Plug-in

Opening Times and Christmas Deals

Christmas Deals

It’s been another strong year for 3D modeling and rendering. We’ve seen major releases in Vectorworks 2020 demonstrating considerable performance boosts, KeyShot 9 adding GPU rendering and RealCloth, a Maxwell 5 engine re-write built for speed, and so much more than we can list here.

As always, we’d like to extend our sincere thanks to all of our customers and partners for making this another great year, and we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. With both the year and decade drawing to a close, it’s time to send off 2019 in style.

CAD Software Direct Opening Times

Our offices are open as normal on December 23rd, so any orders placed before then will be processed as usual. We will do everything we can to get late orders back to you before the break, and there will be limited order processing between Christmas and the New Year. Otherwise we’ll be back to work and sending out orders first thing on January 2nd.

Christmas and New Year Offers – Up to 50% OFF RRP

Vectorworks

25% OFF All Purchases
Offer until December 31st

Vectorworks Offer

Excludes Service Select renewals, Dongles, Shipping, Reinstatements, and Prorated cost of adding to the service select contract.

Maxwell Render

20% OFF A New Licence
Offer until January 6th

Maxwell Render Offer

Realflow

50% OFF New Licences, 30% OFF Plugin versions
Offer until January 6th

RealFlow Offer

Rhino 6

15% OFF RRP on Rhino 6 Licences and Upgrades
Offer until January 2nd

Rhino Offer

15% OFF the V-Ray + Rhino Bundle
Comes with FREE Affinity Photo
Offer until January 2nd

V-Ray Rhino Bundle Offer

£50 OFF A New ZBrush Licence
Offer until January 2nd

ZBrush Offer

£50 OFF A New Artlantis Licence
Offer until January 2nd

Artlantis Offer

If you have any questions or would like further information, give us a call on 01206 804984 or send an email to contact@cadsoftwaredirect.com

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
from all of us at CAD Software Direct!

Maxon and Red Giant to Merge

Maxon and Red Giant

Maxon, developers of Cinema 4D and a part of the Nemetschek Group, and Red Giant, tool designers for VFX artists and motion designers, have announced that Red Giant will be joining Nemetschek’s media and entertainment division in January 2020.

Both Maxon and Red Giant are already established names in the digital content creation industry. The merge is expected to finalise in January 2020, subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.

“This merger is a major milestone, not only for Maxon and Red Giant but also for the design industry as a whole,” said David McGavran, CEO of Maxon. “Our combined technology and knowhow have the potential to progressively reshape the content creation landscape for years to come.”

“The combination of our companies is an exceptional fit of people, culture and technology.” said Chad Bechert, CEO of Red Giant. “We look forward to working together under a shared vision of how to design powerful and approachable software to serve creative artists around the world.”

Rhino for Architecture Workshop

Rhino for Architecture

Join McNeel Europe and Francesc Salla, product manager of VisualARQ, on a 2-day BIM oriented Rhino workshop for architects, engineers, and designers at McNeel’s Barcelona offices.

Rhino for Architecture Workshop using VisualARQ
McNeel Europe (Barcelona)
3rd – 4th February 2020
10AM – 6PM

Contact McNeel to Sign Up

The workshop focuses on learning Rhino, VisualARQ, and Grasshopper as a Flexible BIM solution for developing and carrying out an architecture project from the 3D model to the 2D documentation. The workshop will help you improve your architectural modeling skills and parametric design workflow inside Rhino and Grasshopper.

Requirements to join:

  • Basic Rhino knowledge.
  • VisualARQ 2. If your evaluation version expires during the course dates, you can request a temporary license.
  • Rhino 6 for Windows.
  • The course will be delivered in English

Course Fee: €530. Full-time students and university teachers will get a 50% discount (proof of status required). 
Please note your seat is only confirmed once payment has cleared.

Max. Number of Participants: 10 in-class participants + 5 remote. The course will be cancelled 15 days before if the minimum number of participants is not met.

Sign up now by contacting McNeel Europe

Corona for SketchUp – What Happened?

Corona for SketchUp

While the latest news surrounding Corona for SketchUp may have been announced way back in 2018, we are still seeing search activity on Corona for SketchUp. Here’s a little bit about what happened, and some alternative suggestions.

In early 2018, the team behind Corona admitted that the SketchUp plugin was not successful due to a small team of developers undertaking work before moving on to other projects. Little progress was made and some development roadblocks surfaced, which combined with limited manpower dedicated to the plugin, pulled the project to a halt.

It was around this time as well that Chaos Group released version 3.6 of their highly successful V-Ray for SketchUp plugin. After seeing where their own project was at, and comparing it to Chaos Group’s offering, the Corona developers decided it best to concentrate their efforts into Corona for 3ds Max and Corona for Cinema 4D – especially as the Corona team have since joined to become part of Chaos Group themselves.

