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RailClone 4 for 3DS Max released
Itoo Software has announced the latest version of its parametric modelling and layout tool for 3DS Max. RailClone 4 has several new features focused on making the tool more useful for scene layout. This includes the ability to automatically use grab the materials applied to source geometry (in previous versions it was necessary to manually create or assemble multi-sub materials manually for complex objects). Another new featured that had applications for layout work is a new RC Spline Modifier to allow users to add markers on a path that can be used to position geometry and control nearly any of a graph’s parameters.
RaiClone uses the concept of generators to build objects. Each generator is in essence, either a 1D or a 2D parametric array with several targetable parts and deformation features. RailClone 4 extends this concept to allow the user to nest the output of one generator inside another. This means the user can create one parametric model and then use it as an input in a different array. Although this was possible in the past via a workaround by adding a separate RailClone object to another’s graph, RailClone 4 allows the user to do this while retaining full instancing to generate very large polygon counts. Having everything in once graph should also make the object easier to iterate and update.
A new display mode allows users to preview large scenes in the viewports. Quick Mesh instantiates geometry in the 3DS Max viewport that has not been deformed (apart from simple transform operations) to preview large polycounts as well as promising to speed up interactivity when using high-poly assets such as you might find when using RailClone as a layout tool.
RailClone has several boolean tools that allow the user to clip geometry using splines. Until now, this left open edges where it was sliced. RailClone 4 can now cap the open edges automatically and UV Map them using real-world map coordinates. The UX has been improved including several changes to make working with the node-based editor easier
Other improvements include rewritten and more intuitive group and transform operators, a new statistics window, performance improvements, new expressions, the ability to retain instancing when using the Material node with Corona, and more.
A perpetual license of RailClone costs €220 and a free lite version is also available. With this release, RailClone Lite now has fewer feature limitations. In the past the lite release worked only on flat splines, but from RailClone 4 onwards the lite version now allows the user to deform geometry on undulating splines and surfaces, and unlocks all the deform tools.
To find out more about this release, read the announcement in full on the iToo Software website.
That is an amazing update to a very underrated piece of software.
Cheers guys.
Wonderful!
Would be nice if they ported their plugins to Blender.
Exactly! I actually wrote them about that a long while ago, and was not the first one. No plans. Unfortunatelly the software is too much rooted inside 3ds max enviro, so the costs seem high. But if we keep pushing…
Would You pay 220€ for Blender plugin ?
I think most blender users are used to free software.
If they haven’t ported the plugin to maya yet, I do not think blender would be their immediate choice based on blenders user base.
The Blender user base is growing by leaps and bounds, so it should definitely be a focus. Although now that Blender is going fully procedural according to their official road map, chances are there will no longer be a need for this kind of plugin.
I would pay that amount for Forest Pack (Rail Clone does not interest me that much). Blender lacks proper scattering solution.
You know that the best sellers in Blender market are not actually cheap, right?
Grass Essentials – 84€
Flip Fluids – 76€
Retopoflow – 86€
Pro-Lighting Skies – 197€
And those addons are for an specific task or more limited than Forest Pack in their scope of action, anyone doing arch viz in Blender would acquire this plugin at it’s actual price, it’s more than fair!
AFAIK – and please correct me if i’m wrong, you can’t develop native, tightly integrated (non-python) plugins for Blender without releasing the source code ( GPL license ). So you would have to use some kind of bridge talking to your binary module to protect your source code. As said if this is factually wrong please correct me
Bingo
That’s true. Although I don’t see why this “obstacle” should be a no-go for them. I hear SpeedTree and Redshift have already made such bridges and are testing them.
True, but we need to wait and see the performance because there’s always a hit.
And while Blender is indeed doing a full procedural system, my guess is it’ll take a good time before is user-friendly like ForestPack and RailClone.
Thats exactly the point. Blender can have everything nodes to do everything forest pack does….. in 2000 nodes. The cool think of forestpack is to bring all the needs on a simple, accesible i terface with all the tools you need just to scatter. So there is no better solution than one tool covering specific needs.
That’s true… but we do what forest pack does… and they are just 100 nodes LOL
The true thing behind our in-house tool is that only I see those nodes, for the artists they only see one or two nodes 🙂
But even being able to do the same Forest Pack does, I think the best option would be to have forest pack (or a similar tool by them) in Blender.
IMHO the true power behind it is not only the tool but the library of assets, that’s the most powerful thing I think.
All? Scatter based on surface, based on splines, paint with a brush, distribute with weights, object avoidance, scattering having in account other scatters systems, multiple color gradient controls, scatter over particles, support over 10 renderers instancing system and materials with assets created for them,.. at any point select one of the 10 milion objects and adjust it manually,…. I mean yeah you can do what forest pack does in any particle system, but… Even that there are a lot of specific tools they create for the daytoday work that make it easy and intuitive
Let’s go through the list 🙂
– Scatter based on surface: yep, totally feasible
– Based on splines: yep, in fact it’s my preferred method
– Paint with a brush: yes, no problem with that, we leverage several native tools inside Blender for working with brushes.
