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I've constructed a different setup that emulates how hair work ... Still don't know why you want to use the Spline Wrap... I didn't. make splines act like hair.c4d There are some bugs I'd like to address to @Cerbera The Field Driver Tag does not work with Node Capsules (I tried connecting the Field with the Line object... it refused to add any parameters) There is no Delete Parameter in the Field Driver (not a bug, but definitely needed) You will notice that once the playback is on, the Line Length cannot be influenced by the Field anymore.

Rigid-body dynamics. I've updated my previous post for clarity.

Wow. Ask and you shall receive. Thank you Cerbera. I kind of knew some of those (like the fog and booleans) but the others I will investigate further. It's like working on your house-pull away the sheetrock to find all sorts of surprises - some fantastic and some mind boggling (but all in the good way).

Volume builder is just another set of tools in the toolbox, but particularly suited to a number of specific situations. Modelling is only a part of what it does. Pre R2025.1, it found a lot of use in making up for the deficits we had in the boolean department, but that aspect has become less important since the new Boolean Tool arrived, which in and of itself solves a lot of problems and annoyances the old one had. However VB remains useful, thusly... 1. Fast iteration and concepting; it can be preferable to use a VB setup to quickly put together basic forms which might need changing or updating at any time before a concept is finalised enough to become a polygonal model. 2. Transitional Forms and advantages over Booleans; For all those situations where boolean operations don't produce rounded or beveled transitions between operands VB can do that very easily and adjustably whilst not losing any parametricity. Uniquely they do this without needing to base the result on topology like bevel deformer on a boole would for example, and are therefore free from the artefacts that usually results in. 3. Combining with ReMesher to save modelling time; It is sometimes a lot easier to get a tricky base form started using the VB before remeshing it early on, and carrying on with poly modelling from there. 4. Infinite resolution; VB setups can be generated at any level of detail in a way that no other method can. 5. Incorporation of splines, points, generators and matrices into modelling; No other systems within Cinema allow this as fully / directly as VB / VM. 6. Allows Noise-based and Field-based modelling; useful for producing the sort of meshes that are nigh on impossible to create any other way. 7. Unique Layer and folder-based hierarchy; with similarly unique elements like erode / dilate and multiple levels of smoothing. 8. Clouds / volume based elements; SDF is not the only mode here, we also have a fog mode which is how we can generate our own cloud and volumetric forms and the like... 9. Vector Mode; useful for spatially-based vector and field operations that can control and apply to forces. And there will be more I haven't mentioned - the Volume builder in Cinema is a lot wider in scope than first appears obvious, and with every improvement and iteration it gets it becomes more useful (see cache layers / transitions etc), and its less desirable behaviours get further minimised and improved upon. As primarily a trad modeller myself I don't use it as much as others do, but there are definitely times when it helps me and I call on it when other methods fall short, or would take an unreasonably long amount of time when time is an issue and deadlines are looming... CBR

I was already in contact with support and they said that the problem is known and they are already working on it. (2025.1.3)

Hopefully this works... construction2.c4d If there's something you don't understand, ask. Meanwhile I'll prepare something less procedural (random placement) to match closer to what you have.

