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Twinmotion 2024.1 Under the hood, Twinmotion 2024.1 has been updated to Unreal Engine 5.4, the latest version of game engine and real-time renderer, and makes use of some of its new features. Like Unreal Engine itself, Twinmotion now features a Render Layers system, making it easier to integrate the software with layer-based compositing workflows in VFX and visualization work. Users can select objects within a scene, give them an ID number, and render them as separate render passes or as ID masks, providing more flexibility in the final composite. The feature is a work in progress, and is currently only available for stills and image sequences. Other known limitations include a lack of support for fog, weather effects and transparent objects as holdouts, and objects do not affect reflections or illumination of those in other layers. For populating scenes, Twinmotion 2024.1 adds two new scattering tools: Spacing and Area. They scatter objects in a scene along user-defined paths and within user-defined areas, respectively, but currently only work on horizontal surfaces, and don’t support rigged characters. The update streamlines material workflow, reducing the number of clicks required to add a new material to a scene, adds a new Foliage material type, and updates the Fabric material. The Foliage material makes plants responsive to Twinmotion’s season settings, changing the color of leaves automatically in deciduous species. The existing Fabric material gets new Standard and Thin modes for opaque and translucent fabrics, and a wider range of readymade material types. It is also now possible to assign an ambient occlusion texture to materials to compensate for the lack of accurate occlusion in real-time renders in the Standard and Lumen render modes. Twinmotion 2024.1 also adds new Filmback settings for cameras, for matching the properties of real-world cameras including focal length, depth of field intensity, and image aspect ratio. Bloom, lens flare and lens dirt settings have now been grouped in the Camera tab of the Ambience panel. Animators get a new Sequence media type, making it possible to combine camera movements or animations from imported files into animation sequences and export them as videos. There is also a new Action Cam camera type for sequences, which provides more user control over the motion of cameras: both the rate at which they move, and their trajectory. Other changes include the option to parent Animators in the scene graph to create more complex animations. Characters and vehicles from the asset library can now be animated deterministically, with Twinmotion generating identical animations when parameters are re-used. Twinmotion 2024.1 is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 12.5+. Integration plugins are available for CAD and DCC apps including 3ds Max 2017+, Modo 16.0+ and SketchUp Pro 2019+. The software is free to users with gross annual revenue under $1 million/year. The free edition lacks access to cloud collaboration platform Twinmotion Cloud, but its otherwise fully featured. For larger studios, subscriptions cost $445/seat/year. https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/twinmotion/twinmotion-2024.1-preview-release-notes https://www.facebook.com/twinmotion/videos/445359721373075/?__tn__=%2CO V-Ray for ARM Although ARM processors have historically been associated with mobile devices, the architecture is now more widely being used in desktop systems and cloud instances. Chaos’s blog post comments that “so far, AWS benchmarks of ARM-based CPUs against comparable x86 processors show similar performance at a reduced cost of operation” – that is, lower power consumption. ARM processors are supported by a range of Linux distros, including those commonly used in DCC applications like RHEL and Ubuntu. According to the blog post, Chaos is working on “general V-Ray support”, which suggests that ARM processors will be supported in both V-Ray Standalone and editions of the renderer for DCC applications available on Linux, like V-Ray for Maya. V-Ray for ARM processors is “coming soon”. Chaos hasn’t announced an exact release date or system requirements. https://www.chaos.com/blog/coming-soon-v-ray-for-arm Autograph 2024.04 Autograph 2024.04 adds new features for animating objects along motion paths,. Users can reshape paths by dragging control points, while a Motion Path tool makes it possible to adjust keyframes directly in the viewport. The software’s Retime Graph can be used to control the rate at which an object moves along a path, with users able to choose from over 40 interpolation types. The update also adds a new Layout tool for arranging objects in the viewport, with standard control options for aligning, evenly distributing, or mirroring them. The software’s text tools get new interpolation and easing modes for text animation, and the option to use fonts that are not installed locally by dragging TTF or OTF files into the Project Panel. There are also new modifiers, including Film Grain and Trigger