Friday, May 4th, 2012 Posted by Jim Thacker

Thinkbox Software ships Genome for 3ds Max


Genome in action. Thinkbox Software’s new ‘extensible procedural geometry modifier’ may be used to recreate existing 3ds Max modifiers for improved performance, or to create entirely new types of modifiers.

Thinkbox Software has begun shipping Genome, its ‘extensible procedural geometry modifier’ for 3ds Max.

Providing “highly optimized geometry and particle lookup operations not available in the 3ds Max SDK”, Genome can be used to recreate existing 3ds Max modifiers – Twist, Bend, Morph, and so on – that perform “orders of magnitude faster” than the native tools.

Genome can also be used to create new modifiers not available in vanilla 3ds Max, including the option to use particle data to modify geometry: for example, to cause falling particles to create depressions in a surface.

The Thinkbox Software website gives a more extensive range of examples, and provides useful context for how the software could be used in production.

The application operates on mesh data via the Magma channel editor introduced in Thinkbox’s Krakatoa MX particle renderer, providing artists with a node-based workflow similar to Nuke or Fusion.

At present, Genome operates internally only on TriMesh data, meaning that Editable Poly geometry and primitives are converted implicitly to TriMesh format. In addition, evaluation is history independent, meaning evaluation data cannot be cached. Thinkbox aims to address both issues in future updates.

Genome is available for 3ds Max 2010 to 2012, price $595, with 3ds Max 2013 to follow via a point release.

Updated 4 May: Thinkbox has posted videos from its Genome webinars, showing the features in more detail.

Read a full list of features in Genome on Thinkbox Software’s website