It is a possibility that a unified API for Corona and V-Ray, or a universal export format may appear at some point, but this is far from an official plan so don’t hold out hope on this one.

Corona for SketchUp Alternatives

Fortunately, there are a wealth of renderers for SketchUp.

V-Ray for SketchUp offers easy photo-realistic rendering for artists and designers in architecture, interior design, film and games design as well as visual effects and much more.

Maxwell Render is available as a plugin for SketchUp as well as a standalone package. Maxwell Render provides unbiased rendering for stunning lighting and realism.

KeyShot is a standalone render that can be used with SketchUp files. This is ideal for photo-realistic product shots.

If you’d like to know more about which render is best for you, contact us or find out more at CAD Software Direct.

Black Friday is Here (and Cyber Monday on the way!)

Black Friday

It’s that time of year again, and there’s some big discounts to be had this time around. Take a look below for what’s available right now.

20% OFF All New Licenses / 10% OFF All Upgrades
Maxwell Render and RealFlow
Offer until 5pm Monday 2nd December

SketchUp

15% OFF MSRP on SketchUp Subscriptions
Offer until 5pm Monday 2nd December

Enter BFSKETCHUP at Checkout!

SketchUp Offer

Save 15% on Trimble’s MSRP when purchasing up to 5 new SketchUp Pro annual termed subscription seats. Discount only applies to the first year term. Offer available until 03.12.19 06:59 (UTC) through participating resellers only. The promotion does not apply to previously placed orders. Not valid in conjunction with any other offer. Not valid for SketchUp Pro Classic licenses or any other SketchUp license type, Maintenance & Support fees, or Reinstatement fees. Valid in UK and Ireland only. Non-transferrable.

Trimble Inc. reserves the right to cancel or modify part or all of this promotion at any time without notice, for any reason in its sole discretion.

Image result for cinema 4d logo

10% OFF a 1 year or more Subscription of Cinema 4D
Offer valid November 29th only

Contact Us for the Cinema 4D Offer

As for Cyber Monday, December 2nd, watch our blog, social channels and website for deals you won’t want to miss on Vectorworks and KeyShot.

If you’d like more information about any of the upcoming deals, or would like to be notified, email us on contact@cadsoftwaredirect.com

Maxwell 5 Upgrade Pre-Order

Maxwell 5 Upgrade

Next Limit have launched the Maxwell 5 upgrade pre-order!

This release of Maxwell Render has been long awaited, and you patient Maxwell users deserve an exclusive offer to reward your trust and support.

If you’re an existing Maxwell Render user, you can get a Maxwell 5 license before anyone else, at a never seen before price – it’s the lowest upgrade price ever!

Don’t wait to upgrade. This offer will end whenever Maxwell 5 launches.

Upgrades are sold as individual licenses, and the upgrade price is the same whether you’re upgrading from V4 or even V1!

Upgrade to Maxwell 5

Dive into Summer with RealFlow – 21% OFF Deal Extended

RealFlow Offer

We’ve still got 21% OFF RealFlow across all new licenses to celebrate the continuation of a scorching summer!

Enter RFSUMMER at checkout to have the discount applied.

The RRP discount is available for new licenses on Realflow 10, RealFlow Cinema 4D, RealFlow Maya and RealFlow 3DS Max.

SketchUp 2019 Plugin for Artlantis Available Now

Artlantis SketchUp Plugin

There’s great news for SketchUp users!  Abvent has released the SketchUp 2019 plug-in for Artlantis 6.5, Artlantis 7 and Artlantis 2019.

Download the Plugin

To ensure that current and potential users are up to speed, Abvent are hosting two Artlantis 2019 webinars on Wednesday, May 8th. The webinars are free, but space is limited.

Don’t miss your chance to learn how to get the most out of Artlantis!

Register Now

New PANTONE Colours for KeyShot

KeyShot Pantone

Luxion is continuing its exclusive partnership with PANTONE® to bring you their complete palette of vibrant pastel, new neon, and fabulous fashion colours right inside of KeyShot.

The new PANTONE colours are available now as part of the exclusive collection of resources in the KeyShot Content Installer. The KeyShot Content installer contains additional resources to use in building your scene and is available for both Mac and Windows installations of KeyShot.

Don’t forget – this month you can also sign up for the free webinar from PANTONE parent company, X-Rite.

Webinar: From Physical to Digital – X-Rite Material Scanning for 3D Rendering in KeyShot
Thursday, April 18th 2019 – 10:00am – 11:00 PDT (18:00 – 19:00 BST)

See the process of going from physical to digital using X-Rite material scans.

Register Here

VisualARQ 2.4 Available for Download

VisualARQ 2.4

VisualARQ 2.4 is available to download now.