Animation. Workflow improvements include a new Overview Panel and Project Tree for navigating the Generators and Modifiers in a composition, and a quick access menu for adding new ones. It is also now possible to copy and paste parameters between items in the Project Panel. In addition, Autograph now has beta support for standard 3D files formats other than USD: the software now has importers for glTF, FBX, OBJ, STL and PLY files. Autograph is compatible with Windows 10+, Ubuntu 22.04+ and RHEL/Rocky Linux 8+, and macOS 10.15+. The software supports Apple Silicon processors natively on macOS 11.0+. Perpetual licences of Autograph Creator, for users with annual revenue under $1 million/year, cost $945; rental costs $35/month or $315/year. Perpetual licences of Autograph Studio cost $1,795; rental costs $59/month or $599/year. https://www.left-angle.com/public/doc-autograph/dev-master/chapters/whats_new/2024.4.1.html Fusion Studio 19.0 A version of the Fusion toolset is included in DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic Design’s colour grading, editing and visual effects software, version 19.0 of which has also just been released. DaVinci Resolve gets more promotional support than Fusion Studio – at the time of writing, the Fusion Studio product webpage hasn’t even been updated to version 19 – so the video above is for DaVinci Resolve 19.0, but the features shown should be common to both apps. New features in Fusion Studio 19.0 include IntelliTrack, a new point tracker powered by Neural Engine, Fusion Studio’s machine learning system, for tracking objects or stabilizing footage. In addition, Fusion Studio now supports DaVinci Resolve’s Resolve FX Surface Tracker and Resolve FX Object Removal features. For rotoscoping, a new Multi Poly tool (shown above) makes it possible to create multiple roto masks in a single node. In addition, all of the Shape tools now support motion paths, and there are two new nodes: sText, for adding text to shape-based node trees, and sBSpline, for creating spline shapes. Performance improvements include a speed boost of “up to 3x” in Magic Mask. The update also extends the new USD-based workflows introduced in Fusion Studio 18.5. Fusion Studio 19.0 adds four nodes for manipulating textures directly in a USD scene without having to edit the source file: uTexture, uTexture Transform, uShader, and uNormal Map. There is also a new uVolume tool (shown above), for importing, shading and rendering volumetric effects like fire and smoke in OpenVDB format. Fusion Studio 19.0 is available for Windows 10+, CentOS 7.3+/Rocky Linux 8.6 and macOS 13.0+. New licences cost $295. The Fusion toolset in the free edition of DaVinci Resolve has a maximum image resolution of 16k x 16k and lacks network rendering capabilities. https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=199323 DaVinci Resolve 19.0 New features in the Color Page, DaVinci Resolve Studio’s color correction toolset, include ColorSlice, a new six-vector grading palette, shown at the foot of the image above. It provides controls for the RGB or CMY vectors of an image – there’s actually also a seventh dedicated vector for skin tone – with options to adjust the density, saturation and hue of each. In the existing RGB Mixer palette, it is now possible to normalize channels as you adjust them. The update also adds IntelliTrack, a new point tracker powered by Neural Engine, DaVinci Resolve’s machine learning system, available within the Tracker palette on the Color Page, for tracking and selectively color-correcting objects within a shot. There is a second new Neural Engine-powered feature in the Motion Effects palette: the new UltraNR mode in the spatial noise reduction tool, which automatically adusts the luma and chroma thresholds of footage to remove noise, based on a user-controllable sample area. Other changes include a new Node Stack system, which lets users break up a node graph into up to four layers to simplify complex grading workflows. The layers are applied sequentially. Also available through the Color Page, DaVinci Resolve Studio’s library of Resolve FX image-processing plugins now includes a new Film Look Creator. It enables users to apply filmic looks to footage by selecting from presets or adjusting over 60 control parameters, including options for creating split tone effects, and for mimicking the properties of physical film, including halation, grain and flicker. Other new Resolve FX plugins include Defocus Background, an AI-powered effect that automatically isolates and blurs the background of shot, creating a shallow depth of field. The existing Face Refinement effect has been updated, and can now track more than one face within a shot. There are also new options for adjusting track points and interpolating keyframes. Performance improvements include speed boosts of “up to 3x” for the Beauty, Edge Detect and Watercolor effects on Macs, and “up to 2x” on NVIDIA systems. In the Fusion page, DaVinci Resolve Studio’s integrated compositing toolset, support for USD-based workflows – introduced in