Took me longer to construct because I rarely use the Inheritance Effector and always forget how exactly works... I think it's fairly similar to what you need to do. Instead of using Cloners use MoInstance Objects and use the Effectors on those. Scatter the MoInstaces all over the place using Effectors, then duplicate them and position them on the vibrating central object and as children of it so they vibrate with it. Then hide them. The duplicates are your target objects. It will be more complicated but it won't be hand animated. I haven't messed around with objects sticking on other objects via vertex maps using the Dynamics Tags ... but that method won't be precise as you won't know where your objects will land on the center disk. If the original video is indeed just simulation then it is reversed... all parts where connected and one by one they where flinged away with a specific direction and force until entered a field to nullify their velocity or something like that... I'll do a tutorial on how I managed to do the animation magnetic.mp4

😄

I have not seen much recently regarding Animusic type of animations. To be fair, those animations, as impressive as they were at the time, are a bit outdated today in terms of the rendering and musical reproduction (being mostly midi - or synthesizer - based). That is why I thought I would share this site: (2635) Marvin Blend - YouTube He does have a tutorial on how to start making these animations in Blender The music and the animations are very impressive and just fun to watch and listen to. Enjoy, Dave

Submision Break-Downs

Meshtron Meshtron is a novel autoregressive mesh generation model able to generate meshes with up to 64K faces at 1024-level coordinate resolution -- over an order of magnitude higher face count and 8x higher coordinate resolution than current state-of-the-art methods. Meshtron’s scalability is driven by four key components: An hourglass neural architecture Truncated sequence training Sliding window inference A robust sampling strategy that enforces the order of mesh sequences This results in over 50% less training memory, 2.5x faster throughput, and better consistency than existing approaches. Meshtron generates meshes of detailed, complex 3D objects at unprecedented levels of resolution and fidelity, closely resembling those created by professional artists, and opening the door to more realistic generation of detailed 3D assets for animation, gaming, and virtual environments. https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.09548 Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 AMD has launched the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070, the first cards in its Radeon RX 9000 Series of consumer GPUs, based on its next-gen RDNA 4 GPU architecture. The 16GB cards, which have recommended prices of $599 and $549, hit online stores yesterday, to strong reviews in the gaming press. Below, we’ve summarized their key specs, and rounded up what we know so far about how that gaming performance will translate to CG software like Blender, DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro. New RDNA 4 architecture promises better AI, ray tracing and video encoding performance The Radeon RX 9000 Series cards are the first GPUs to use AMD’s new RDNA 4 GPU architecture. It features improvements to all of the cards’ hardware core types, including for general GPU compute, but particularly for AI operations and ray tracing, with AMD claiming that RDNA 4 provides “2x the ray tracing throughput per compute unit” compared to RDNA 3. For video processing, a new dual media engine promises to double throughput for AV1 encoding, and to improve the quality of AV1, H.264 and H.265 encoding and decoding by “up to 25%”. As with NVIDIA’s current-gen GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs, the Radeon RX 9000 Series cards support PCIe 5.0. The new cards are also currently the only GPUs to support FSR 4 (FidelityFX Super Resolution 4), the latest version of AMD’s AI-based viewport upscaling technology. For more details, Tom’s Hardware has a deeper dive into the RDNA 4 architecture. Key specifications AMD has changed its naming scheme since the previous-gen Radeon RX 7000 Series, but its launch materials position the new GPUs between the Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 GRE. The new numbering convention suggests that the cards are being pitched against NVIDIA’s mid-range consumer GPUs: the current-gen GeForce RTX 5070 and previous-gen GeForce RTX 4070. Above, we’ve rounded up the key specs of the new Radeon RX 9000 Series cards and their previous-gen counterparts, based on AMD’s own figures and the TechPowerUp database. All of the Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 GPUs are being manufactured by partner firms – there are no AMD reference cards – so clock speeds and power consumption will vary between models. However, their core specs are broadly comparable to the Radeon RX 7900 GRE – all are 16GB cards, and remain on GDDR6 memory – as are their recommended launch prices. Processor core core counts are actually down on the previous generation, though AMD is promising overall performance improvements due to the advances in GPU architecture. Strong early reviews in the gaming press Early reviews of the Radeon RX 9000 Series cards in the gaming press have been positive, with many contrasting the launch troubles and lukewarm reviews for NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5070. TechRadar’s review of the Radeon RX 9070 XT is fairly typical, describing it as a “stunning release … delivering [GeForce] RTX 4080 levels of gaming performance at half that card’s launch MSRP”. Benchmark results in CG software But how will that gaming performance translate