– Distribute with weights: again, no problem with that, there are different methods to achieve it
– Object avoidance: yes, we can use different things like the bounding box or other techniques to generate the avoidance
– Scattering having in account other scatters systems: I don’t fully understand this, I think yes, because we can have into account the output of any other system
– Multiple color gradient controls: yes, no problem with that either
– Scatter over particles: don’t fully understand this, but in principle yes, any particle system in Blender can be interpreted as native goemetry so we can scatter over it
– Support over 10 renderers instancing system and materials with assets created for them: usually yes (but not 10 renderers specifically, ask Redshift to support Blender… o wait 😉 , but now seriously, do you really think Autodesk Arnold is going to support Blender?), because we use the native instancing system inside Blender and the render engines are the ones that support it, so nothing has to change from Blender side, is the render engine the one that has to support the native feature, just like Corona or other engines that have to use the Railclone API to support the “materials at render time” of RC4
– At any point select one of the 10 milion objects and adjust it manually: yes, we work with actual instances and at any point in time we can manipulate that individually, of course if we modify the gometry it’s not an instance anymore, and the memory consumption would be differetn, but the result is not an fused object that you cannot touch, and in any case what you can do at any time is to change the instanced data inside the object (the object data) and recover the “instance” status.
And for this:
“Even that there are a lot of specific tools they create for the daytoday work that make it easy and intuitive”
Yes, that’s why I wish they could port ForestPack and Railclone to Blender, or something similar, it’s not about being able to do all that, that is possible, can you do all that with Bifrost Graph?
One of the features they presented in RC4 is the viewport instanced geometry, in Blender we don’t have pointclouds yet, but we have exactly that, viewpoert instanced geometry, and that’s for any instance, not just for the ones created with the scatter system we can create.
The key point here is that they did it already and it’s ready to use, while we have to “develop” those tools with the node systems, once they are created we can reuse them, or even sell them, that’s not a problem, but we have to create them.
What Itoo has is that they already have them, they have a wide experience in what works and what does not and in user experience and ease of use.
Then why Redshift is doing an implementation?
And why UV Pack Master is half closed source?
Redshift is not “in” Blender. They just made a scene translator which can be open source.
What do you think Vray for Maya does? Or Arnold? or Krakatoa?
And what about UV Pack Master?
There area ways for companies to develop their packages IF they want to do so, and they know it, and the GPL is just a license, like any other license, they can comply with it while maintaining their closed source safe if they research how to do so.
But once reached this point I won’t continue a conversation about GPL and closed source software, there are a lot and I researched a lot in the matter but I’m tired of it, any medium to big company can do the research and find their way if it’s interesting to them.
Sincerely I hope Itoo releases something at some point, it’s just a hope, but because I admire them as a company, I hope they leverage this instant in the Blender users market, when the professional user base is growing, because if they don’t fill the gap others will, and I rather prefer Itoo being the ones that do that 🙂
You missed my point.
Some tools like renderer could be made for for Blender. But, not everything.
Oh no, I haven’t missed your point, is that I don’t agree with your point.
There are many solutions out there to be found, in the end the only thing you are doing is to exchange data.
There may be some parts that may be needed inside Blender? as long the benefit is for everyone and not just for that third party, like for example a new point cloud viewport mode for objects, those can be implemented in master, and yes those would be open source of course, but that does not mean that the core of the addon, the real part they want to keep closed, is not able to communicate and to process anything.
There are ways, plenty of ways, but as I said I won’t go again on analysing this.
Let’s settle things, if you agree with me, in that we see things differently.
I may be wrong, and if that’s the case, ok, I’ll accept it, no problem, no need to demonstrate anything to me, only time and developers will tell what things can be done and what things cannot be done.
What I know for sure is that there is a growing open market with some gaps there, the developer that finds it’s way in filling those gaps will then be the one that becomes the preferred option for the users if they do it right, I just happen to prefer Itoo being that developer in this case, but it’s a personal opinion 🙂
So, according to your own logic, we haven’t seen any tightly integrated closed source Blender tools (render engines excluded, they communicate via a bridge between separate memory spaces) yet, so it means it can’t be done 😉 No need to argue, just look at the results. No need to speculate about the future either, Blender has been around long enough to have historical evidence.
With GPL it’s possible to write “bridge” or “interop” tools which don’t exist in Blender’s running memory (e.g. as a separate app which communicates with Blender). But this really limits the type of closed source plugins you’ll see for Blender to renderers and external services. Good or bad, that’s the hard truth established by the license.