DaVinci Resolve 18.5 – has been expanded. The update adds four new nodes for manipulating textures directly in a USD scene without having to edit the source file: uTexture, uTexture Transform, uShader, uNormal Map. There is also a new uVolume tool, for importing, shading and rendering volumetric effects like fire and smoke in OpenVDB format. Workflow improvements include a new Referenced Composition system, which makes it possible to save comps and reuse them across multiple clips or timelines. Changes made to the source composition are automatically propagated to all of the copies. For rotoscoping, a new Multi Poly tool (shown above) makes it possible to create multiple roto masks in a single node. In addition, all of the Shape tools now support motion paths, and there are two new nodes: sText, for adding text to shape-based node trees, and sBSpline, for creating spline shapes. Performance improvements include a speed boost of “up to 3x” in Magic Mask. However, the biggest changes in DaVinci Resolve Studio 19.0 are to the editing toolsets, with the Cut page getting new features aimed at live broadcast work. They include the option to view all of the live camera feeds for a broadcast on a multi-view screen, and to set POI (Point of Interest) markers across all of the feeds in real time. The markers can then be used to trigger replays from each Point of Interest, with a range of retiming presets for slow-motion playback. Both the Cut and Edit pages get new AI-based editing tools, including voice isolation, speech-to-text transcription, and text-based timeline editing, similar those in tools like Premiere Pro. The Fairlight audio toolset also gets AI-based tools, including an audio panning system based on the IntelliTrack tracker, and a dialogue separator for rebalancing speech and ambient sound. Other new features include support for Ambisonic surround sound, and automatic binaural rendering of Dolby Atmos mixes. We don’t cover video or audio editing on CG Channel, but you can find a complete list of changes via the links at the foot of the story. DaVinci Resolve 19.0 and DaVinci Resolve Studio 19.0 are available in beta for Windows 10+, CentOS 7.3/Rocky Linux 8.6, and macOS 13.0+. The updates are free to existing users. The base edition is free; the Studio edition, which adds AI features, stereoscopic 3D tools, HDR grading and more Resolve FX filters and Fairlight FX audio plugins, costs $295. https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=199322 Marvelous Designer 2024.0.173 The update introduces new USD workflows for Unreal Engine 5.4, the latest version of the game engine, making it possible to export simulation data to UE5 in USD format. The Marvelous Designer library also now includes 18 avatars corresponding to MetaHuman body types, making it easier to create clothing for MetaHuman characters in Unreal Engine. CLO Virtual Fashion has raised the price of node-locked Enterprise subscriptions from $1,700/year to $1,900/year. https://support.marvelousdesigner.com/hc/en-us/articles/29074012807449-Marvelous-Designer-2024-0-New-Feature-List Project Neo The power to produce stellar icons, lively drawings, and unique dimensional shapes with simple twists, turns, and tweaks in minutes, not hours, using familiar controls and commands you know from Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Style, sculpt, and shape from every angle as you build vector & isometric illustrations to create engaging and stimulating graphics. Project Neo gives you more control over color, mid-tones, and shadows by adding depth and geometry to your designs. https://projectneo.adobe.com/ Unity 6 A major structural change in the Unity 6 Preview is the GPU Resident Drawer, a “behind-the-curtain GPU-driven system” to speed up rendering of scenes with a lot of instanced objects. It is supported on both HDRP and URP render pipelines, and the performance boost scales with scene complexity, so “the more instanceable objects you render, the larger the benefits”. The new rendering path is specifically for static meshes, including vegetation generated with Unity’s SpeedTree technology, so it won’t work with skinned characters, particles or effects. There are also increases in render performance via new upscaling technologies, making it possible to render frames at lower resolution, then upres them to screen resolution. They include Spatial-Temporal Post-Processing (STP) a new system that Unity describes as generating higher-quality visuals than the existing TAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing) Upscaler. It is supported in both HDRP and URP, and works on desktop, console and compute-capable mobile devices. In addition, the HDRP now supports AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 2.1 upscaling system on Windows. It supports AMD, Intel and NVIDIA GPUs under DirectX 11, 12 or Vulkan. The HDRP, Unity’s High Definition Render Pipeline for desktop and console games, gets a number of improvements in the Unity 6 Preview, particularly for environmnents. The Physically Based Sky system now includes