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Hi! Been a while since I've posted here. I did a big upgrade to my system, so I'm finally doing a deeper dive into Unreal and my mind is blown. Endless creativity once you get your head wrapped around the philosophies. Building in real time and rendering 1200 frames in 3 minutes is, well, unreal. Doing lots of short animations to learn the tools and create a consistent workflow. I've also never edited anything before, so cutting, editing and audio are all new areas for me to learn as well. I haven't had this much fun with 3d in years.

Silo 2024.1 and Milo 2024.0 The update adds a new Auto UVs modifier that updates an object’s UVs in real time, making it possible to work on a model and have Silo adjust its textures automatically. Once the form of the model is finalized, users can bake the UVs and edit the UV layout in a conventional way. Auto UVs supports five of Silo’s texture projection modes – Cubic, Cylindrical, Spherical, Per Face and Planar Regions – although not yet LSCM, so it’s suited to relatively simple models. Nevercenter describes it as useful for “buildings and mechanical objects that mostly just need a repeating material tile applied in a logical way”. The Planar Regions projection has also been updated, with a new option to orient UVs to world co-ordinates: for example, to give keep textures aligned vertically as a model is modified Cavalry 2.0 Originally released in 2020, Cavalry is a procedural animation app “combining the power and flexibility of 3D with the ease of use of 2D”. Although currently a pure 2D animation tool, it supports workflows that will be familiar to 3D animators, including keyframing, curve editing, deformation, rigging, scattering and instancing. Scene Group’s background is also in 3D motion graphics: the firm is a spin-off from Mainframe North, which developed MASH, Maya’s motion graphics toolset. Once created, images may be exported in a range of file formats, including as JPEG, PNG or SVG sequences, as animated PNGs, as WEBM or QuickTime movies, or in Lottie format. Major changes in Cavalry 2.0 include support for Cameras, making it possible to create 2.5D effects like the one above. Users can create Freeform or Look At cameras, with the option to offset the position of the camera and look-at target to create secondary motion, and to set view distance limits for layers Cavalry 2.0 also introduces an experimental new particle system, for creating particle effects. It’s still a tech preview, but it already includes a range of standard basic features, including settings for particle shape, and a range of emitter types and modifiers. Particles can be emitted from points, shapes, paths or Distributions; and it is possible to direct particle motion with paths, goals, forces or turbulence. Other new features in Cavalry 2.0 include a new Auto-Animate behavior for animating Shapes with fewer keyframes, and support for tapered strokes along Shapes. Workflow improvements include the option to set up overrides for Pre-Comps, making it easier to create variants for a composition. Users can also now group Layers into simplified custom containers called Components, controlling which Attributes are exposed in the UI. Performance improvements include boosts of 10-600% in playback speed: the improvement is greater in complex scenes, but Scene Group says that the average is around 200%. Cavalry also now supports background rendering, making it possible to continue to work while a scene is rendering. Cavalry 2.0 is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 11.0+. The full software is available rental-only, with subscriptions costing £192/year (around $240/year). https://docs.cavalry.scenegroup.co/tech-info/release-notes/2-0-0-release-notes/ After Effects 24.2 The release completes – or at least, supplies features that were missing from – the overhaul of After Effects’ 3D toolset begun last December with the release of After Effects 24.1. After Effects 24.1 made it possible to import 3D models natively into the software, rather than having to use a third-party plugin like Element 3D – but only in glTF and GLB format. To that, After Effects 24.2 adds the option to import models in OBJ format. And while After Effects 24.1 made it possible to light objects in the workspace with a HDRI environment map, but only in .hdr format, After Effects 24.2 adds support for .exr format. It is also now possible to choose whether 3D objects cast or receive shadows, which should make it easier to integrate them with background plates for motion graphics or VFX work. Other changes in After Effects 24.2 include the opion to generate a video preview to use as a thumbnail when exporting a composition as a Motion Graphics template. It is also now possible to encode H.264 in a MOV container, to export as well as import video using the codec. In addition, the CycoreFX HD plugins bundled with After Effects get performance or workflow improvements to the Ball Action, Star Burst, Particle World and Environment effects. After Effects 24.2 is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 12.0+ on a rental-only basis. Single-app After Effects subscriptions cost $34.49/month or $263.88/year. In the online documentation, the update is also referred to as the February 2024 release or After Effects 2024.2. https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/whats-new/2024-2.html