to professional graphics work? As you would expect, most of AMD’s own published performance comparisons are for games, although its launch materials do include a few benchmarks for AI. That includes both generative AI models and the AI tools in CG applications. The slide above shows the Radeon RX 9070 XT outperforming the previous-gen Radeon RX 7900 GRE by 12-17% in AI-based tools in Adobe’s Lightroom Classic photo editor and by 20-34% in DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic Design’s video editing, compositing and VFX software. The figures are based on Puget Systems’ standard PugetBench tests. Independent reviews include scores for Blender and Premiere Pro Some early reviews also include benchmarks for CG apps, although their conclusions are mixed. Tom’s Hardware shows the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 outperforming NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5070 and 4070 in the synthetic SPECworkstation 4.0 benchmark, both in the HandBrake video transcoding test, and for average viewport performance across a range of apps, including Blender. However, for rendering, the GeForce RTX 5070 and 4070 outperformed both the Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs in the Blender benchmark itself. PC World’s review also notes that the GeForce RTX 5070 “absolutely stomped” the Radeon RX 9000 Series cards in the PugetBench Premiere Pro benchmark. For DCC work, it’s also important to note that some GPU render engines, including Arnold GPU, OctaneRender and V-Ray GPU, use NVIDIA APIs, and are not accelerated on AMD graphics cards. Price and availability AMD’s Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs became available on 6 March 2025 through partner firms including Acer, ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, PowerColor, Sapphire, Vastarmor, XFX and Yeston. The Radeon RX 9070 XT has a MSRP of $599, and the Radeon RX 9070 has a MSRP of $549, but street prices are currently significantly higher for what remains of the initial stock. https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/desktops/radeon.html#overview D5 Render 2.10 Dimension 5 has released D5 Render 2.10, the new version of its real-time visualization tool and GPU renderer for DCC and CAD software including 3ds Max, Blender and Cinema 4D. It’s a significant update, adding support for real-time path tracing for more realistic renders, a new automated 3D city generator, and updates to the night sky system and weather effects. The headline change in D5 Render 2.10 is the experimental new real-time path tracing system. It’s based on NVIDIA’s ReSTIR algorithm, a modified version of which is used in existing real-time GI solution, introduced in D5 Render 2.4. According to Dimension 5, the new method gets “closer to ground truth” references, particularly improving diffuse indirect lighting and indirect lighting in reflections. You can read more about the implementation – which is still officially in alpha – in this blog post, which also covers the key settings for trading visual quality against performance. Updates to existing features include a rework of the night skies generated by Geo&Sky. The skies generated can now include the Milky Way, and users can now adjust settings including star intensity and the intensity, altitude and phases of the moon. The update also improves the realism of D5 Render’s weather effects, with a new Water Mist effect to add atmosphere to rainy scenes, and more detailed raindrop and snowflake particles. More new generative AI features: inpainting and motion blur Dimension 5 has been adding generative AI features to D5 Render over recent updates, with version 2.10 adding two new AI features. AI inpainting automatically fills in missing elements in renders, like the sky, water or vegetation, and is intended to reduce the need to place assets manually to fill those parts of a scene. AI motion blur adds… well, motion blur to moving objects in images, but as a post effect, without the need to render it directly. Workflow and performance improvements, and updates to the asset library Workflow improvements include better control over the scale units used for assets, support for batch scene deletion, and new French and Japanese language localizations. The software has also been updated to support DLSS 4, the latest version of NVIDIA’s AI render upresing and frame interpolation technology, also recently supported in Chaos Vantage. The software’s accompanying asset library gets new object scattering templates, and over 240 new assets themed around hotels and holiday resorts, including characters and lobby decor. D5 Render is available for Windows 10+. It requires a compatible GPU: Dimension 5 recommends a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060+, AMD Radeon RX 6400 XT+ or Intel Arc A3+. Integration plugins are available for 3ds Max 2014-2016 and 2018+, ArchiCAD 21+, Blender 2.93+, Cinema 4D R20+, Revit 2018.3+, Rhino 6.1+, SketchUp 2017+ and Vectorworks 2024+. The Community edition is free; the Pro edition, which includes AI features, frame sequence rendering, and access to the full asset library, costs $38/month or $360/year. Teams subscriptions, which add further features including simultaneous editing and support for 3D Gaussian Splatting, cost $75/month or $708/year. https://forum.d5render.com/t/release-notes-of-d5-render/5791 Marmoset’s free materials for Toolbag 5 Marmoset has released Toolbag Library Drop 06, its latest set of free resources for users of Toolbag, its real-time rendering, look development and texture baking software. The asset drop – the first since the release of Toolbag 5.0, the latest major version of the software – adds 154 new resources: 58 brushes, 86 materials, and 10 