an ozone layer as part of its atmospheric model, resulting in realistic color changes when the sun is close to the horizon, as shown above. It is also now possible to enable aerial perspective to simulate light absorption by particles in the atmosphere when looking at distant objects like mountains or clouds. The water system gets support for volumetric fog for rendering underwater god rays and light shafts, and a new node in the Shader Graph for sampling the height of the render camera relative to the water surface, which can be used to mimic water droplets on the camera lens. There are also workflow improvements when rendering volumetric clouds and hair, plus a new ring procedural for lens flares, which generates concentric circular flares. In addition, the Path Tracer now supports Tube and Disc Area Lights, and denoising of volumetric fog separate to the beauty pass. The URP, Unity’s Universal Render Pipeline, sees smaller improvements. One key change is that the Render Graph, Unity’s system for authoring custom render pipelines, is now available in the URP as well as the HDRP. In addition, foveated rendering is now available in the URP in the Forward+ render path, making it possible to reduce render quality according to distance from the center of the screen or the viewer’s point of focus in a VR headset, in order to improve render performance. In addition, all of Unity’s Muse generative AI tools are now officially available in the Unity Editor. The change isn’t listed in the release notes, but Unity announced it less than two weeks ago, so the Unity 6 Preview will be many users’ first chance to try the tools. We’ve covered Texture and Sprite, Muse’s text-to-texture and text-to-image systems, on CG Channel before, so check out this story for details of their current capabilities. Users now also have access to text-to-animation system Animate (shown above), which makes it possible to generate Animation Clips for humanoid characters from text descriptions. The results can be edited by decomposing the clip into multiple poses, adjusting the position of the character’s joints manually, then having Animate regenerate the animation accordingly. For lighting, Unity 6 Preview features further updates to Adaptive Probe Volumes, Unity’s system for automating the placement of light probes, including support for sky occlusion. There are also workflow improvements to the Shader Graph, including a new heatmap color mode for debugging shader set-ups by identifying the most GPU-intensive nodes in a graph. The VFX Graph gets new profiling windows for debugging effects set-ups. There are also updates to the developer tools, UI tools, XR features and platforms that Unity supports, particularly for online games, with mobile browsers – both Android and iOS – now supported in Unity’s Web platform, and experimental support for the new WebGPU API. Unity 6 Preview is also, potentially, the first version of the software to which Unity’s controversial new Runtime Fee will apply. According to Unity’s blog post, the Preview is “most suitable” for preproduction and prototyping, but if “any code, functionality, or fixes from any Unity 6 version are incorporated in a live game, it may be subject to the applicable runtime fees”. The Runtime Fee will be applied to games created with Unity 6 that reach over a million installs, and earn over $1 million in gross revenue in the previous 12 months. The Unity Editor is compatible with Windows 10+, Ubuntu 20.04/22.04 Linux, and macOS 11.0+. Free Personal subscriptions can be used by anyone with revenue of up to $100,000/year. They have a non-removable splash screen, plus the restrictions listed in this comparison table. Pro subscriptions cost $2,040/year. Industry subscriptions, which add tools aimed at product visualization, cost $4,950/year. https://docs.unity3d.com/6000.0/Documentation/Manual/WhatsNewUnity6Preview.html https://blog.unity.com/engine-platform/unity-6-preview-release Blender 4.2 ALPHA Nodes Taiao 2024.2 Plasticity 2024.1 Plasticity 2024.1 reworks the software’s surfacing workflow: something the video at the top of the story demonstrates by recreating an old Siemens NX demo in Plasticity. It is now possible to manipulate the CVs for both trimmed and untrimmed faces directly in the viewport, and faces with visible CVs now have a ‘nominal’ surface to make direct editing easier. In addition, a new Raise Degree command increases surface complexity by converting analytic surfaces to splines and increasing the spline degree. To visually simplify workflow, a new Toggle Points makes it possible to toggle the visibility of points on selected faces, curves and bodies. The Offset Face command now supports dependent offsets – matching the curvature of another surface – providing a more fluid workflow than the existing Match Face command. Other changes include a new Full Round option for Fillets, and scaling options for the Pipe and Sweep commands, making it possible to create tapered forms. The update also introduces new built-in MatCap materials, with the option to use your own custom