Pikimov Artist and developer Clément Cordier has launched Pikimov, a free browser-based video editing and motion design tool. Pikimov was created out of a desire for an alternative to After Effects that runs on a Linux machine, and is capable of simple layer-based compositing and greenscreen removal. Pikimov isn’t Cordier’s first web-based CG app: he is currently the CTO of XR+, which develops a tool of the same name for creating AR and VR experiences, and used to develop VJ software. He says that, “as a creative developer working daily on a Linux machine, I often found myself in need of an After Effects alternative … so I ended up creating Pikimov.” There are a number of other free compositing and video-editing tools, but Pikimov is arguably the one with a UI and workflow closest to that of After Effects itself. The feature set is stil bare-bones, but like After Effects, it uses a layer-based workflow for compositing, with support for masks, filters for image adjustments and blurs, and keyframing. It also features chroma keying for greenscreen removal, and can import 3D models in glTF binary format (.glb), although it doesn’t currently support animated models. Pikimov still has significant limitations: compositions are currently limited to 100 seconds, source footage is capped at full HD (1,920 x 1,080px) resolution, and there is only a single audio track. However, features planned for the future include a true 3D camera, a GLSL shader editor, and support for 3D scans created via 3D Gaussian splatting. It’s also completely free to use, without the need to register on the website, and files are processed locally, without the need to upload data to a server. Pikimov runs in Chrome on Windows, Linux or macOS, or Edge on Windows. It doesn’t support Firefox or Safari. It’s free to use, without the need to register or log in to the website. https://pikimov.com/ SynthEyes 2024.1 First released two decades ago, and acquired by Boris FX last year, SynthEyes quickly became adopted in VFX pipelines for its combination of speed, accuracy and affordability. Movies and broadcast series that SynthEyes has been used on include Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy, Foundation, Stranger Things and Game of Thrones. The standalone 3D tracking application enables artists to perform 3D set extensions, place CG characters into scenes, and animate them using motion capture. It can handle a wide range of shot types, including stereoscopic and 360-degree virtual reality, and exports to most major 3D and compositing applications. SynthEyes 2024.1 streamlines workflow with After Effects, introducing a new SynthEyes Advanced Lens Distortion plugin for Adobe’s compositing software. New features include support for off-center lenses and non-square pixels. The export process has also been reworked, with users now able to export 3D meshes and textures directly to After Effects, and SynthEyes notes now exported as guide layers. In addition, all of the After Effects plugins have been updated to support After Effects’ Multi-Frame Rendering system, and to support Apple Silicon M-Series processors. Other changes in SynthEyes 2024.1 include improved export to Blender and Nuke. It is also now possible to reduce start-up time by deferring reading color maps until they are used. Since we last wrote about the software, the SynthEyes 2024 update itself introduced a new exporter to 3DEqualizer, Science-D-Visions’ heavyweight 3D tracking software. The Maya ASCII exporter was updated with “embedded meshes, distortion projection screens, and more support for zero-pass workflows to Nuke and Fusion”. In addition, Boris FX has simplified SynthEyes’ pricing structure. New perpetual licenses used to cost between $299 to $699, depending on whether you bought the Intro or Pro edition, and for which operating systems. Boris FX now only offers a single perpetual license option in its online store, which costs $595. The firm also now offers monthly and annual subscriptiohs, in line with its other software. SynthEyes 2024.1 is available for Windows 10+, CentOS 7+ Linux and macOS 10.15+. New perpetual licenses now cost $595. Subscriptions cost $49/month or $295/year. https://borisfx.com/release-notes/syntheyes-2024-build-2024-01-1058-release-notes/ GeoGen 0.2 The update improves export from GeoGen, making it possible to export image sequences from all export nodes, to export multiple nodes at once, and to export the viewport state. Other changes include the option to animate waves using the wave phase parameter, and to re-route nodes in the node graph. The release is compatibility-breaking, since it reworks the Crumble node to generate deterministic results, and also updates the Fluvial filter and mask. GeoGen 0.2 is compatible with Windows 10+ and Linux. A macOS version is coming “soon”. It is currently available commercially in alpha. JangaFX hasn’t announced a final release date yet. A node-locked perpetual licence of GeoGen costs $299.99; the rent-to-own plan requires 18 consecutive payments of $19.99 /month. A 14-day trial is available. https://jangafx.com/software/geogen/ LightWave 2023 for Mac On its release for Windows last November, LightWave 2023 became the first update to the veteran 3D animation software since 2020, development having been suspended by previous owner Vizrt, which acquired long-time developer NewTek the previous year. The update