I just contacted Zwischendrin about a Mighty Tiles Version for Max 2014 and had to hear some bad news.
Apparently there the current Mighty Tiles version does and will not support Max 2014. The developers are working on a new version so people who want to use Mighty Tiles with Max 2014 will have to buy the new version when it’s out.
I have just recently bought Mighty Tiles and have only used it once so I am more than annoyed about their (lack of) customer support.
This is all the more frustrating since most Max 2013 plugins work with Max 2014 without problems but since you can’t choose the installation path for Mighty Tiles there is no way of finding out if it is.
thanks for the great idea. Sadly it doesn’t work though.
@glorybound: I do have quite a few third party plugins and with most of them upgrading 3DS Max has never been an issue. Solidrocks, Railclone, Forest Pro, Batzal Roof Designer are all great when it comes to customer support. I guess it’s smart to wait for feedback on customer support before purchasing a plugin. It’s a shame though as Mighty Tiles would have been useful to have
Solidrocks has always been great! I do have Batzal Roof, but I haven’t used it in a long time. Multiscatter’s support is hideous, but it is working in 2014. I have heard great things about Itoo, so Forest pro and Railclone are on my to get list.
Considering the cost of the plugin that is pretty shameful support, given that it DOES work with 2014…
I can’t remember exactly how I did it now but I think I just moved the folders etc. over from 2013, then placed these two files in the Max 2014 root directory:
I’m with Bobby, it is a good idea to limit how much one relies on 3rd party plugins unless the developer has a squeaky clean track record, otherwise that tool may become a hindrance. If the upgrade cost is not excessive, then it does seem to still be the best tool available for what it does.
A reminder that Mighty Tiles is the same product they originally sold as BRIX and dropped the support for “personal reasons” or some such, leaving all the customers hangin when new versions of Max came out and the newly bought plugin did not work. It is literally the exact same product in pretty much the same condition it was originally in 2010 and even if I finally got it as a free upgrade from BRIX, it took ages and there have been no further improvements. If you haven’t bought it yet it’s not worth the risk in my opinion.
I was really pissed with Brix when I got it, because, after contecting materialwerk.de and asking about before purchasing, 1 day after my purchase, they sent me an email with an ad for brix on sale, 30% off of what I paid. I expect the decency to actually inform the customer when purchasing the day before, at least just for good measure and “karma”.
Then, a few months after the 2 guys at Materialwerk started fighting and got a divorce, screwing everyone who bought Brix. They rarely answered emails asking about what was happening.
When I heard about Mightytiles, and found out who made it I was incredibly suspicious, but I got the offer of a free license because of the Brix debacle.
Then, happily upgrading to max 2014, Mighty tiles was the only 2013-plugin that didn’t work, and after contacting them several times, I got an answer from someone not responsible for development, stating that the Developer was away at PAX or some event and that he had ditched Mightytiles, to reinvent it in a new and improved “mightytiles” that was soooo much better…but would mean a completely new product and purchase.
Guess he doesn’t like his paying customers much, and thinks reputations are overrated.
Does anyon have any experience with the other original party from Materialwerk? The guys ho now makes WallTiles or what its called?
I almost forgot. Martin Jann, the guy who is behind Walls&Tiles and who is the other half of the original BRIX couple, is actively developing his plugin - and what has been left unadvertised is the fact that Vizpark offers W&T free for anyone who was a BRIX purchaser. At least this was the case when I was in contact with him last week. The plugin is pretty much MightyTiles without all the hassle! Contact him if you own a license to BRIX!
I’m pretty sure Ronen Bekerman was involved with Mighty Tiles so maybe he could explain what’s going on with it?
Martin Jann (now Vizpark) was the other guy originally involved with Brix, more on the sales side I think though. Vizpark now sell the Walls and Tiles plugin and as someone else mentioned, it’s free to previous Brix customers. It might be a better route to go down if the Mightytiles developer is being flaky.
Ronen Bekerman advertised the original BRIX version of the plugin and had more than enough knowledge to know things weren’t right later on yet he has no problem being the spokesperson for this “new” plugin. I hate being rude but this is ridiculous and the people involved have some moral issues.
I´d like to jump in to show my presence and offer any help to owners of BRIX or owners of Mighty Tiles left behind without support. I´m here … I´ll try to answer direct support requests within 24 hours, mostly much faster and the Walls & Tiles plugin with installer for 2014 is out since over a month.
And again, I also always offered free crossgrades to Walls & Tiles Complete for owners of BRIX and still offer these.
Additionally I´m now offering a 50% crossgrade for NEW owners of Mighty Tiles to either Walls & Tiles Complete (75 Euros instead of 149 Euros) or Walls & Tiles (29,50 Euros instead of 59 Euros)!
Just drop me an email to martin@vizpark.com
Hopefully this helps anyone looking for a tiles solution now.
PS: Just as a side note, I´d like to clarify that I was the original inventor of BRIX (in the sense of having the idea for the plugin and writing the product specification back in 2008)
Yes, it´s possible to achieve similar results with Multitexture and BerconTile. Actually Walls & Tiles uses BerconTile
for the mapping of the tiles. The problem with this free combination is, that it´s more hand work, less flexible and takes much more time to create
and change materials. For example, if you want to just change the bond pattern of a material with diffuse, bump, displacement,
and reflection layers, you have to go into each BerconTile map and change the pattern in every single one by hand. Walls & Tiles acts as
a remote to all included maps and automatically changes all layers with one click. This applies to all parameters within the material, so
you can very easily change parameters for the complete material from the Walls & Tiles interface and all maps inside are adjusted accordingly.
Besides this, Walls & Tiles includes Crossmap (which also randomizes bitmaps like Multitexture, but has many more features and is
more flexible than Multitexture). Here is a comparison table to see the differences: http://www.vizpark.com/crossmap-comparison/
Walls & Tiles also has some very handy features like Auto-loading of bitmaps into the corresponding layers, Auto-Ratio for correct tile ratios,
more randomization features, a huge included multitexture library (Complete only), linear sequence mapping, and last but not least: support!
For those who are very experienced with BerconTile, material creation and who have a lot of time, the free solution (BerconTile and Multitexture)
is a valid alternative. But for those, who would like to quickly create, change and adjust brick and tile materials, I really believe Walls & Tiles is worth every
penny.
I am a previous BRIX owner, and have been testing both MT and W&T a bunch. So far I basically still find neither of them as good as BRIX, so far…
Both have been quite good with support, although, recently I have stopped getting replies from Dieter. It seems that you can get good results, but nowhere near as easily/quickly as BRIX.
Maybe I still need to “learn them” further, but ATM, I would lean towards MT if I was looking to purchase such a plug-in.
Only gripe is RE:MT and DR…it doesn’t work…renders totally black frame…still troubleshooting it. Problem vanishes after removing MT from scene…
One plus; If you are looking to buy one or the other, is that VIZPARK does give loyalty points when you buy anything, so that is nice. (No affiliation.)
Overall I would lean a bit toward VIZPARK if I were in the market…
thanks for sharing your views as a owner of both plugins.
Just out of curiosity, what is it that makes BRIX better for you compared to Walls & Tiles or Mighty Tiles ? Could you name some features or benefits ?
I´m always trying to improve what customers are using, so if you have suggestions, let me know. I´m listening!
Some good points there. I have had W&T in my shopping basket on a few occasions but have decided I can live with the free versions for the time being (especially as we have a few 3D artists here, and multiple license costs quickly add up).