textures. Marmoset’s Library Drop materials are available free to Toolbag users. Toolbag itself is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 13.5+. The current release is Toolbag 5.0. Perpetual licenses cost $399 for individual artists, or $1,299 for studios. Subscriptions cost $18.99/month for individuals, or $49.99/month for studios. https://marmoset.co/posts/toolbag-library-drop-06-available-now/ Autodesk lays off 1,350 staff The job cuts are Autodesk’s largest set of layoffs in some years, and follow a period of growth for the company. Its most recent set of financial results, reported at the same time as the job cuts, are strong. In its 8-K filing for the financial quarter that ended on 31 January 2025, Autodesk reported a total revenue of $1.64 billion, up 12% on the same quarter last year. Net revenue was up on the previous year for all of Autodesk’s four main product families: AECO, AutoCAD, Manufacturing, and Media and Entertainment. The latter is by some way the smallest of Autodesk’s major business sectors, but includes the products that CG Channel readers will be most familiar with, including Maya and 3ds Max. Which parts of Autodesk’s business will be affected by the cuts? Autodesk has not announced exactly where the job cuts will be made, but its press release on the financial results suggest that they will mainly affect sales and marketing, not R&D. In it, CFO Janesh Moorjani comments that Autodesk has just completed its “new transaction model” and has now “initiated the optimization phase of our sales and marketing plan”. So why is Autodesk laying off staff now? In a memo to employees, CEO Andrew Anagnost also cited the company’s changing Go-to-Market model – its sales and marketing strategy – as a reason for the cuts. “Our GTM model has evolved … from the transition to subscription and multi-year contracts billed annually to self-service enablement [and] the adoption of direct billing,” he wrote. Anagnost also cited a decision to accelerate Autodesk’s investment in both new AI technologies and its new ‘industry clouds’, like Flow, its cloud-based platform for Media and Entertainment. “Our investments in cloud, platform, and AI are ahead of our peers,” he wrote. “To maintain and extend this leadership, we are shifting resources across our GTM, Platform, Industry, and Corporate functions to accelerate investments in these strategic priorities.” The memo also notes a need to strengthen business resilience in the face of changes in “macroeconomic and geopolitical factors, as well as evolving regulations”. Pressure from activist investors The announcements come as Autodesk faces pressure from activist investor Starboard Value to deliver increased returns to shareholders. The situation is summarized well in this AEC Magazine article from last September, which notes that the changes Starboard Value wants would create “mass layoffs and cost reductions at Autodesk, in order to drive up operating margin”. In the memo to staff, Andrew Anagnost rather pointedly states that “this decision was made by myself and CEO staff and is not the result of any third-party pressure”. However, Autodesk’s press release to investors also notes that the company expects “consistent growth … reinforced by persistent share repurchases, to deliver sustainable shareholder value over many years”. https://adsknews.autodesk.com/en/news/022725-employee-message/ https://investors.autodesk.com/news-releases/news-release-details/autodesk-inc-announces-fiscal-2025-fourth-quarter-and-full-year Unwrella-IO Turning 3d-io’s UV unwrapping and UV packing technology into standalone apps 3d-io has recently been turning its technology – previously available as plugins for specific DCC applications – into standalone apps for users of any DCC software. In 2024, it released Packer-IO, a free standalone UV packing tool based on the technology behind its existing UV-Packer plugins. Unwrella-IO does something similar, but for one of 3d-io’s main commercial tools: Unwrella, its UV unwrapping and packing plugin for 3ds Max and Maya. The standalone version makes it possible to use the same technology with assets from other DCC applications, like Blender or Unreal Engine. An intutive, high-performance standalone UV unwrapping tool 3d-io describes Unwrella-IO as providing “a natural UI and easy-to-understand controls for creating UVs” making it possible to unwrap 3D models “with just a few clicks”. In the video above, the UI looks almost identical to Packer-IO – not entirely surprising, since UV-Packer is integrated into Unwrella – but with the addition of an additional section of the interface with UV unwrapping controls. It includes preset modes for hard-surface and organic models, and mosaic unwrapping for 3D scans, plus controls for the placement of UV seams and the amount of UV stretching to tolerate. The other workflows are similar to UV-Packer, with users able to drag and drop models into the app, and semi-automatically unwrap and pack the UVs. Price, system requirements and release date Unwrella-IO is compatible with Windows 10+. A macOS version is “coming soon”. Perpetual licenses cost €199 (around $210). It is also possible to upgrade from the 3ds Max or Maya plugin to the new standalone edition for €99 (around $105). https://www.unwrella.com/unwrella-io/ Godot 4.4 The Godot team has released Godot 4.4, the latest version of the open-source game engine. It’s another sizeable release, with improvements to core performance, and updates throughout Godot’s key toolsets, including changes to scripting, audio and platform integration. Below, we’ve picked out five new features of particular significance to CG artists, as opposed to programmers, including updates to shading, lighting, rendering, animation and physics. 