Matcaps. In addition, the Studio edition of the software now integrates the xNURBS library on Windows and macOS. The high-quality ‘variational surfacing’ tech was previously only available via paid add-ons for Rhino and SolidWorks, which currently cost between $395 and $695. Studio users also get support for import of files from Rhino 8. Plasticity also marks a change of version numbering for the software: under the previous version numbering, it would have been Plasticity 2.0. That means that users with the old $99 Indie licenses, which included only 1.x updates, don’t get it for free: something that has caused complaints in replies to the tweet announcing the release. The update is included for free with $149 Indie licenses, introduced last October with the release of Plasticity 1.3. Plasticity 2024.1 is available for Windows 10+, Ubuntu 22.04+ Linux and macOS 12.0+. It runs on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. Perpetual node-locked Indie licences cost $149, and import and export files in OBJ, STEP, STL and Parasolid XT format. Studio licences support a wider range of file formats and cost $299. https://discord.com/channels/893157887847845908/1063414695165444209/1237046665349955594 https://www.plasticity.xyz/ ZBrush for iPad Oscar-winning ZBrush brings unrivaled design power to the iPad for a fully immersive 3D sculpting and painting experience. Take creativity on the go with a proprietary brush system and boundless resolution capabilities. Experience the power of ZBrush for iPad and realize your wildest concepts. ZBrush for iPad provides the same multi-resolution mesh editing capabilities found inside the desktop version. Whether you are creating realistic characters and creatures or laying the foundations for new and never-before-seen environments, ZBrush for iPad has what you need to bring your artistic pursuits to life. Discover a completely new and interactive digital sculpting adventure with ZBrush for iPad. We've taken all the great parts of ZBrush and engineered a new experience aligned with the continued pursuit of art. From easy- to-navigate touch capabilities and the same great intuitive sculpting feel artists have grown to love, ZBrush for iPad is ready to meet your creative needs. Created by artists for artists, ZBrush for iPad makes it easier than ever to shape, texture, and paint virtual clay in real time. Escape the constraints of traditional modeling and experience the sculptural freedom you get with touch capabilities at your fingertips wherever you are. Make painting and texturing your latest creation a breeze with ZBrush for iPad. A simple click activates Polypainting for an even more complex range of design options. Mix and apply color to digital sculptures in real time while continuing to make physical changes to your models. Use your iPad to capture images and import your latest snapshot for use as a texture or alpha. ZBrush for iPad offers an unrivaled collection of proprietary digital sculpting brushes, dynamic texturing and painting capabilities, impactful stroke and alpha libraries along with native rendering for a fully realized design solution. Extend your artistic dexterity by working in both touch- and pen-driven modes or a fusion of both! Simply click and drag your fingers across the digital clay to make your mark. Apply for Beta here https://zbrushforipad.com/ Packer-IO Packer-IO is based on the same technology as UV-Packer, 3d-io’s UV-packing plugin for 3ds Max, which it made available for free in 2020, going on to release versions for Blender and UE5. The plugins automatically arrange the UV islands of a model to minimise wasted UV space, reducing total file sizes for sets of texture maps. They are resolution-independent – so packing times remain constant, regardless of the resolution of the textures – and support tiled UV layouts, used in applications like ZBrush. Packer-IO takes the same functionality and puts it in a standalone application, making it possible to use with other DCC applications and game engines, like Cinema 4D, Maya and Unity. It features a streamlined UI, described by 3d-io as an attempt to “move away from conservative Excel-like interfaces” to make the process of UV packing more intuitive. Users can import 3D models in a range of standard file formats, including OBJ, FBX, glTF, Collada (DAE), PLY and STL, then export the unwrapped model with packed UVs. The imported model can be previewed in the Packer-IO viewport, using a dedicated object manager to hide or unhide components, and a Looks widget to customize their appearance. Users can drag and drop readymade shaders onto the geometry, including checkermaps to visualize UV stretching, shaders for visualizing normals, and a range of MatCap materials. Packing can be performed automatically, on both organic and hard-surface models, with Packer-IO supporting assets with “thousands of charts and millions of polygons”. Users can then fine tune the results via a “simple, fast drag-and-drop UV channel management system” and a streamlined set of packing options. In the comments on the software’s launch video, embedded at the top of the story, 3d-io says that it plans to add automatic UV unwrapping and retopology in future releases. Packer-IO is compatible with Windows 10+ and macOS 10.15+. The Mac version supports Apple Silicon processors natively. The software is free, and is licensed for use in commercial projects. 