per seat with no charge for render nodes. A demo version is available for download. Watch a video on Vimeo and find out more on Boomer Labs’ website.
Finally, was looking forward to this!
I have been looking for a tension map for years, so this is great news.
Very interested to hear more about the upcoming Velocity Map too.
One to watch…
Hi Peter. What is Velocity Map good for? We have had it during the development as Map in the SpotMask plugin, and throw it later out since there was no meaningful usage for it. In SpotMask it is as render pass at moment.
I would be glad to learn what for it should be, since Google offers me only some Cardio-Vascular Velocity 3D medical calculations 🙂
thanks!
Hi Igor,
If I’m reading it correctly, the Velocity Map is for changing material properties of a mesh based on its World Space motion.
I’ve been playing with a project for a while where I need to change the bump/normal map strength on a mesh as it moves around. The faster it moves, the stronger the visible surface effect needs to be. It sounds like this could do that.
thanks for the explanation!
This is indeed a very special purpose plugin; i have so far done this with maxscript and expressions.
thanks
You can find a preview video of the Velocity map on this link:
https://vimeo.com/123448977
Also It will work with particles if you have a constant vert count or you cache it with SuperMesher.
Michael