1. New game window lets you edit games directly while they’re running For both artists and level designers, a key change in Godot 4.4 is that the game window is now embedded in the Godot Editor, making it possible to view the running game from the Editor. Users can select objects within the game window, streamlining interactive in-game editing. There are also a number of other nice quality-of-life updates to the Editor, including the option to snap 3D objects to one another while placing them in a level, to preview camera views directly in the Inspector, and a built-in material preview in the visual shader editor. 2. Updates to LightmapGI improve quality and performance of rendered shadows In the lighting toolset, the LightmapGI node now supports baked shadowmasks. The change makes it possible to use static shadows at a distance from the view camera, but dynamic shadows up close, improving performance without sacrificing realism. LightmapGI also now supports bicubic sampling, resulting in smoother-looking baked shadows at a small performance cost, and supports baking tinted shadows from transparent objects. 3. AgX tonemapping gives a movie-like look to rendered images For post-processing, Godot 4.4 now supports AgX tonemapping, for giving a movie-like look to rendered images, alongside the existing ACES and Filmic transforms. The implementation is similar to that in Blender, where an AgX View Transform was added in Blender 4.0, but has been simplified for real-time use. It is described as handling very bright scenes better than existing tonemapping modes. 4. Animation: new look-at, jiggle physics and animation marker systems Animators get a number of new features, including a new look-at constraint system, with the new LookAtModifer3D node partially replacing the now-deprecated SkeletonIK3D. For adding jiggle physics for characters’ hair and clothing, VRMSpringBone from the VRM format for 3D avatars, previously an add-on, is now integrated directly into the engine. It is also now possible to place markers to create subregions of an animation that can be jumped to or looped without playing the entire animation. 5. Jolt physics is now built-in, not an extension Another key change in Godot 4.4 is that Jolt, the open-source rigid body dynamics library used as the de facto physics engine by many developers, is now integrated directly into Godot. Jolt, used on games including Horizon Forbidden West, was previously an extension. The new built-in Jolt Physics module is still experimental, and is not yet as feature-complete as the existing Godot Physics system: you can find a list of differences in the online documentation. However, the Jolt extension is now in maintenance mode, and will be deprecated once the native Jolt physics system reaches feature parity. Other changes, performance improvements and platform support There are also a number of improvements to scripting, including support for typed dictionaries, tooltips in the GDScript editor, and a new expression evaluator. Core performance has been improved, with large projects loading “up to 3x” faster in the Editor. Godot also now supports Apple’s Metal graphics API natively, rather than using MoltenVK to run Vulkan over Metal, which should improve performance on Apple Silicon processors. Platform changes initial support for XR devices in the Android Editor. The Android Editor can also now generate and export binaries directly, rather than forcing users to switch to another OS. License and system requirements Godot 4.4 is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, and 64-bit Linux and macOS. There are also browser-based and Android ports of the Godot Editor. https://godotengine.org/releases/4.4/ https://godotengine.org/download/ SketchUp 2025.0 Support for image-based environment lighting and PBR materials SketchUp 2025.0 increases the visual realism with which models can be previewed within SketchUp, adding a new Environments panel for viewing models in an HDRI environment. The software ships with a set of readymade HDR images, which can be used as background environments and light sources, or users can import their own in HDR or EXR formats. The update also introduces support for PBR materials, both in imported glTF and USD files, and from SketchUp’s own material libraries, which have been converted to PBR materials. Older materials can be converted to PBR materials using an AI-based Generate Textures tool, which generates metalness, roughness, AO and normal maps from diffuse textures. Updates to the modeling tools, extensions management, and pipeline integration Workflow improvements include quality-of-life updates to SketchUp’s modeling toolset, with updates to the Rotate tool, Arc tools, Snaps, and Text tool. Other changes include an automated reminder to purge unused assets when saving files, and a new Extension Migrator for updating add-ons from Sketchup’s Extension Warehouse to the current version of the software. SketchUp’s integration with Trimble Connect, Trimble’s online collaboration platform, has also been strengthened with new native options to import, reload or save files to Trimble Connect. Architects get updates to SketchUp’s Revit importer, and IFC import and export. Updates to LayOut, but Style Builder discontinued Users with Pro and Studio subscriptions also get updates to LayOut, the accompanying app for generating 2D documentation from 3D models. The Move, Rotate and Scale tools have been updated to work more like the way they do in SketchUp itself, and the Join and Split tools now work on line segments as well as shapes. LayOut can also now render the new PBR materials and HDRI environments in SketchUp models. However, Style Builder, the app for generating hand-drawn line styles previously included