We are excited to announce the release of our new Ornatrix 3dsmax V8 plugin! This new version comes with several exciting changes and improvements that we believe will significantly enhance your experience with Ornatrix.

Features

• Grooms
• Box and unbox
• Boxing of whole or partial stack
• Unboxing a groom modifier to extract its constituent operators
• Switched grooms from XML-based .oxgroom format to YAML-based format, better encompassing operators and their data
• Groom modifier, containing multiple internal operators with ability to expose custom parameters
• Graft grooms (easy point and click creation of complete grooms on any character model)
• Importing new grooms can be done as: full-stack (recreate whole modifier stack), as a Groom modifier (encompassing procedural groom internally), or as a Baked Hair object (containing groom output result)
• Mohawk Hair, Short Afro, Short Pixie graft grooms included
• General
• Automatic change tracking of select operators (curling modifier, frizz modifier, groom modifier, strand multiplier modifier, normalize modifier)
• Switched vertex tangents to use Texture Coordinate generation method by default
• Operator baking now supports baking strand widths
• Using geodesic distance by default to calculate strand group blending effect
• GUI
• Replaced majority of Win32 operator GUI with Qt (quicker, scalable, fixes issues with ramp displayed separately)
• Added "Collapse All" and "Collapse To" options to main Ornatrix menu, allowing to collapse modifier stack while maintaining render version of the hair
• Performance improvements
• Switched to Embree 3, significantly improving performance in many places
• Now using Embree in more places like Ground Strands modifier
• Improved hair display performance
• Using SIMD optimizations to further improve performance
• Alembic Export
• Added MXS flag for exporting to UE for its groom import process.
• Surface Comb modifier
• New per-sink parameter support:
• Rotation adjustments
• Flow
• Slope ramp
• Channel export
• Added an option to export sink groups to channel data
• Added an option to set sink data values based on an absolute length
• Option to display sink lengths inside viewport
• Normalize modifier
• "By group" option separating its application by strand groups
• Added a ramp curve
• Curling modifier
• Magnitude and Phase randomness for Curl
• Add range values for Noise Scale parameter
• Filter modifier
• Added Channel and Map parameters to control random fraction to Filter operator
• Edit Guides modifier
• Allow to move only the roots of strands
• Allow the Create brush to add strands per-vertex and per-polygon face
• Interpolate planted guide between all selected strands instead of only the closest one
• Exposed Rotate Strands Edit Guides mode to MaxScript
• Hair from Guides
• Added "Hidden Guide Behavior" option for Hair from Guides (don't generate hair for hidden guides)
• Baked hair
• Operator baking now supports baking strand widths
• Implemented full-stack import with Baked Hair object
• Added option to only load specific Alembic curves
• Guides from Guide Mesh modifier
• Preserves strand rotations
• Alembic Importer
• "Export Surface Positions" option for Alembic, allowing to export propagated strands like feathers
• Mesh from Strands modifier
• Mesh from Strands Conform to Surface option smoothly blends the roots to surface
• Guides from Shape modifier
• Added vertex color channels
• Clump modifier
• Dynamic clumping, allowing animated clump count and changes to clump count on the fly
• Added option to set strand groups based on clump ownership
• "Ground Displaced Roots" option
• Ground Strands modifier
• Mesh evaluation at specified time when grounding
• Strand Animation modifier
• Added option to only load specific Alembic curves
• V-Ray support
• V-Ray Standalone plugin uses new serialization, provides a much more complete implementation
• V-Ray standalone plugin is available for Linux
• V-Ray Standalone plugin updated to V-Ray 6.10

