Thursday, July 4th, 2013 Posted by Jim Thacker

Mir Vadim ships RayFire 1.62 for 3ds Max

Mir Vadim has released RayFire 1.62, adding new voxelisation and clustering tools to the 3ds Max destruction plugin – and as ever, the demo videos are worth watching even if you don’t use Max.

First up is the new Voxel modifier (above), which converts geometry into an array of voxels for use in simulations. Shape, scale, position and orientation can all be set individually, randomised, or controlled via animated maps.

Material IDs can be assigned randomly, or by Closest Face; and Shell and Inside voxels selected separately.

How frequently voxelisation will be used in real productions is a moot point, but the results look great: like the greatest Minecraft machinima ever. At one point, the demo even throws in a model of the Minecraft sword.

The new Clustering tools are pretty impressive, too, grouping fragments into clusters according to a random seed, with plenty of options to control the number, scale and distribution of the groupings generated.

The opening shot of a wall breaking apart to leave the word ‘clusters’ in fragments suggests potential uses in motion graphics as well as visual effects.

RayFire 1.62 is available now for 3ds Max 2009 and above. A new commercial licence costs $345. The update is free to registered users of the software.

Read more about RayFire 1.62’s voxelisation tools on the RayFire website

Read more about RayFire 1.62’s clustering tools on the RayFire website