I think that a distribution tool can be handled that way without trouble.
And in the end the target of the B.I. Is not to favour the third party ecosystem, so you may be right, but I don’t think that’s specially wrong, many tools present in maya as of today started as an in-house tool in a big studio, like X-Gen, I would prefer to have X-Gen inside Blender than a third party plugin.
In any case I still hope Itoo can do the jump, but if they can’t others will appear 🙂
Also, just out of curiosity, what do you mean with “tightly integrated” ?
Fair enough. By tightly integrated I meant a library which is loaded into Blender’s memory space (like a plugin/add-on) so it can read/write Blender’s RAM/VRAM directly. As opposed to creating a separate process with its own memory space and communicating with Blender via a (comparatively very) slow data bridge/pipe, which is what existing closed source add-ons are doing.
Ok, that is what GPL understands as intimate communication and for that the addon must fully comply with the GPL, there is no other option in that case.
All this is only fiddling around the problem. And the problem is GPL in Blender.
ChaosGroup will not open-source Vray, as well as Adobe will never do it with Substance. One must be extremely naive to believe it may happen.
The only way is to “fiddle around” the problem of GPL in Blender. This GPL must be bypassed by all possible means: adapters, bridges, tricks. All this slows down the efficiency of Blender, naturally. It gets ugly, slow, unstable, maybe illegal.
We must obfuscate the communication between apps in order to avoid contact with FSF Lawyers. Even with such hat-tricks, I asked already two times, they do not want to definitely write me it is ok.
Actually the closed source developers are, while porting to Blender, like drug-dealers: they must somehow repack the marijuana in legal prescriptions while always living in fear.
Resume: as I have already said here, I pledge partial opening the APIs in Blender, at least for renderers.
No one is asking for Chaosgroup to open source Vray, and no one is right now asking for substance to be open, MaterialX will be more than enough.
If you don’t like Blender being GPL, don’t use Blender, it is as simple as that.
BTW I contacted the FSF and if I remember correctly they asked around 900€ for a 3 hours consult about this, so if you want to pay for it, be my guest 🙂
But no, it’s not illegal, otherwise AMD would be in an illegal position with Radeon Pro Render, do you think they are?
Also the programmer of The Bounty render engine is working in a fully C++ implementation of his addon, no custom version of blender is needed, and yes, without C++ API, which BTW don’t expect it to be present in Blender in the next 5 years, and probably never.
In the end if Blender is what it is as of today it’s in part thanks to the GPL, and that won’t change, so the answer is simple, accept the GPL and work with it’s conditions or don’t use Blender at all.
Some will adapt, some won’t adapt, that’s it 🙂
UV-Pack Master is an extremely delicate issue. The guy is selling for money a compiled *.EXE with a simple python API to Blender. He is not selling a script to run an exe. He is selling the compiled, closed-source exe with the script together! And absolutely nobody asks: “Wtf – OpenSource, how??!!”. 🙂
And it is not only UV-Pack master – a whole bunch of GumRoad and BlenderMarket stuff is build on this fussy scheme. As long as they are flying under radar, i am good with it.
Ok, this is simple, report them to the Blender Institute.
Apart from UVPackMaster what other addons do you see under the same situation?
I’m curious, I want to check them out.
I already asked the UVPackMaster the license situation of the addon, will see what he answers 🙂
UVShotPacker, the same thing; just search in paid plugins for more if are hot for the hunt.
I am NOT reporting anything, I have bought it, have no interest in denunciation. As said, I’m good with it.
Why not?
If they break the license they should be reported, is not good for anyone, but in any case the first thing to do is to contact the developer and ask them, because they did their research probably and they know what they are doing, most probably everyone complies with the GPL requirements, and if they don’t, they should be warned so they can adapt 🙂
But I think they are not breaking anything, they use closed source, but they comply with GPL, there are many ways, exactly in the same way Radeon PRO Render does (from AMD, I would say they have lawyers hehehe)
The only thing that may be breaking the GPL is that they distribute the closed source binary with the open source part, the addon, and that should be a separate download, but that’s it IMHO
BTW: I checked ShotPacker and I don’t have it, unlike UV Pack Master, but I’ll ask, but can you point me towards some addon in the Blender Market that is under that situation? not in GumRoad, thanks! (just one, and don’t worry, most probably you won’t be reporting anyone as I said I think mostly everyone complies with GPL 🙂 )
BTW if someone is curious about the conditions to comply with the GPL, here is the FAQ:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html
I disagree. It’s not under rated. Their workflows and user interfaces are very anti intuitive and dated.
I disagree with your disagreement. Railclone and Forest Pack Pro are lifesavers.
I disagree with your disagreements over disagreements. Their workflow is dated, but these tools are lifesavers.
I would gladly pay to have forest pack and railclone running inside Blender!!