Getting Started

Step 1

Download the installer

Go to the product page and press Download. You will get a single .exe that contains the builds for every supported version of 3ds Max.

Step 2

Close 3ds Max

The installer writes into Max's plugin folders. If Max is open, the files are locked and the installation will be incomplete. Close it fully before you continue.

Step 3

Run the installer

It detects which versions of 3ds Max you have and installs the matching build into each one. You do not need to choose a folder.

Step 4

Start 3ds Max and find the plugin

For VanguardLiquid, create the object from the Create panel and its rollout appears in the Modify panel. If nothing appears, see If the plugin does not show up below.

Step 5

Copy your Hardware ID

The plugin panel shows a Hardware ID with a button to copy it. This is what ties a licence to your machine.

Step 6

Request the licence

Sign in at your customer panel, open the product tab, choose the product and the plan, and paste the Hardware ID.

A 7-day trial is issued immediately; what a trial may take out differs by product, and the FAQ gives each one. For a paid plan, attach your payment receipt; a person reviews it, usually the same day.

Step 7

Paste it into the plugin

Your licence appears in the panel as two lines. Copy both, paste them into the licence box in the plugin, and press activate. That is the last time you need to think about it.

Step 8

Create the domain and give it something to pour

Add the fluid object, then set an emitter and a collider from your own geometry. The domain is the volume the solver works in; anything outside it is not simulated.

Step 9

Start coarse

Run at a low resolution first. It costs seconds instead of minutes and tells you whether the motion is what you wanted. Raise the resolution once the behaviour is right — that is the single biggest time saver there is.

Step 10

Simulate, then mesh

Simulate to build the cache, then turn on the surface mesh. Whitewater — foam, spray, bubbles — is generated from the same simulation.

Step 11

Render without the domain box

The domain is a boundary, not geometry. Switch off its visibility at render time and the surface and whitewater render on their own.

Drop one object and let it build

Create the city object and press build. It lays a street network, the blocks between the streets, and buildings with real facades — all from parameters, so changing a number rebuilds it rather than making you model it again.

Start small

Build a few blocks before you build a district. The generator is fast, but a full city is millions of triangles and your viewport will tell you so.

Use the material IDs

Every part — street, kerb, facade, glass, roof, door — comes out on its own material ID, so one Multi/Sub-Object material textures the whole city at once.

Add the cloud object

There is no simulation and no cache. Add it, pick a cloud type, and the density is already there — change a setting and the result changes with it.

Set the sun before you judge the clouds

Volumetric cloud reads almost entirely as light. Place the sun first; the same density under a different sun is a different sky.

Choose it in Assign Renderer

Open Render Setup (F10) and pick Vanguard Render from the renderer list. Max keeps the choice with the scene, like any other renderer.

Give the scene a light

A correctly built scene with nothing lighting it renders black, which looks exactly like a broken one. Add a light, or a sun, before deciding something is wrong.

Bitmaps, not procedurals

Materials are read by parameter and textures ride on map channel 1 as bitmaps. A procedural Texmap renders as flat colour — bake it to an image and point the material at that.

Add the modifier and move one slider

Select the object you want aged, add the Reclaim modifier, and drag Years abandoned. That is the whole operation — the defaults are meant to look right with nothing configured.

Key the slider to make it a shot

Every generator is a function of that one number, so keying it runs the decay as animation: ivy grows, panes fall one at a time, moss spreads.

Watch the triangle readout before you render

The Growth object tells you what each layer — ivy, leaves, weeds, debris — will cost before you render it. Set the expensive ones to Reduced rather than discovering the cost at render time.