RailClone 7.0.0

RailClone 7 stable release with 19 new spline features, improved points-clouds, multiple outputs for Macros, RCSlice improvements and more.

New Libraries​

• Windows: A new collection of window systems to help quickly populate architectural scenes
• Ceiling: Highly modifiable ceiling systems to quickly populate commercial interiors
• Curtain Walls: Modern curtain wall systems to speed up modelling buildings
• Parking: A variety of themed systems for creating parking areas, including road markings, parking lines, lighting, cable trays, HVAC, Piping and more!
• Boardwalks: Several wooden boardwalk and bridge systems to create access through exterior parks, nature reserves, gardens and more.

New Features​

Added a new category - Spline operators​

Added a new category - Spline operators. Nineteen new options are included divided between 10 new nodes, as follows:

• Basic Ops A multi-purpose node that collects together several useful spline operations, including:
  • Combine: Combine two or more splines as sub splines. This is useful for linking multiple splines into a single object without affecting the original edit spline objects in Max.
  • Transform: Allows you to translate and rotate splines, or reverse them and edit their curve steps.
  • Fillet: Allows you to procedurally fillet the vertices of the type Corner or Bezier-Corner.
  • Chamfer: Allows you to procedurally chamfer the vertices of the type Corner or Bezier-Corner.
  • Filter by Mat. ID: Allows you to exclude or include splines and spline sections based on Material IDs.
  • Change Mat. ID: Allows you to change the material ID to a fixed value, or to create sequences based on segments or sub-splines.
  • Divide Evenly: Allows you to divide the spline by adding vertices at regular intervals. The parameters are similar to the ones found in the A2S and L1S generators.
  • Divide Markers: Allows you to divide the spline based on markers. Can be useful when used with the Connect operator (see below).
  • Break: Allows you to split the spline at every vertex of the specified type.
  • Padding: Trims splines by applying padding to the start and/or end. Several modes are available, including Start, End, Start/End, First Sub-spline, Last Sub-spline, and First/Last Sub-spline.
  • Normalize: Normalizes splines by section length or knot count. You can calculate distances based on 2D or 3D distanced. In 2D mode the distances are calculated only on the XY plane.
  • Replace Vertex: Changes or deletes vertices of a specific type (Corner, Bezier, etc). It can also remove 'Interpolated' vertices, a special type of vertex created by some spline operators (such as Divide) that convert splines to linear.They don't exist in base spline before being processed
  • Flatten: Makes a spline planar on the X, Y, or Z axis. Can be useful when you want a style with an undulating top and a flat bottom (or vice versa).
• Boolean: A simple boolean node that allows you to input a Subject spline and combine it with a Clip spline using one of 4 different operations:
  • Intersection: Retains only those regions that are covered by both Subject and Clip polygons.
  • Union: Retains regions that are covered by the Subject OR the clip splines, or both.
  • Difference: Retains those regions covered by the subject but NOT the clip splines.
  • Xor: Retains regions covered by Subject or Clip splines, but not both.
• Offset Creates multiple clones of splines with the option to incrementally increase or decrease offset, translation, and rotation. It is similar to the SplineOffset modifier but now available directly inside the RailClone Style Editor for greater flexibility.
  • Number of Parallels: Specifies the number of times the input spline is duplicated.
  • Spacing: Controls the incremental offset of the cloned splines using two parameters.
  • Transform: Incrementally translates or rotates splines with separate controls for the X, Y, and Z axes.
  • Mode: Provides two algorithms for offset and healing operations: 2D Mode and 3D Mode.
    • 2D Mode: Provides the most robust healing solution, with options for Bevel Type and End Type. It also auto-heals splines from different sub-splines but flattens all splines on the Z-axis before processing.
    • 3D Mode: Lacks Bevel Type and End Type features and has a less robust auto-healing algorithm but retains the spline's position and orientation.
  • New Vertices: Allows you to choose which type of vertices are generated by the algorithm.
  • Keep Original Spline: Provides an option to either discard or retain the original spline.
  • Apply Backwards: When enabled, translation and rotation operations are performed in reverse.
  • Double Sided: When enabled, splines are created inside and outside of the source spline.
  • Heal Intersections: When enabled, intersecting parallels from different sub-splines are auto-healed.
• Catenary Generates catenary curves by interpolating between existing corner vertices on splines. Useful for modeling hanging cables, chains, or other structures that naturally form a catenary shape between fixed points.
  • Absolute: Specifies the vertical drop in absolute units.
  • Relative: Defines the drop as a percentage of the segment length.
  • Randomness: Introduces variations in the curve to simulate natural irregularities.
• Connect Generates straight lines connecting two splines. Lines are spaced using existing spline divisions such as vertices or markers.
  • Projection Mode: Defines how lines are projected:
    • Perpendicular to Spline A
    • Forced Vertical
    • Position equivalent between the two splines
  • Filter ID: Only connects vertices with a specified material ID.
• Shape. Allows you to generate standard spline shapes directly in the RailClone graph editor. Types include Line, Rectangle and Circle
• Conform Allows you to project the spline onto a terrain, similar to using the Surface input of a generator, but the spline operator allows you to perform further operations using additional nodes.