3d-io also develops commercial UV tools, including Unwrella, its UV unwrapping plugin for 3ds Max and Maya, and the UV-Packer SDK, for integrating the tech into other software. https://www.uv-packer.com/download/ https://docs.3d-plugin.com/packer-io/ Substance 3D Painter 10.0 The biggest new feature in Substance 3D Painter 10.0 is the Text resource, which provides a new – and much more straightforward – workflow for working with text. One key change is that fonts can now be imported directly, rather than having to create a .sbsar file with the font embedded, which requires Substance 3D Designer. Fonts can now be browsed in the Assets window, and dragged and dropped directly onto the surface of a 3D model, where they are applied as a Fill projection. It is then possible to reposition text directly in the viewport, and to adjust properties like size, color, alignment and spacing from the projection settings. Fonts can also be used as brushes, or as input in Substance filters. Designers and visualization professionals also get the option to import vector graphics in Adobe Illustrator’s .ai format. The workflow is handled in a similar way to the existing SVG import, with the additional option to select between artboards in a .ai file. The update also fixes several longstanding issues with normal map painting and the transform gizmos. With normal maps, epeatedly painting over an area in the normal channel should no longer create artefacts, undoing a brush stroke no longer breaks previous strokes, and brush stamps will an alpha will now display correctly when the alpha is at zero. With the transform manipulators, dragging decals around on a surface is now more stable, and scale intensity is now based on the scale of the object being manipulated, not scene size. It is also now posible to hold [Ctrl] while dragging on a manipulator to enter precision mode, making it possible to position content more precisely. Other changes include a new Substance 3D Assets window, making it possible to browse the online Substance 3D Assets library directly inside Painter. The Python API gets a new layer stack module, described as “opening the door to … advanced layer stack plugins”, and a work-in-progress color management module. Substance 3D Painter 10.0 is available for Windows 10+, CentOS 7.0/Ubuntu 20.04+ Linux and macOS 11.0+. Perpetual licences are available via Steam and cost $199.99, up $50 since the release of Substance 3D Painter 9.1. The software is also available via Adobe’s Substance 3D subscriptions. Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions cost $19.99/month or $219.88/year; Substance 3D Collection subscriptions cost $49.99/month or $549.88/year. Subscriptions to the Linux edition require a Creative Cloud Plan for Teams. https://helpx.adobe.com/substance-3d-painter/release-notes/version-10-0.html Uniform 1.0 Uniform is the second iPad app from Sparseal, founded by former Blender sculpting tools lead Pablo Dobarro, and Godot Engine developer Joan Fons. The first, retopology app CozyBlanket, lets users retopologise 3D models simply by drawing the new edge flows onto the surface of a high-res model. When it was announced last year, Uniform generated a lot of interest among CG artists – partly because, while it looks cool, it’s quite hard to describe. The official description is a “multi-purpose, art-focused data editor”, but a more tangible description might be ‘an all-in-one tool for creating game-ready assets’. It is intended to make it possible to create high-poly sculpts, low-poly models, PBR textures and 2D images using a single unified set of tools. That means that the same brush used to paint directly onto the surface of a high-poly sculpt can also be used to paint a UV-unwrapped texture on a low-poly mesh, even within the same paint stroke, as shown in the video above. You can create 3D models by volume sketching or manipulating the surface of a simple base asset, using a standard basic set of sculpting brushes. The brushes can be customized with stamps, alphas and vector displacement maps. Geometry can be retopologized by sliding edges around directly, or by using the pencil tool from CozyBlanket to draw low-poly topology onto the surface of a high-poly asset. The paint tools paint surface colors or displacement directly onto the surface of a sculpt – including low-poly meshes, since displacement is baked in real time. Uniform also has a built-in layer stack compositor, which supports layers with masks on all object types: both 3D assets and 2D images. The examples shown in the demo video are all simple 3D forms, so we aren’t sure how easy it is to create more detailed geometry with Uniform. However, the tools and layer stack are GPU-accelerated, and according to