adds a node-based procedural modeling system, an Instancer Brush for populating 3D scenes, and a new 3D text tool in LightWave’s Layout application. Several third-party tools, including gaseous fluid simulation add-on TurbulenceFD, workflow plugin collection OD Tools, now renamed LightWave Pro Tools, and animation cache sculpting application ChronoSculpt, are also now included with the software. The update actually moves the Mac editions slightly ahead of Windows, since the release – LightWave 2023.0.1 – will only be available for macOS. Several of the former third-party add-ons have been updated, with TurbulenceFD getting new smoke and flame shaders, and the Pro Tools getting “improved presets and workspaces”. The integration plugin for Octane, Otoy’s GPU renderer, gets an “enhanced UI for use on high-resolution monitors and laptops”. https://lightwave3d.com/information-pages/new-features/ Otoy backs Blender Although Otoy doesn’t seem to have announced the funding officially, Blender Foundation Chairman Ton Roosendaal told CG Channel that the firm became a member of the Blender Development Fund in December. Otoy was previously a primary sponsor of last year’s Blender Conference. Other current Corporate Patrons include tech giants AMD and Amazon, game developer – and fellow rendering software developer – Epic Games, and automotive firm Volkswagen. Otoy has catered to Blender users for over a decade, launching its Blender integration plugin for OctaneRender, its GPU production renderer, in 2013. The move made OctaneRender one of the first major commercial renderers to have an official Blender integration. Since 2019, Blender users have been able to use the renderer for free on a single GPU via its OctaneRender Prime edition. Otoy also includes the Blender integration with the free edition of Octane X, the Metal-native macOS edition of the renderer, which is also limited to a single GPU. Using OctaneRender on multiple GPUs, or in network renders, requires a paid subscription. Sculpt Bridge Tool for Blender As the name suggests, the Sculpt Bridge Tool bridges two points on the surface of a sculpt. Users simply use Blender’s Draw Face Sets tool to paint two regions on the surface of the mesh, then the plugin generates a 3D strand connecting them. The form of the strand can be adjusted using simple silder controls, including the option to have the center sag under gravity. It looks a useful way to add detail to characters, like strands of saliva, tendons, or strips of flesh, in a similar way to ZBrush’s Slime Bridge tool, introduced last year in ZBrush 2023. Although the Sculpt Bridge Tool doesn’t have the same options for generating networks of connections as the Slime Bridge, it does have another useful-looking option: Punch Hole. Rather than creating a strand between the two regions selected, it generates a tunnel through the mesh connecting them, providing an easy way to create organic-looking holes in objects. https://blendermarket.com/products/sculpt-bridge-tool?ref=110 RealityScan 1.4 Epic Games has also added a new Auto-Capture mode, which automatically takes photos as the user moves around the object being scanned. Users can also now batch-process projects, capturing images for several scans while offline, then uploading them to the cloud in one go. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/realityscan/id1584832280 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.epicgames.realityscan Substance 3D Modeler 1.7 Substance 3D Modeler 1.7 is primarily a workflow update, with the main change being the new upscaling algorithm. The change is intended to avoid artifacts when increasing the resolution of a sculpting layer, like the ridge around the middle of the sphere in the before-and-after comparison above. Other changes include progress bars for Boolean operations in the UI; and better handling of interior color when using the Erase, Crop or Split tools to remove virtual clay. it is also now possible to limit viewport frame rate on desktop as well as in VR mode, to reduce processor usage. It is available via Substance 3D Collection subscriptions, which cost $49.99/month or $549.88/year. Perpetual licenses are available via Steam, and cost $149.99. https://helpx.adobe.com/substance-3d-modeler/release-notes/v1-7-release-notes.html NVIDIA RTX 2000 The RTX 2000 is the latest card to use NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace architecture, which features iterative improvements to all three of its key GPU core types: CUDA cores for general GPU computing, Tensor cores for AI operations, and RT cores for hardware-accelerated ray tracing. It also supports DLSS 3, NVIDIA’s AI render upscaling and frame interpolation tech, used to improve viewport interactivity in GPU renderers like D5 Render and Chaos Vantage. In its launch material, NVIDIA has included performance benchmarks for a range of CG apps. They are all comparisons with the 12GB edition of the Ampere-generation RTX A2000: the previous-gen equivalent of the RTX 2000, despite a rather lower recommended price at launch. Viewport performance in 3ds Max and Maya, as measured by the relevant sub-tests in synthetic benchmark SPECviewperf 2020, averages 1.3x that of the previous-gen card. Video editing performance in DaVinci Resolve is also 1.3x that of the older card. The performance boost was higher for GPU rendering, with NVIDIA citing a 1.5x speed boost over the RTX A2000 in both KeyShot and V-Ray, the latter over a range of scenes. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/rtx-2000/ LiquiGen 0.1 Although it’s clearly still a long way from being production-ready, JangaFX’s release notes for LiquiGen 0.1 set out the core features of the software. It’s a real-time sparse liquid solver, described as ‘pseudo-boundless APIC’ – that is, it uses the Affine Particle-in-Cell method for simulation. APIC is usually regarded as more stable and less noise-prone for small-scale simulations than the FLIP (FLuid Implicit Particle) method used in many large-scale liquid solvers. LiquiGen supports real-time meshing of the underlying particles, with users able to export the simulation to other DCC applications as Alembic caches, or to export the particles themselves. Users can use both static or animated meshes as emitters and colliders, and influence the motion of the liquid with forces including Turbulence and Drag. The software comes with two built-in renderers: a rasterized renderer for fast previz, and a path-traced renderer for high-quality output. It supports point, direct and area lights, and HDR lighting, but the material system is currently described as “rudimentary”. The initial alpha is primarily a preview for JangaFX’s supporters, and has a number of known limitations. In particular, mesh import is limited to eight meshes, and only “very well-behaved” meshes are likely to work properly as colliders. There are also known issues when rendering, with path tracing not yet supported on AMD GPUs on Linux, and Intel GPUs not yet supported at all. JangaFX plans a wider public alpha for later in the year. As well as improved performance and stability, upcoming features including support for surface tension, viscosity, foam, spray and bubbles; and for mask-based emission from meshes. LiquiGen 0.1 is available for users of the $399.99 JangaFX Suite: EmberGen, plus new real-time terrain-generation tool GeoGen. The initial alpha supports Windows and Linux, on systems with AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. JangaFX hasn’t announced pricing or a final release date for LiquiGen yet. However, the firm’s other software is available via both perpetual licenses and subscriptions. https://jangafx.com/ Redshift 3.5.24 This release includes support for the next-generation GPU that represents the biggest leap forward in graphics architecture ever for Apple silicon. Other notable features of this release include bug fixes, enhanced stability as well as improvements to the appearance of ramps, and additional features in Houdini. Redshift now supports Apple’s hardware-accelerated ray tracing technology on M3 devices. Improved interpolation in the ramp node allows for crisp lines between stepped gradients. New Houdini plugin featuring a whole lot of quality-of-life improvements. Cinema 4D 2024.3 This release offers artists improved connections with essential tools that streamline workflows and enhance file format compatibility to simplify access to your digital assets. Upgraded Asset Browser now enables you to preview animated assets by hovering over them directly. Asset Browser includes comprehensive support for browsing and adding Adobe Substance 3D materials. Exported glTF files now include skin deformations. USD export now incorporates support for PSR animation. More robust connection between Cinema 4D and ZBrush, featuring Matcap and Dynamic Subdivision support in GoZ. Cineware Work even faster with more flexibility in your workflow, quickly and easily importing and managing your Cinema 4D files in Unreal Engine. Significant performance improvements to the Datasmith Direct Link for Cinema 4D. (Note: only works with Unreal Engine 5.0 and beyond and requires Cinema 4D 2023.0 and beyond.) The transfer of animations has been updated, further enhancing the feature set of the plugin. Project Baklava Announced in 2022, with work beginning last January, the Animation 2025 project is an ambitious three-year plan to overhaul Blender’s character rigging and animation tools. Some of the early results featured in Blender 4.0, released last November, but so far, they have been mainly performance and workflow improvements. In contrast, Project Baklava is a major new feature: a proper non-destructive layered animation system similar to those in applications like Maya. It is underpinned a structural change: the replacement of the old Action data-block as the main container of animation data in Blender by a new Animation data-block. That should make it possible to have multiple characters animated from the same Animation data-block, rather than each requiring its own Action. According to the blog post announcing Project Baklava, that means that “trying out alternative takes for the same animation no longer requires swapping out multiple Actions; instead it can just be done by (un)muting different layers in the animation”. The Animation and Rigging module team aims to include Project Baklava as an experimental feature in the main branch of Blender in “Q2 2024”. That means it could be available in Blender 4.2, currently due for release on 16 July 2024. At that stage, it’s unlikely to be an actual layered animation system: the initial release will focus on multi-ID animation, which the blog post describes as the “biggest unknown” in the work. After the initial release of a single-layer, multi-ID