• Added Display->Draw Splines which is very helpful when working with the new spline nodes. When enabled, it shows the result of Spline operators in the viewports.
• Added Display->Show RC Icon which makes it easier to identify and select RaiLClone objects in a scene.
  • When enabled, the RC icon is always visible, regardless of the RailClone state.
  • The Icon Name checkbox allows you to display the RailClone object’s name directly in the viewport for easier identification.
  • This setting is global—enabling it for one RailClone object applies it to all. It also persists between sessions.
• RCSlice output can be selected from Transform nodes. This allows you to use a single Segment node for RCSlice, and split it in different pieces using Transform operators. Ideal for use in Macros where you can have a single Segment input which divides inside the macro to several different inputs in a generator.
• Macros now support multiple outputs. This makes Macros much more flexible with a single macro capable of outputting several segment, numeric, or spline properties.
• A Label type has been added to the Numeric node that doesn't provide any value. Instead, it is designed for use to create separators or categories in the Max Parameters list.
• Added support for ITOOSOFT Portable format. Both for Import/Export (.rail files) and Library operations. This allows you to save RailClone objects in a format that is independent of the 3DS Max version. This feature is very experimental, and it’s mainly intended for the ITOOSOFT built-in libraries.

Improvements​

• Selector operator now supports Segments and Splines. In previous versions only segments were supported. Now it is possible to select a spline from a list using an Index or any of the other Selector modes.
• New Display->Point-cloud mode, more optimized for recent 3DS Max versions and modern GPUs (only Max 2017 and above).
  • In classic point-cloud mode, the density of points was proportional to the distance of each RailClone item to the camera. This approach required a full redraw with each change on the viewport, triggering multiple updates to the GPU.
  • With the new mode, the density of points is fixed (all RailClone items has same number of points), and GPU is updated only when RailClone object is modified. In this way, the point-cloud is cached most time in GPU, and doesn't require regular updates. This is much faster and more efficient.
  • By default, each RailClone object is drawn using 250k points. As before, the density can be changed using Display->Global/Local Density.

• Added Y Corner input to the A2S generator so you can now add rows in an array by adding vertices to the Y Spline.
• Array Generator->Auto Align->X->XY now checks than Z is always up. This will save time where users had to reverse splines to make roof splines face in the correct direction.
• V-Ray proxies no longer require full mesh mode to be rendered in V-Ray GPU and Vantage.
• Several Style Editor improvements
  • The width of panels (Properties, Items, etc.) is now saved between sessions.
  • A filter option has been added to the Macro Library.
  • Protected Macros can be loaded without setting the password. It's now only requested when a macro is edited.
• Added Transform->Stop Build which lets you stop the building process at different levels: Sub-Spline, Spline, Array or All.
• Updated help links You can now access the RailClone help system directly from the Style Editor. The links are available in properties of each node.

Fixes​

• Fixed: User macros loaded from library do not respect default selector choice.
• Fixed: Occasionally RailClone Lite can exceed the limit of allowed Segments