Sparseal, it is possible to work on a model “with several millions of polygons without any lag”. For previewing assets, Uniform has a real-time renderer with support for PBR materials, non-photorealistic rendering, and both point lights and HDR-based lighting. The lighting and shading information displayed – the visual quality of the viewport preview – can be adjusted via an innovative on-screen control, as shown above. For final-quality output, Uniform uses Blender’s Cycles render engine. And to exchange 3D models with other DCC applications and game engines, Uniform supports importing OBJ files and exporting OBJ and glTF files, both with textures. Uniform is compatible with iPadOS 17.4 is later, although the software is optimized for the latest iPads, rather than models from 2018 or earlier. It is designed for use with the Apple Pencil, so some features may not be accessible through touch gestures alone. It costs $49.99. https://sparseal.com/uniform/ Black Ink 2023.5 First released in alpha a decade ago, Black Ink is a GPU-accelerated digital painting app. It is capable of creating professional-quality illustrations and concept art, supporting 64-bit linear rendering, and a maximum layer resolution of 64,000px. It also has a number of unusual features, including a brush shader language for creating custom brushes, and a node-based system to control how layers are composited. After a hiatus of several years, Bleank began putting out new builds of the software again late last year, with Black Ink 2023 – the first paid update since the initial release – standardizing the user interface and adding support for Photoshop PSD files. The latest update adds a new Symmetry node, making it possible to mirror images along the X- or Y-axis, with the option to reposition the mirror axis non-destructively afterwards. There is also a new Domain Wrap node, which generates seamlessly tiling textures, and the existing Tiling node now properly handles images without alpha blending along the edges. In addition, the Eraser now has its own history, and can maintain settings across a work session. Black Ink 2023.5 is available for Windows 7+. Personal licenses now have a MSRP of €33.99 (around $37), down €25 since the release of Black Ink 2023; Enterprise licenses cost €99 ($107). https://blackink.bleank.com/Support/Changelog/#20235 Substance 3D Modeler 1.10.5 Substance 3D Modeler is a SDF-based tool that lets users sculpt both organic and hard-surface models in virtual reality, or in desktop mode using a mouse and keyboard. Workflow combines elements of digital sculpting and Boolean modelling, with users able to build up forms with virtual clay, then join them or cut into them with Boolean operations. Substance 3D Modeler 1.10 adds the option to import and export VDB files, making it possible to sculpt volumetric data – for example, clouds or simulation caches – from other DCC apps. The update also makes quality-of-life improvements to the surfacing tools and to the interface, and adds keyboard shortcuts for picking colors or setting the camera focal point in the viewport. Substance 3D Modeler 1.10.5 also introduces a couple of significant new features. The first is the primitive object type, which makes it possible to assemble complex hard-surface models by performing Boolean operations on 3D primitives, as shown in the video above. The other is the new Outliner interface panel, shown in the video at the top of the story, which should make it easier to navigate complex scenes with a lot of separate objects. The update also makes a number of other changes to Substance 3D Modeler’s UI, particularly when working in virtual reality, with a new Quick Actions menu available in VR. The current beta also includes the experimental new AI features unveiled last month, which haven’t yet made it into the stable release. Substance 3D Modeler 1.10 is compatible with Windows 10+, and these VR headsets. It is available via Substance 3D Collection subscriptions, which cost $49.99/month or $549.88/year. Perpetual licences are available via Steam, and cost $149.99. The public beta is available via the Creative Cloud desktop app for anyone with an Adobe ID. https://helpx.adobe.com/substance-3d-modeler/release-notes/public-beta.html 0518.mp4 Womp On its alpha release in 2022, Womp described itself as an “easy-to-use 3D creation and publishing app” that “allows you to goop, melt and subtract shapes with each other”. For those familiar with more conventional 3D software, that means real-time Boolean modelling, with a couple of nice twists that we’ll get to later. Womp is targeted at non-specialists who want to create graphics for social media, or simple models for 3D printing, but it could also be used for shape exploration for concept design. Users build up forms inside Womp using 3D primitives – the beta release adds cone, torus and pyramid primitives – and curves, joining them together via Boolean unions or substractions. The result updates in real time as you move the source objects around in the viewport. As well as Booleaning the geometry, Womp