animation, the next step will be to add support for multiple animation layers, but there’s currently no estimated timescale for that. According to the blog post: “After that we might add layers, but maybe we’ll switch to [other key objectives of the Animation 2025 project like] bone pickers or rigging nodes.” The Animation 2025 project is currently expected to culminate with the removal of the old animation system from the Blender UI in Blender 5.0, due in 2025. ZLUDA 3 Andrzej Janik has released ZLUDA 3, a new version of his open-source project that enables GPU-based applications designed for NVIDIA GPUs to run on other manufacturers’ hardware. The wrapper technology is designed to enable existing applications to run on new hardware unmodified, without the need for any work on their developers’ part. While previous versions of ZLUDA enabled CUDA applications to run on Intel GPUs, with version 3, that has switched to AMD GPUs. ZLUDA has been confirmed to work, to varying degrees of success, with software including Blender, photogrammetry apps 3DF Zephyr and RealityCapture, and the Arnold renderer. Janik describes CUDA apps as running with “near-native performance” on AMD GPUs. Benchmark scores shown in Phoronix’s article and this thread on the Blender Artists forum suggest that for Blender, performance under ZLUDA is similar to the native HIP backend. However, the ZLUDA GitHub repository notes that both 3DF Zephyr and Reality Capture are “much slower” under ZLUDA. In addition, many developers of GPU renderers also use a second NVIDA API, OptiX, to accelerate ray tracing, which also contributes to performance. ZLUDA has “minimum” support for OptiX, but only on Linux, not Windows, and the implementation is described as “buggy, unoptimized and incomplete”. In fact, ZLUDA-Optix – used primarily for “proof of concept” support for Arnold – is not included in the redistributable version of ZLUDA: to use it, you have to build it yourself. Without user testing, it’s difficult to say how well other CUDA-based CG applications will run under ZLUDA. However, it seems unlikely to be a magic solution: there are a number of known issues, and Janik has had limited success with other GPU renderers. The V-Ray benchmark runs on “certain ‘lucky’ older combinations” of ZLUDA and HIP, but OctaneBench, the OctaneRender benchmark, doesn’t run at all. Janik says that without the backing of Intel or AMD, “realistically [ZLUDA] is now abandoned”. Although he says that he is “open to any offers that could move the project forward”, without it, he is only likely to add support for NVIDIA technologies that interest him personally, like DLSS. However, the source code is publicly available, and Janik suggests that even its current state, ZLUDA could be used by software devs as part of a “more gradual porting from CUDA to HIP”. Compiled versions of ZLUDA 3 are available for Windows and Linux. The source code is available under either an Apache 2.0 or MIT license. https://github.com/vosen/ZLUDA Chaos Next The Chaos Next webpage doesn’t say which of Chaos’s products the technologies will be used in, but this blog post confirms that the list includes Chaos Cosmos, Cylindo Studio and Enscape. Most of the example images show architectural scenes of the type generated by Chaos’s Corona renderer, or Project Eclipse, its upcoming arch viz storytelling product. However, some technologies – like Set Extender, which “intelligently extends” part of a 3D set – are targeted at VFX work, which suggests use cases in products like V-Ray or Chaos Vantage. Chaos hasn’t announced a release date for any of the AI technologies in development. V-Ray 6 for Maya The update adds support for open material standard MaterialX, now widely adopted in other DCC applications and renderers. The new VRayMaterialX material makes it possible to import and render materials in .mtlx format, while a new export tool makes it possible to export native V-Ray materials to .mtlx. The update also brings initial support for LookdevX, the new toolset for authoring USD shading graphs introduced in Maya 2024. V-Ray materials are now represented as MaterialX nodes within LookdevX, and edits can be previewed in V-Ray IPR. Update 2 also extends Chaos Scatter, which can now scatter lights as well as geometry. Other changes include the option to scatter groups of objects as well as individual objects; and new include and exclude lists for finer control over where objects are scattered. Updates to other existing features include new Direct Diffuse and Direct Specular render elements in Shadow Select, support for cylindrical projection in VRayDecal, and support for chromatic aberration as a post effect in the V-Ray Frame Buffer. V-Ray GPU now supports geometry replication system V-Ray Enmesh. V-Ray 6 for Maya Update 2 is compatible with Maya 2020+, running on 64-bit Windows 8.1+, RHEL and CentOS 7.3+ Linux and macOS 10.13+. The software is rental-only, with node-locked V-Ray Solo subscriptions priced at $466.80/year, and floating V-Ray Premium subscriptions priced at $694.80/year. https://docs.chaos.com/display/VMAYA/What's+New iClone Unreal Live Link 1.3 Reallusion has released iClone Unreal Live Link 1.3, the latest version of its plugin linking iClone, its real-time animation software, to game engine and real-time renderer Unreal Engine. The update adds a new option to bake iClone animations to a single Unreal