Tuesday, September 10th, 2013 Posted by Jim Thacker

Ephere ships Lab for 3ds Max

Ephere has released Lab, a new plugin intended to enable non-coders to create their own 3ds Max plugins directly inside Max itself, by dragging, dropping and wiring nodes within a visual interface.

Once the user has defined the logic for the plugin, Lab takes care of the implementation, UI and “other aspects which are tedious or mechanical in implementation”.

Build nodes into more complex networks
Types of objects the system is capable of creating include geometry objects, shape objects, modifiers, textures, and controllers. Simple node networks can then be used as building blocks to create more complex plugins.

Templates are provided to provide a starting point for non-technical artists, while more advanced users can supplement the visual programmming functionality with built-in C# scripting.

Tools created in Lab can be saved as standalone plugins. They can be shared with non-Lab-users if they have Ephere’s free Coden framework installed and – according to the video above – even sold commercially.

Lab is available now, price $250.

Read more about Lab on Ephere’s website

Watch video guides to Lab on Ephere’s YouTube channel