This free service release includes some new features and fixes most of the issues reported by users:

  • New components in Grasshopper to create 2D Section views.
  • VisualARQ Script API: RhinoCommon compatible SDK to create, query and edit VisualARQ objects in the document.
  • Added Parameter Grasshopper Component to select document parameters.

Buy VisualARQ         Update VisualARQ

Read on for the complete list of what’s new in this update:

New features

  • VisualARQ Script API: RhinoCommon compatible SDK to create, query and edit VisualARQ objects in the document. Currently only about 30% functionality is exposed in the API.
  • Added Create Section View Grasshopper Component.
  • Added Section Options Grasshopper Components.
  • Added Parameter Grasshopper Component to select document parameters.
  • Added depth parameter in Create Section Grasshopper Component.
  • TAB key works with VisualARQ control points to lock direction.

Changes

  • Rhino 6 SR11 is now required.
  • Unattended VisualARQ installation can set license mode to “Network”.
  • Removed all videos from the context help as they may cause crashes in some computers.
  • Improved speed when computing spaces.
  • Added “Food4Rhino” link the VisualARQ main menu.
  • vaStylesImport command replace existing styles with the same name as the imported ones.
  • vaStylesImport command shows a warning when some styles couldn’t be imported.
  • Improved display speed of VisualARQ objects, up to 5x in model and 3x in layout.

Fixed bugs

  • Stairs
    • Stair control points couldn’t be selected by windows or crossing.
    • Fixed many stair slab generation issues.
    • Fixed a bug that make some step slabs disappear on balanced stair with a small radius.
    • Fixed some bugs when computing spiral stairs.
    • Fixed a bug when increasing the “Bottom Slab Thickness” in spiral stairs.
    • Fixed a bug that makes appear a hole between step and riser slabs in balanced stairs
  • IFC:
    • Fixed a bug that import doors and windows without the opening in the host wall.
    • Fixed a crash when opening some IFC files.
    • Missing objects when importing an IFC without required “Model” IfcGeometricRepresentationContext.
  • Grasshopper Components:
    • All profile creation components check that measures are valid.
    • Some document parameters were duplicated when baking objects.
    • Fixed a crash in the VisualARQ Set Property component.
  • Grasshopper Styles:
    • Doors and windows may not create the opening when there are more than one host wall.
    • Doors and windows generate an opening bigger than necessary in some cases.
  • Fixed a crash when changing a “Brep” parameter value of a Grasshopper Style.
  • Fixed an issue that make difficult to control the wall to attach to when moving doors and windows from a lateral control point.
  • Fixed a bug that make walls disappear when extending to some polysurfaces.
  • Fixed a bug when extending walls to multiple polysurfaces.
  • Section line marks weren’t correctly scaled when document units where changed.
  • Fixed a crash when opening a 3DM.
  • Flip direction context menu option is only shown in for elements.
  • License mode dialog couldn’t be canceled when license was expired.
  • Meshes were missing from 2D previews.
  • vaWall FromSolid command didn’t attach door and windows to the wall in some cases.
  • Some changed were not applied after clicking the Apply button in the curtain wall style editor.
  • Solid modifiers in beams were moved or stretched when modifying the beam control points.
  • Scale icon showed an incorrect measure in HiDPI displays.
  • Level marks were shown in an incorrect elevation on HiDPI displays.
  • Fixed scale icon blurry appearance.
  • Fixed a bug when copying roofs between document with different units.
  • Network license was not working in Rhino 5 (32-bit).
  • Fixed a bug in vaSlabSubtract command when selection non-horizontal slabs.
  • Some doors and windows were imported rotated 90º.
  • “By Parent” material was not correctly handled in some cases.
  • Fixed a crash in the vaFillet command.
  • Fixed a crash when inserting a document with VisualARQ objects as a block instance inside another document.
  • Rhino hangs when inserting a 3DM as block instance.
  • Some elements and annotations were missing when opening some documents.
  • Fixed a bug when creating a block from a column.
  • Per object display mode was ignored when printing in vector output mode.
  • Wrong realtime section color in Realistic viewports.
  • Sometimes, VisualARQ properties tabs were missing in the properties panel.
  • Fixed a bug that updates all objects when editing parameters in the style editor.
  • Fixed a crash when VisualARQ was loaded after pasting a command in the command line.
  • VisualARQ objects were not duplicated when using the Duplicate layer and objects context menu option in the layer manager.
  • Layer off in detail was ignored when printing in vector output mode.

Notes

  • File format hasn’t been changed in this release. Files saved with VisualARQ 2.4 can be opened with VisualARQ 2.3.
  • This release requires Lands Beta VIII, previous versions are not compatible and commands may not work or cause stability issues.

 

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