Thinkinetic ships Pulldownit 5 for 3ds Max and Maya
Originally posted on 17 May 2021. Scroll down for news of the 3ds Max edition.
Thinkinetic has released Pulldownit 5 for Maya, a sizeable update to its shattering and dynamics plugin.
The release adds new visual workflows for controlling where a mesh is fractured, and new options to contain fragments created by surface cracks within bounds, controlling many flake away from the surface.
Performance has also been improved, with the fracture solver now “at least 2x faster”, and fracturing operations generating lighter meshes for simulation.
New visual workflows to control how a mesh is fractured
Pulldownit 5 introduces new visual workflows to control how fragments are generated when fracturing a mesh for a dynamics simulation to pull apart.
Users can now marquee-select parts of a guide curve to determine which part of that curve is used for shattering, then drag the shatter region up and down the curve to adjust it.
It is also now possible to shrink or expand the shatter region by dragging on it in the viewport, providing instant visual feedback on the density of the fragments generated, as shown in the video above.
Once a mesh has been fractured, a new Bounded setting controls how far detached fragments can move from a surface crack, making it possible to control how many stick to the surface.
Workflow improvements include the option to reverse the direction in which a mesh fractures along a crack.
Faster solving and scene loading, and lighter fracture meshes
Performance has also been significantly improved, with the fracture solver now calculating “at least 2x” faster, and creating fracture bodies now now “4x” faster.
Pulldownit scenes also now load “at least 2x faster” in Maya.
In addition, Jagginess, which generates realistically rough surfaces on the fragments of a mesh, is now applied only to those parts of a mesh that have been affected by a fracture simulation.
The change should generate significantly more simulation-friendly results: the example on Thinkinetic’s blog shows a test simulation generating 90,000 faces in Pulldownit 5, down from 160,000 in Pulldownit 4.
Updated 20 October 2021: Thinkinetic has just released Thinkinetic 5 for 3ds Max.
The new features are the same as for the Maya edition, although there are slight differences in the performance boosts: creating fracture bodies is 2x faster, and there is no listed change in scene loading time.
Pricing and availability
Pulldownit 5.0 is available for 64-bit 3ds Max 2018+ and Maya 2018+.
Since the release of Pulldownit 4.0, the software has become rental-only, with node-locked licences now costing €270/year (around $328/year). Floating licences cost €340/year ($413/year).
Read an overview of the new features in Pulldownit 5.0 for Maya on Thinkinetic’s blog
Read an overview of the new features in Pulldownit 5.0 for 3ds Max on Thinkinetic’s blog