Ephere releases Ornatrix 8 for 3ds Max
Ephere has released Ornatrix 8 for 3ds Max, the latest update to its popular plugin for generating hair, fur and feathers.
The update adds a new Graft Groom preset system for creating complete hair grooms in a few clicks, and a ‘boxing’ system for packaging grooming operators into a single operator.
A versatile 3ds Max hair plugin used by leading VFX and game studios
First released over a decade ago, Ornatrix is a versatile 3ds Max plugin for generating and grooming hair, fur and feathers, supporting both parametric or brush-based workflows.
The software has been used at a range of VFX and games studios including Blur Studio, Pixomondo, Scanline VFX, Blizzard Entertainment and Ubisoft.
New Graft Grooms system creates entire hair grooms in a few clicks
Ornatrix 8 for 3ds Max introduces several new features originally released in Ornatrix 4 for Maya, the Maya edition of the plugin, earlier this year.
They include Graft Grooms: a new type of preset designed to make it possible to create entire grooms through a simple point-and-click workflow.
Users drag across the surface of a character to draw a graft surface, from which Ornatrix generates the hair automatically.
There are presets for different hairstyles, but users can also create their own custom grafts, which can then be reused between projects or shared with other artists.
New option to ‘box’ grooming operators
Other changes include a new system for ‘boxing’ Ornatrix operators, which combines set of operators in a single Groom operator.
Unlike the existing Bake command, operators combined in this way remain procedurally editable, and can be unboxed again to make it possible to edit them individually.
Updates to key modifiers, performance improvements, and better Alembic export
There release also features update to many of the key modifiers, including Surface Comb, Edit Guides, Clump, Curling, and to the hair baking system.
Under the hood, Ornatrix has been moved to Embree 3, a newer version of Intel’s CPU ray tracing library, “significantly” improving performance.
Support for the Alembic file format has been extended, including the option to export propagated strands like feathers, and a MXS flag when exporting grooms to Unreal Engine.
Pricing and system requirements
Ornatrix 8 is compatible with 3ds Max 2014+. New perpetual licenses now cost $599; rental costs $50/month or $420/year.
Read a full list of new features in Ornatrix 8 for 3ds Max in Ephere’s online changelog
Read more about Ornatrix for 3ds Max on the product website
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