GhostPencilPro Gives Max a Grease Pencil

For those who don’t know the tool: Mostafa Ahmed, develops GhostPencilPro as a native C++ plug-in for Autodesk 3ds Max. It brings a Blender-style Grease Pencil workflow into a Max scene object for sketching, storyboards, animation, stylised strokes and pipeline automation. In other words, Max users can briefly experience what Blender users insist a “real 3D package” feels like. That is a joke. Please lower the pitchforks.

GhostPencilPro takes one of Blender’s more distinctive production ideas and rebuilds it inside 3ds Max: editable drawing and animation that lives directly in the 3D scene. For Max users, that means no detour into another DCC just because somebody wants to sketch over a shot, animate a hand-drawn effect or add stylised line work. For Blender users, it means one fewer reason to smugly point at Grease Pencil during lunch. Also a joke. Well, a joke on something, you pick on what.

Grease Pencil, but make it Max

GhostPencilPro installs as a native C++ plug-in and creates a normal 3ds Max scene object. The developer documents compatibility with 3ds Max 2024 through 2027+. Artists can draw editable vector strokes directly in the viewport and work with layers, keyframes, gradients, procedural effects and drawing controls without leaving the scene. Six sub-object modes expose vertices, segments, strokes, gradients, the drawing grid and symmetry centre. A floating Qt toolbar keeps common tools near the viewport, while Modify panel rollouts can be detached into separate windows.

Layers, frames and onion skins

GhostPencilPro supports layered drawings, group folders, opacity controls, clipping masks and Photoshop-style blend modes. Animation tools include frame keys, onion skinning and automatic interpolation between keyed drawings. That puts it in useful territory for storyboarding, layout annotations, motion graphics, hand-drawn effects and hybrid 2D/3D animation.

It is not Blender Grease Pencil interchange. The documentation does not promise importing or round-tripping Blender Grease Pencil objects. GhostPencilPro reproduces a similar category of workflow natively inside Max. That is arguably the more interesting part anyway. The drawings stay with the Max cameras, geometry and animation rather than becoming another hand-off to manage.

Your .ABR collection has entered the viewport

Tablet input is supported through devices including Wacom, Huion and XP-Pen, with Windows Ink compatibility. Pressure can control width and opacity. GhostPencilPro also imports Photoshop .ABR brushes, extracting their stamp images for use with its own brush system. Artists can adjust spacing, scatter, angle and size variation while keeping the underlying stroke editable.

This is brush import, not Photoshop project interchange. Your carefully hoarded brush folder has found another application to occupy. And we all know: You can NEVER have too many Bruhes. Never. Wanna swap some Terabytes?

The strokes live in 3D

The developer describes GhostPencilPro strokes as 3D geometry that can respond to cameras, lighting and depth of field. Camera-facing and screen-space display options are also available. That opens the door to drawings attached to scene geometry, storyboard notes placed around a shot, animated outlines and stylised effects that remain spatially connected to the scene. The documentation also names V-Ray, Arnold and Corona for final-render visibility.

MAXScript gets involved

GhostPencilPro exposes substantial functionality through MAXScript and documents Python API integration.The scripting examples cover creating layers, changing brush properties, generating strokes, editing animation keys and querying scene data. For technical artists, that means drawing workflows can become part of automated scene setup, validation or custom production tools rather than remaining purely interactive.

This is where the plug-in becomes more than “Grease Pencil for Max.” A studio can potentially wire its drawing system into the same automation used for the rest of a Max pipeline. And yes, Max users may now resume explaining that scripting was the real feature all along.

https://mostafa3609.github.io/Ghost_Pencil-Pro/

https://3djps360.gumroad.com/l/MAX-GhostPencil-Pro