Vehicle/car simulation plugin for 3dsmax 2010/2011 ?

[stevesideas]

Hi guys,

I have a project coming up where I need to simulate a car driving along. Madcar isnt available for 3dsmax 2010 or 2011 so I was wondering if there were any alternatives out there that anyone knew of ?

[percydaman]

If you have 2011, theres the craft director that is shipping with it. I think it includes a car solution.

http://www.craftanimations.com/galle...r-3ds-max-2011

If the car rig isn't included then you can purchase their director studio.

[instinct]

If i recall right then there are only pre-rigged models included (kind of as a demo). MadCar3 is currently in beta tho and seems to be pretty nice.
Sadly i am not to fond of their licensing "strategies"

http://rendering.ru/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=384

Kind Regards,
Thorsten

[Smalerbi]

Steve, I’m in the same boat! Were on earth is George Barjoud when you need him? It seems he has fallen off of the face of the earth. I just upgraded from Max R8 to Max 2010x64 and I sure could use his Vehicle Simulator. I used it in R8 and it was so easy to use and fast. You could rig and animate a car along a spline path in about 5min. I attempted to call George but the number he gave me some time ago is no longer in service and his email is no longer valid. His web site no longer exist so I have no idea where he went. It was one sweet program.

I have not tried Mad car but I did take a quick look at it. At first glance, it looks a hell of a lot more complex then VS. Attempting to us Mad Car might give me Mad Cow. For us simpletons who would like to have a few moving vehicles move through the scene, VS was the ticket. Ok….I’m done crying in my soup now. It sure would be nice if someone could re-compile the plug-in for updated versions of Max.

Scott.

[davision]

Here's a vote for George... He was/is a great guy. I used his Simulator back in the day. Too bad it's not still being developed.

BTW, Thorsten -- what is unpleasant about Madcar's licensing strategies -- what is the issue? I have no experience with this plugin or the creator, so I'm curious.

[instinct]

It's the same ppl that sell VRayScatter. I dont own any of their plugins, so i cant tell how rigidly they handle licensing. But what bugs me
is that there is no floating license at all and that the nodelocked licenses are bound to your HDD. And they say you cant get a license renewal
for a new box more then once every half a year. That seems really weird esp as HDDs can die easily and boxes might be replaced more
often. In our case we are working quite a lot with freelancers that change boxes quite often...it just seems weird and troublesome.

Kind Regards,
Thorsten

[Smalerbi]

Yea…..George is a great guy. I remember after several attempts, I was having some issues getting VS to license on my machine so George said the hell with it and gave me a cracked version of his own plug-in. Now how many developers are willing to do that? Here is another vote for George……..EARTH CALLING…..WHERE ARE YOU!!

Scott

[stevesideas]

Thanks for the feedback. I actually managed to get in touch with a guy called Anvar from icube R&D and he has allowed me to use the beta version of madcar for my project. This is a one off and they have now closed beta testing applicants so dont go asking him to be a beta tester or get the plugin to use as it may piss him off Obviously I will be purchasing the product when it is released. After playing with it for only a couple of hours I have managed to get some good results.

He did say it will be released soon as a commercial plugin for not more than 200 euros.

[jonahhawk]

It's the same ppl that sell VRayScatter. I dont own any of their plugins, so i cant tell how rigidly they handle licensing. But what bugs me
is that there is no floating license at all and that the nodelocked licenses are bound to your HDD. And they say you cant get a license renewal
for a new box more then once every half a year. That seems really weird esp as HDDs can die easily and boxes might be replaced more
often. In our case we are working quite a lot with freelancers that change boxes quite often...it just seems weird and troublesome.

Kind Regards,
Thorsten

The iCube (VRay scatter) licensing is out of the ordinary. We had some confusion about it at first and were affraid to switch to Windows7 for fear that we would not be able to ask for a new license. But it is not a problem.
To be clear, we can get a new license whenever we want if we are using the same workstation. Since we don't upgrade our machines more than once every three years, this is not much of an issue. But when we switch OS or if something goes wrong with the installation, we can and do ask for new license keys. They have been very responsive every time.

We have one license of City Traffic, and licenses of the edge plugin... (I forget the exact name) all the licensing is the same. It's not that hard to deal with. It's just different.

[instinct]

Good to know! Thanks for the input!

Regards,
Thorsten