Thinkinetic ships Pulldownit 5.7 for Maya and 5.8 for 3ds Max
Thinkinetic has updated Pulldownit, its shattering and dynamics plugin for visual effects and game development work.
Both Pulldownit 5.7 for Maya and Pulldownit 5.8 for 3ds Max are sizeable updates, adding a new Fast Stacking & Deactivation solver, described as “up to 4x faster” on complex scenes.
In addition, both editions get new options for controlling impacts between animated objects like characters and objects being fractured; and for controlling shattering and crack propagation.
Both editions: new Fast Stacking & Deactivation Solver
Despite the difference in version numbers, both Pulldownit 5.7 for Maya, released in December, and Pulldownit 5.8 for 3ds Max, released this week, are the first major public updates to the software since last year’s Pulldownit 5.5, and include most of the same new features.
They include a new Fast Stacking & Deactivation solver for collisions, described as computing “up to 4x faster” on scenes with hundreds or thousands of dynamic fragments.
Other performance improvements include better support for instanced shapes in the core solver, reducing memory overheads on complex simulations.
Both editions: new options for controlling simulation dynamics and object shattering
Both updates also improve performance and workflow when simulating collisions between animated and dynamic objects – for example, a character breaking an object – adding a new animation speed multiplier parameter to control the strength of the impact.
There are also new options for animating a cracker multiplier, making it possible to change the strength of the effect across a simulation, or disable it at a specified frame.
When shattering geometry, the Jagginess deformer gets a new Asymmetric Tessellation mode, which generates “nearly 50% fewer polygons” than the existing Uniform Tessellation mode; and there is a new option to apply jagginess to all of the fragments in a scene with one click.
New features unique to individual editions
In addition, in 3ds Max edition it is now possible to animate decay for Wind and Gravity, for more precise control over how force fields affect a simulation.
The Maya edition gets new options to create multiple fracture bodies from groups of objects, and to create hierarchies of rigid bodies by selecting a parent group.
Pricing and availability
Pulldownit is available for 3ds Max 2020+ and Maya 2019+.
The software is rental-only. Node-locked licences now cost €290/year (around $315/year), and floating licences cost €360/year ($391/year), both up €10/year since the 5.5 releases.
Read an overview of the new features in Pulldownit 5.7 on Thinkinetic’s blog
Read an oveview of the new features in Pulldownit 5.8 for 3ds Max on Thinkinetic’s blog
Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don’t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.