Engine sequence, making it easier to transfer crowd simulations, and introduces support for parallel processing. First released in 2019, Unreal Live Link is a plugin – or strictly, a set of plugins – live-linking iClone to Unreal Engine. With them, users can render animation created in iClone in Unreal Engine without the need to export and re-import the data manually, making it possible to see changes in real time. The workflow supports full-body and facial animation, with timecode sync, and also transfers props, lights and cameras. New features in Unreal Live Link 1.3 include Bake all animations to sequencer. The new export option bakes all of the characters, motions, props and cameras – although not currently lights – in an iClone scene to a single sequence in Unreal Engine’s Sequencer editor. The workflow is intended to speed up the transfer of crowd animations created using the new crowd simulation features added to iClone’s Motion Director toolset in iClone 8.4. In addition, the live link now supports parallel processing of data between iClone and Unreal Engine, making it possible to continue to edit a scene in iClone while data transfer is in progress. Users can also now exclude facial morph targets in scenes where characters will only be seen at a distance. On its website, Reallusion suggests that the changes speed up the transfer of a crowd scene with 50 characters from “2-6x”. Unreal Live Link 1.3 is compatible with Unreal Engine 4.20+ and iClone 7+ on Windows 7 and 10, although some features require iClone 8 or Unreal Engine 5.0+. The plugin is free to indie users with revenues of under $100,000/year; full licences have a MSRP of $1,490. iClone itself is available for Windows 7+. New licences have a MSRP of $599. https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/live-link/unreal-engine/update.html Open Brush 2.4 Open Brush is based on Tilt Brush, the room-scale 3D painting and sketching tool previously developed by Google, and open-sourced in 2021. Like its predecessor, Open Brush enables artists to paint coloured strokes in virtual reality that function both as paint strokes and 3D geometry. Users can control the form of each stroke by curving or lathing it, and it is possible to constrain strokes to straight lines or use grid or angle snapping to sketch geometric objects. Once created, strokes can be mirrored, recoloured or erased, and users can set up lights, cameras and a background environment for the resulting 3D sketch. Completed sketches can be exported in glTF, FBX, USD or JSON format, or used directly as VR assets in game engines: Open Brush has a dedicated Unity SDK. As well as painting in virtual reality, users can run the software in monoscopic mode on Windows or Mac: currently the only way to use Open Brush on macOS. Released to coincide with the software’s third birthday, Open Brush 2.4 is by far the biggest update to Open Brush since the release of Open Brush 2.0 last year. It adds a range of new features geared towards for creating more precisely ordered drawings, including a new Transform Panel for moving, rotating or aligning strokes on selected axes. The existing Snap Settings panel has also been updated, with new features including the options to snap strokes to guides, to snap strokes only on the axes selected, and to re-apply the current snapping settings to other objects. And the existing Mirror tool has been joined by a new Multi-Mirror tool (shown above), for mirroring strokes on multiple planes simultaneously or creating more complex radial arrays. Open Brush can also now import a wider range of files, including vector images in SVG format – the import process converts them either to raster images or to 3D models. It is also now possible to import custom images to use as environment backgrounds for sketches: the software supports panoramic images in JPEG, PNG or HDR format. Other new features include the option to create and edit camera paths when using a standalone headset, and a webcam viewer panel, aimed at livestreaming sketching sessions. You can find a full list of changes via the link at the foot of the story. Open Brush 2.4 is available free on Windows, Linux and macOS. It is compatible with HTC, Meta. Pico and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. https://docs.openbrush.app/release-history/v2.4 https://docs.openbrush.app/how-to-get-open-brush https://github.com/icosa-gallery/open-brush Cascadeur 2024.1 On its release, Cascadeur 2024.1 will introduce an interesting new feature: animation unbaking. It converts imported animation in which each frame is a keyframe, such as unfiltered motion-capture data, into a set of keyframes and interpolations, making it much easier to edit. Users can process the data automatically, or place keyframes and choose interpolation types manually for finer control. The unbaked animation can then be edited using Cascadeur’s native tools, including using AutoPhysics to smooth unwanted noise, or to add realistic secondary motion. Cascadeur 2024.1 will also add support for animation retargeting to the software, making it possible to transfer animation from one character to another with different bodily proportions. According to Nekki’s blog post, the process is a simple copy-paste operation, and works with any humanoid characters. In addition, AutoPhysics receives a “massive upgrade”, enabling it to be used in animations in which characters