Fixes

• Fixed: Graft grooms are displayed when using groom dialog
• Fixed: GroundStrands: Strands are deformed when grounded
• Fixed: Crash when creating sinks in a scene which contains loaded mirrored sinks
• Fixed: When modifying roots in Edit Guides they can be dragged off the mesh
• Fixed: Imported Full-Stack groom isn't parented under base node
• Fixed: [Surface Comb] Issue with Sinks Length Value changes and display
• Fixed: Missing Hair Presets when an object is selected
• Fixed: Edit Guides: Brush mirroring not working
• Fixed: [PushAway] Crash on a dense mesh
• Fixed: Strand Scatter: Scattered objects should inherit the rotations of the target strands
• Fixed: Crash when using a dense mesh in Push Away from Surface
• Fixed: Reloading a graft groom doesn't restore graph parameters
• Fixed: Symmetry not working on groom grafts
• Fixed: Ramp Curve: Unable to change CV interpolation
• Fixed: Push Away from Surface: Crash when using very dense meshes
• Fixed: Curl: Random Seed not working correctly
• Fixed: EditGuides: Soft Selection Distance parameter value is too sensitive.
• Fixed: Scatter Strands: Crash when enabling 'Display in Viewport'
• Fixed: PushAwayFromSurface: Incorrect collisions in Hair from Mesh Strips
• Fixed: Delete brush selects wrong strands when ignore backfacing option is off
• Fixed: GuidesFromShape: 'Use Face Include' not working
• Fixed: No visual update when grafting a surface until mouse is released
• Fixed: Crash when playing some animations
• Fixed: Crash when moving modifiers
• Fixed: Crash when a channel is assigned in various operators
• Fixed: Re-fitting graft grooms containing Surface Comb changes hair scaling and orientations
• Fixed: Warning when brushing hair from baked hair, in some cases
• Fixed: V-Ray plugin renders preview hair with incorrect widths
• Fixed: [YAML] Import from Maya doesn't work correctly
• Fixed: Hair doesn't clear all surface dependencies leading to rare crashes
• Fixed: Crash when deletions and creations are used together on a deforming mesh
• Fixed: Crashes related to floating ramp dialogs
• Fixed: Error on startup in Max 2024
• Fixed: Surface Comb: Sinks not visible in the viewport in Max 2023+
• Fixed: Hair from Guides: The hair disappears when using Vertex Colors in any modifier above it.
• Fixed: Mesh From Strands: Some options are disabled when the UI is updated
• Fixed: Smooth Surface operator changes strand rotations when First Edge is used for tangent calculation
• Fixed: "Ground closest end" not set when grounding in Baked Hair object
• Fixed: File path parameters should not be sticky
• Fixed: ChangeWidth: Multiplier maps stop working when adding or removing strands
• Fixed: Crash when removing distribution mesh in Hair from Guides
• Fixed: Hair from Guides: Multiplier maps not working when using 'Guides as Hair'
• Fixed: Curl modifier changes strands even if they are filtered out via groups
• Fixed: Hair from Guides: Assertion failure when setting Guide Count to `Do not Interpolate` when guide point counts differ
• Fixed: Error when setting Filter value to 0
• Fixed: Moov crash when Use Group Holder is disabled
• Fixed: Change Width map does not affect hairs generated by Plant Guides tool
• Fixed: Don't disable widths when they were not edited in Edit Guides
• Fixed: "Invalid Alembic archive type" gets printed continuously
• Fixed: Surface Comb triangulation non-smooth transition between polygons
• Fixed: Surface Comb Triangulation sinks don't factor in sink length
• Fixed: Incorrect sink length is returned for mirrored sinks
• Fixed: Clump twist is still applied even for non-clumped strands
• Fixed: Cannot select strands in Edit Guides when strand groups were previously assigned to ungrounded hair
• Fixed: BrushShape: Square shape does not work with the Delete brush
• Fixed: Incorrect Blend Distance in operators when switching value below/above zero
• Fixed: Hair strands disappear when switching Created stand type to Guides in Edit Guides
• Fixed: Assertion/crash when opening a scene containing hair with vertices which don't belong to a strand
• Fixed: Cannot add Ground Strands Modifier to baked hair
• Fixed: Crash on startup
• Fixed: Planting roots in Edit Guides doesn't work in Max 2016
• Fixed: Guide Width display support with correct colors
• Fixed: Edit Guides Z-Focus doesn't work
• Fixed: Incorrect strand direction in Surface Comb with Mesh Vertex algorithm and coinciding strand/sink position
• Fixed: Evaluating an Edit Guides node on top of a mesh multiple time produces incorrect output
• Fixed: Baking Guides From Mesh into Edit Guides produces no output
• Fixed: Error when evaluating Edit Guides above a mesh
• Fixed: Add range values for Noise Scale parameter
• Fixed: Add dependency on Python
• Fixed: Detail does not filter Stand Groups

Upgrading and Discounts

If you purchased Ornatrix 3dsmax V7 within past 6 months or if you are renting license(s) you already received a free upgrade to V8. If that is not the case please reply to this email or contact us through our website.

For everyone else there is a 50% early-bird discount for perpetual licenses before January 14, 2024. After that date the upgrade discount will be at 25%, so don't miss out! We also provide monthly and yearly rental options.

Rental licenses automatically get a free upgrade. If you don't see V8 on your downloads page, please let us know.

---

Attached Files:

Marsel Khadiyev (Software Developer, EPHERE Inc.)