blends between the materials of the source objects – which does indeed create the impression that you’re pulling around gel, or goo. Womp comes with a set of readymade PBR materials – expanded in the beta release – that can be dragged and dropped onto objects. They cover common types of real-world materials, including metal, plastic, glass, rubber and skin, with paid accounts also providing access to Pro and Super materials. The completed model can be lit using up to 16 rectangular, dome or spherical lights and/or a HDRI environment, and rendered at up to 4K resolution (3,840 x 2,160px) or as HD video. It is also possible to download the 3D model for editing in other DCC applications, in standard file formats including OBJ, FBX, USD, glTF, Collada (DAE), STL and PLY To that, the beta release adds experimental support for uploading existing 3D models as a starting point from which to work. The file formats supported are similar to those for file export, with the exception of USD, but with the addition of Blender’s native .blend format and 3ds Max’s .3ds file format. The update also reworks the UI, and improves usability when working in Womp on an iPad, including on-screen Undo and Redo buttons. Pro users also get the option to export 3D models with uniform topology. Womp is compatible with most standard desktop browsers, including Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera and Safari. Free accounts include the 3D modeling tools and basic materials, and support export of models in STL and OBJ format. Rendering is capped at 4K resolution for still images and HD for video. Pro accounts cost $12.99/month or $119.88/year and include advanced features including Pro and Super materials. https://womp.com/changelog https://www.womp.com/ Project Bernini Of the AI technologies for generating 3D models that we’ve covered on CG Channel, Project Bernini is unusual in the variety of inputs that it accepts. Rather than generating 3D meshes from text prompts, or inferring them from images or video, it works from text, images, voxels and point clouds. The AI model, which builds on Make-A-Shape, earlier work from Autodesk Research’s AI Lab, was trained on “10 million publicly available shapes”, including CAD models and organic forms. The former are more in evidence in the video above, which shows Project Bernini generating a range of hard-surface objects, including a chair, spatula and water pitcher. Autodesk describes itself as initially “focused on generating functional 3D structures because the articles built or manufactured from the outputs of these models must work in the real world”. In its current state, the AI model seems better suited for initial shape exploration than creating final-quality assets, with the demo showing simple, relatively low-detail 3D forms. According to Autodesk, it will become “increasingly useful … when trained on larger, higher-quality professional datasets”, citing buildings, car designs and game characters as examples. Project Bernini is still “strictly experimental” and is not available for public use. Autodesk hasn’t announced when it will be made available publicly, or which, if any, of its products and services it will be integrated with. The one existing application shown in the video is 3ds Max, although that seems to be to edit a model exported from Project Bernini rather for the generative AI process itself. https://adsknews.autodesk.com/en/news/research-project-bernini/ Effects 24.4 After Effects 24.4 makes several of the improvements rolled out in last month’s public beta available in the stable release. They include the option to copy and paste keyframes across multiple layers, currently only available via third-party scripts. To do so, users marquee-select groups of keyframes, then choose a point on the timeline at which to paste them, with the option to paste in reverse order to create loops. There are also new keyboard shortcuts for jumping between in and out points in a composition. When choosing Label Colors for keyframes, layers, and markers, color swatches are now displayed alongide the name of the color. Under the hood, performance of the Roto Brush has been improved. The rotoscoping tool semi-automatically generates a matte isolating a foreground object or character from its background, then propagates the matte to other frames in the footage. After Effects now caches inference for frames it has already propagated, removing the need to recalcuate each frame during the next step in the workflow, freezing the propagation. After Effects 24.4 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 May 2024 release.

Shees, that was a lot of data to process in upgrade, forum is over 300Gb. we are working on it in background but everyhting should be in order now, including emoticons 🙂 💫

Now I feel a tad dumb, and apologetic.. I just noticed there was some Anisotropy added in the shader, and removing it pretty much completely fixes the issue, as long as one doesn't get too close. I'm super sorry to have taken up your time with this, and thanks again for helping me out!