interact with the environment: for example, climbing stairs. The workflow can be used with moving as well as static objects: the video above shows a character on a moving platform, with realistic inertia as the platform comes to rest. Nekki has also “completely overhauled” its licensing model, and plans to introduce a new license type, and to change the prices of the existing editions. The software is currently free to individuals or teams with revenue under $100,000/year, although animation export is capped at 300 frames per scene and 120 joints per scene. Pro subscriptions cost $300/year, and remove export restrictions. Business subscriptions, which also ensure priority support, cost $1,000/year. When Cascadeur 2024.1 is released, that will expand to four editions: Free, Indie, Pro and Teams. The Pro edition will become “slightly more expensive”, but it will be joined by a “significantly less expensive” new Indie subscription. The free edition will become available to anyone, regardless of income, but will only have a limited range of functions. Cascadeur 2024.1 is due for release in “mid-March” 2024. The current stable release, Cascadeur 2023.2, is available for Windows 10+, Ubuntu 20.04+ Linux and macOS 13.3+. https://cascadeur.com/blog/general/preview-on-20241-cascadeur-for-animation-editing RTX 500 and RTX 1000 pro laptop GPUs The RTX 500 and 1000 are the latest GPUs to use NVIDIA’s Ada Lovelace architecture, which features improvements to all three of its key GPU core types: CUDA cores for general GPU computing, Tensor cores for AI operations, and RT cores for hardware-accelerated ray tracing. It also supports DLSS 3, NVIDIA’s AI render upscaling and frame interpolation tech, used to improve viewport interactivity in GPU renderers like D5 Render and Chaos Vantage. The new cards fill out the bottom end of NVIDIA’s Ada Generation line-up of pro laptop GPUs, begun last year with the RTX 2000, RTX 3000, RTX 3500, RTX 4000 and RTX 5000. For general content creation work, their core counts and compute performance approach those of the existing RTX 2000, although they’re significantly lower than those of the other cards. When it comes to GPU rendering, their graphics memory capacity is quite limited: 6GB for the RTX 1000, and just 4GB for the RTX 500. However, at 35-60 W, the power consumption of the RTX 500 is the lowest of any professional Ada Generation GPU, albeit still higher than the previous-generation Ampere cards. The figures for the RTX 1000 are identical to the existing RTX 2000 and RTX 3000. NVIDIA hasn’t released any specific benchmark scores for CG applications for the new cards. Its blog post announcing the new GPUs includes some more general performance comparisons, noting that the RTX 500 provides “up to 14x the generative AI performance for models like Stable Diffusion, up to 3x faster photo editing with AI and up to 10x the graphics performance for 3D rendering compared with a CPU-only configuration”. The RTX 500 and RTX 1000 are due to become available this spring in laptops from NVIDIA partner firms including Dell Technologies, HP, Lenovo and MSI. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/rtx-professional-laptops// Pulldownit 5.7 for Maya and 5.8 for 3ds Max Despite the difference in version numbers, both Pulldownit 5.7 for Maya, released in December, and Pulldownit 5.8 for 3ds Max, released this week, are the first major public updates to the software since last year’s Pulldownit 5.5, and include most of the same new features. They include a new Fast Stacking & Deactivation solver for collisions, described as computing “up to 4x faster” on scenes with hundreds or thousands of dynamic fragments. Other performance improvements include better support for instanced shapes in the core solver, reducing memory overheads on complex simulations. Both updates also improve performance and workflow when simulating collisions between animated and dynamic objects – for example, a character breaking an object – adding a new animation speed multiplier parameter to control the strength of the impact. There are also new options for animating a cracker multiplier, making it possible to change the strength of the effect across a simulation, or disable it at a specified frame. When shattering geometry, the Jagginess deformer gets a new Asymmetric Tessellation mode, which generates “nearly 50% fewer polygons” than the existing Uniform Tessellation mode; and there is a new option to apply jagginess to all of the fragments in a scene with one click. In addition, in 3ds Max edition it is now possible to animate decay for Wind and Gravity, for more precise control over how force fields affect a simulation. The Maya edition gets new options to create multiple fracture bodies from groups of objects, and to create hierarchies of rigid bodies by selecting a parent group. Pulldownit is available for 3ds Max 2020+ and Maya 2019+. The software is rental-only. Node-locked licences now cost €290/year (around $315/year), and floating licences cost €360/year ($391/year), both up €10/year since the 5.5 releases. https://thinkinetic.blog/2024/02/26/pulldownit-5-8-for-3ds-max-released/ Project Eclipse Chaos has announced that it is to launch a new product for “rapid arch viz storytelling”. The tool, codenamed Project Eclipse, was announced last night’s Chaos Unboxed livestream previewing the company’s product updates for 2024, and is