Hum3D “Sci-Fi Industrial Zone” Challenge has started!
“Your goal is to design and create a highly detailed and atmospheric environment, rich with elements of science fiction and industrial design”
Pulldownit Pro license is one of the valuable prizes and there are plenty of them!
those interested can check rules and prizes here:
Remember you can submit your work until June 3rd, 2023.
Sony Santa Monica has published a nice article and video  about Art Blast in latest God of War game showing destruction effects and beautiful environments that can be cracked and damaged during the game.
You can review the whole article here:
Visit God of War Ragnarok Art Blast
Aside in-game physics they have used baked simulations with Pulldownit in Maya adding hand key modifications to get the look they wanted, Â indeed Pulldownit plugin allows to fix or modify baked simulation easily by editing animation keys for fragments or rigid bodies.
Besides Cynthia Fenton, breakable artist at Sony Santa Monica Studio, has posted a stunning video showing his work in God of War Ragnarok using Pulldownit plugin for destructions effects, you can see it here:
Amazing job Cynthia, thank you for sharing!
Pulldownit 5.5 is here and comes with useful updates, Shatter it tool has been multithreaded and highly optimized, getting up to 8x faster shattering with regards to previous release. Chipping areas of the model is also faster and you can discard shatter centers directly in the viewport just by clicking the mouse over it.
Bounded Cracks introduced in version 5.0 has been enhanced with the ability to turn them dynamic at the desired frame, allowing to create easily stress cracks that ends up tearing the surface completely at some moment.
Working in complex destruction scenes is easier and more intuitive, in cases of many objects colliding, dynamic solver has been adjusted to get nice fracture results with default parameters and when two objects impact each other you can decide which one will break in first place simply by reducing its hardness value.
Maya Cache Playback is now supported after baking simulation keys for the whole scene, this allows user to play the simulation at a fast, sustained rate and recover dynamic data afterwards to make changes if needed.
There are also useful improvements to the UI, you can modify parameters for several fractures at once and create several crackers at once or toggle display of all crackers paths with one click.
Last but not least we have fixed quite a few annoying issues from previous version, making the tool more predictable and reliable than ever.
You can review below all performance and usability improvements and you can check the whole list of fixes in the Pulldownit version logs page:
Read the full list of fixes in the Pulldownit web site version logs
Licensed users can access already Pulldownit 5.5 from his account and there is a demo version for Maya 2023 in the Thinkinetic web site.
Shatter New Features
Shatter it multithreaded along with other performance improvements that makes shatter an object in hundreds and thousands of pieces around 8x faster than in previous release.
New ability to remove shatter centers directly in the viewport, when in Shatter it draft mode simply by clicking mouse + ctrl key, the selected shatter center is deleted.
Dynamics New Features
New ability to generate Bounded Cracks until frame , stress crack propagation can be set to last until desired frame, after that it continues as an usual dynamic crack.
Initial velocity can be set for “activation at frame” fracture bodies, linear and angular velocity can be added to static fractures bodies, setting in this way the initial motion direction when the object becomes dynamic.
More intuitive behaviour in collision between fracture bodies, user can decide which of them will break in first place simply by reducing its hardness value. Besides small fragments collisions don’t trigger fracture anymore, therefore fracture activation starts always at the exact impact moment between the two objects.
UI Enhancements
Maya Cache Playback supported after baking PDI keys for the whole scene, deleting PDI data before using Maya Cache Playback is no longer needed, allowing to recover simulation afterwards to make changes if needed.
New option to auto clean all PDI data after baking simulation, this new option allows to use Maya Cache Playback at the fastest speed right after baking PDI keys.
New ability to set parameters for several fracture bodies at once.
New ability to edit name of selected Cracker.
New ability to show/hide all Crackers paths at once.
New ability to set parameters for several Crackers at once.
New ability to create Crackers for all selected curves at once.
Hum3D Car render challenge 2022 winners announced!, congratulations to all of them.
As sponsor of the competition Thinkinetic is proud to award with a Pulldownit Pro license to the winners.
take a look to best images and interviews with winners in the official announcement:
Black Friday/Cyber Monday is here!, at Thinkinetic we are offering 20% Off in all our licenses for Autodesk 3ds Max or Maya, including one year of support and updates.
If you think our destruction tools can be useful for your Cg projects next year, that’s a good deal!, just visit thinkinetic shop when you are ready, discount is already applied in the final cost, no special code needed.
Actually many companies in the CG Â market are offering important discounts up to 50% Off in useful VFX and 3D tools, you can find them listed nicely in these great sites,
Review VFX software deals at the Toolfarm site
Review 3D/Render software deals at the Toolfarm site
Review best CG tools software deals at the CG Press site
Review best CG tools software deals at the CG channel site
happy shopping!
In this great tutorial Esteban Cuesta show us how to crack and destroy an oneiric temple using Pulldownit 5 in 3ds Max , he explains step by step how to create long cracks over the surface before destroying the whole model to get a nice crumbling effect, worth to review it.
Bounded cracks is a new feature introduced in Pulldownit 5.0
allowing to create cracks over the surface of 3d models and controlling the strenght and extent of the crack easilly.
Final shot here:
Thank you Esteban for this great tutorial !
Thinkinetic sponsors eighth annual Hum3D competition for the best Car render,
Pulldownit Pro license is one of the valuable prizes and there are plenty of them!
those interested can check rules and prizes here:
Remember you can summit your work until December the 8th, 2022.
In this polished tutorial, Esteban Cuesta shows us how to create long cracks over
an ancient statue and shatter it using Pulldownit plugin in Maya,
Bounded cracks is a new feature introduced in Pulldownit 5.0
allowing to create cracks over the surface of 3d models and controlling the strenght and extent of the crack easilly.
Thank you Esteban for this great tutorial!
Hum3D Flying Car challenge 2021 winners announced!, congratulations to all of them.
As sponsor of the competition Thinkinetic is proud to award with a Pulldownit Pro license to the winners.
take a look to best images and interviews with winners in the official announcement:
Pulldownit , the destruction plugin, is already available for Maya 2023 an brings an important enhancement, Shatter it tool is now 4 times faster. This new update v 5.3 will be available for the rest of supported Maya versions in the following weeks.
Maya 2023 itself brings quite a lot of improvements in animation, modeling, and performance. Â Boolean operations have been revamped with new modes, more intuitive visualization in the viewport and a new Boolean Stack editor for easily manage your changes. Retopology tool has been boosted with a new auto remesh option allowing to get quickly good results with less preparation of the scanned model. There are more deformer options and important performance improvements when modifying hi-poly meshes, besides you can now control the transparency level of the wireframe on shaded, which is very useful working with dense meshes. Â Â
Regarding Animation Autodesk has introduced a new Blue Pencil tool allowing to create 2D drawings and annotations directly in the Maya viewport which are saved with the scene.
There are also usability improvements to the Sweep mesh tool and Arnold render has been updated, besides Bifrost now support USD assets.
Since several years ago Autodesk is focused in strengthen Maya for animation tasks, and probably it counts with the most powerful toolset on this area, this new version includes also important enhancements for modeling, that’s good, however making Bifrost supporting USD assets isn’t the most appealing update for those working in VFX , hope Autodesk moves forward and devotes time to improve seriously Bifrost aswell.
AntCgi review and test many of Maya 2023 new features in this nice video:
KineticThoughts 