Tuesday, September 13th, 2016 Posted by Jim Thacker

Check out 3ds Max scene management tool Vexus


Originally posted on 13 August 2016. Scroll down for news of the commercial release.

Plugin developers JokerMartini and Boomer Labs have released a preview of Nexus, an interesting new scene-management tool for 3ds Max.

Update: The software has now been renamed Vexus. More details below.

Control scene shading and render settings, then share the results with other artists
A node graph editor for scene assembly and rendering, Nexus allows users to control object overrides, shaders and render settings, enabling them to “modify thousands of objects in the blink of an eye”.

Output is saved in XML format, making it possible to edit the graph or create new nodes using a standard text editor; and to share scene graphs with other 3ds Max users simply by copying and pasting the code.

According to the video, Nexus is actually a standalone application that communicates with 3ds Max through TCP/IP, which will enable it to “work with other 3D applications” in future.


Updated 12 September 2016: The software is now shipping, but has been renamed Vexus. It’s available for 3ds Max 2015 and above, and costs $250.

Fun factoid: the change of name makes Vexus the second 3ds Max-related tool to be renamed from Nexus, You can do it! VFX’s After Effects interoperability plugin Nyx Voltron also having started out as Nexus Voltron.

In the latter case, the name change was to avoid confusion with The Foundry’s Nexus architecture, on which Modo is built, so we suspect that may be the case again here.

Read more about Vexus on Boomer Labs’ website

Hat tip to CGPress for spotting this story.