currently “getting close to beta”. According to Chaos, the new product is intended to let architects and visualization professionals “quickly tell their design’s story” including “far more detail, permutations and animation than is possible in any CAD tool”. The livestream footage is labelled Project Eclipse at the top of the screen, but we assume that’s a temporary name: on Chaos’s blog, it’s described simply as a new ‘storytelling platform’. It will “accept and combine” scenes from V-Ray and Enscape, Chaos’s architectural renderers. The footage from the livestream shows a user scouting an exterior scene, populating it with 3D plants and stock 3D characters, then generating renders at different times of day. According to Chaos, the tool will let you “rapidly enhance your scene, explore your design variations, animate the possibilities, and even orchestrate crowds and traffic far more rapidly than you can anywhere else”. That suggests that it could be targeted at a similar audience to real-time visualization tools like D5 Render, Lumion or Twinmotion, but so far, Chaos hasn’t released any more details. Chaos hasn’t announced the price or system requirements for Project Eclipse. It is “getting close to beta”, and due “later this year”. 3DCoat 2024 and 3DCoatTextura 2024 Pilgway has released 3DCoat 2024 and 3DCoatTextura 2024, the latest major versions of its sculpting, retopology and 3D painting software and its cut-down edition for texturing work. Key changes in 3DCoat 2024 include a new Live Booleans system for procedural 3D modeling, vector displacement brushes for digital sculpting, and new tools for adjusting topology. Changes common to both editions include Photoshop-style layer and clipping masks and a built-in AI assistant based on ChatGPT. Pilgway releases new builds of 3DCoat every few days, so the latest release is actually 3DCoat 2024.12, but it’s the first to be designated an official 2024 release in the online changelog. The release notes include features that were rolled out during the 2023.x updates, so check out our previous stories for details of the Live Booleans system and vector displacement brushes. Key changes in 3DCoat 2024 that we haven’t covered in previous stories include layer and clipping masks. They can be used with 3DCoat’s painting tools, including Vertex Paint and Voxel Paint, and the way they have been implemented is “similar to and compatible with” Photoshop. The Modeling Room gets a new Edge Flow tool for adjusting the curvature of a mesh around the edge loop selected, and Equalize Edges for generating even topology. There are also a number of UI and workflow changes, including a new View Gizmo similar to those in other DCC apps, and a built-in AI assistant based on a custom version of ChatGPT. Outside the core application, 3DCoat 2024 features a new add-ons system for “easy sharing” of Python and C++ scripts, intended to connect developers with the users of their scripts. The Blender AppLink, 3DCoat’s connection plugin for the open-source 3D software, has been updated to support Blender 4.0. 3DCoat 2024 is available for Windows 7+, Ubuntu 20.04+ and macOS 10.13+. For individuals, perpetual node-locked licenses cost €379. Subscriptions cost €20.80/month or €169.85/year. Rent to own plans require 11 continuous monthly payments of €41.60. For studios, perpetual node-locked licenses cost €539; floating licences cost €579. Subscriptions cost €29.85/month or €299/year for node-locked licenses; €34.85/month or €319.85/year for floating licenses. 3DCoatTextura 2024 is available for Windows 7+, Ubuntu 20.04+ and macOS 10.13+. For individuals, perpetual node-locked licenses cost €119. Subscriptions cost €10.80/month. Rent to own plans require seven continuous monthly payments of €21.60. For studios, perpetual node-locked licenses cost €379; floating licenses cost €419. Subscriptions cost €20.85/month or €199/year for node-locked licenses; €24.85/month or €229/year for floating licenses. https://3dcoat.com/release_note/v202412/ Affinity Photo 2.4 Serif has released Affinity Photo 2.4, the new version of its image editing and digital painting app. The update, which is free to existing users, adds support for 32-bit PNG HDR images and new RAW image formats, and makes a number of workflow improvements. The update was released alongside version 2.4 of Serif’s other Affinity products, vector design software Affinity Designer 2.4 and page layout tool Affinity Publisher 2.4. Key changes in Affinity Photo 2.4 include the addition of 32-bit PNG files to the list of file formats in which HDR images can be imported and exported. The implementation follows the latest PNG specification, and supports both full- and narrow (broadcast)-range HDRs, with PQ and HLG transfer functions. Affinity Photo also now supports RAW files from 50 more models of cameras and smartphones. There are also a number of workflow improvements to the Export Persona, and to object selection, locking and alignment within a document. Affinity Photo 2.4 is available for Windows 10+, macOS 10.15+ and iPadOS 15.0+. The update is free to registered users of version 2.x. New perpetual licences of the desktop edition cost $69.99; the iPad edition costs $18.49. A Universal License, which includes all of the Affinity apps, costs $164.99. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/whats-new/

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