with Pro subscriptions, has now been discontinued. Price and system requirements SketchUp 2025.0 is compatible with Windows 10+ and macOS 12.0+. The software is available rental-only, with entry-level SketchUp Go subscriptions, which include the browser edition of the software and SketchUp for iPad, costing $119/year. SketchUp Pro and SketchUp Studio, which also include the desktop edition and LayOut, now cost $349/year and $749/year. https://help.sketchup.com/en/release-notes/sketchup-desktop-20250 Plasticity 2025.1 A lightweight NURBS modelling app for concept art, not industrial design Released in 2023, and pitched as “CAD for artists”, Plasticity is a streamlined NURBS modeller. The software is intended to provide a low-cost, artist-friendly alternative to tools like MoI and Fusion 360, and is aimed at concept art as well as industrial design. It features a streamlined UI, with on-screen clutter reduced by context-sensitive widgets and pop-up UI panels, and uses key bindings and selection modes familiar to Blender users. Plasticity 2025.1: new ‘modern, streamlined’ UI The most visible change in Plasticity 2025.1 is the revamped user interface, described as a “modern, streamlined UI” that “retain[s] key functional elements from previous versions”. The redesign moves key features to more intuitive locations, makes it possible to toggle the sidebars to free up screen space, and makes panels in the right sidebar function as menus. It also improves in-app documentation, with 11 tools getting tooltips, and each command dialog getting an icon linking directly to its online documentation. Workflow improvements include the option to drag items from the Recent Files list to the viewport. New Slide and Section Analysis commands New features include a unified Slide command, for sliding CVs on spline curves and surface hulls, making it possible to make precise adjustments during modeling. A new Section Analysis command slices through a 3D model to reveal its internal structure, helping to check whether internal components are aligned properly. Updates to key toolsets There are also updates to the existing toolsets, with the sketching tools, the transformation tools and the surface tools getting new control options and workflow improvements. Users with Studio licenses get updates to the xNURBS library integrated in Plasticity 2024.1 and the features it powers, particularly the Square command. Price, system requirements and release date Plasticity 2025.1 is available for Windows 10+, Ubuntu 22.04+ Linux and macOS 12.0+. 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://doc.plasticity.xyz/whats-new Artlist discontinues FXhome apps HitFilm and Imerge Artlist has discontinued all of the FXhome applications, including HitFilm, its editing, compositing and effects package, and Imerge, its image-editing app. Users will be able to use their existing software indefinitely, but it will not be updated to support new hardware or operating systems, and it will not receive active product support. The change actually came into force on 15 January 2025, but we felt it was worth covering, partly because it hasn’t had a lot of coverage on mainstream news sites, and partly because of the speed of the collapse: these are applications, that just three years ago, had millions of users. A well-established firm with a 20-year track record, and over 6 million users Founded in 2001, FXhome was a well-established developer of image- and video-editing tools. Its best-known product, all-in-one video editing, compositing and effects package HitFilm provided an affordable alternative to tools like Adobe’s Premiere Pro and After Effects. A number of prominent motion graphics and VFX artists started as HitFilm users, one notable example being ActionVFX founder – and former HitFilm YouTuber – Rodolphe Pierre-Louis. When stock media company Artlist acquired FXhome in 2021, it estimated that FXhome had a user community of over 6 million artists. At the time, the two firms said that it was “business as usual”, and that the buyout would help to “position Artlist alongside companies like Adobe”. A poorly received switch from perpetual licenses to subscriptions The following year, Artlist did what many users had speculated – and some had feared – it would do to FXhome’s software, switching HitFilm to a subscription model. HitFilm Express, the old free edition of the software, was discontinued, and Artlist introduced new subscription tiers that included access to Artlist stock assets. Perpetual licenses of the old Pro edition were discontinued the following year. The move prompted a backlash in the user community, summarized in this YouTube video. Although HitFilm Express was replaced by a new free edition, it featured only “basic video editing tools” and export resolution was capped at 1080p. The UI was also redesigned with what Techradar described at the time as a “big, forever-present ‘Upgrade’ button”, noting that the aggressive upselling did not “leave a good taste in the mouth”. Continuing lukewarm reviews, and migration of users to competing apps The “ubiquitous upgrade buttons” were also singled out by PCMag two years later in a lukewarm review that compared HitFilm unfavorably to Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve. Judging by comments in the HitFilm Reddit community, users were already turning to DaVinci Resolve – the free edition of which is capable of 4K export – as an alternative. Late last year, Artlist conceded defeat, announcing that it would stop accepting new subscriptions for HitFilm and take down the old FXhome website on 15 January 2025. The firm also discontinued Imerge, FXhome’s still-image-editing software. FXhome’s other products had already been discontinued: Ignite Pro, its collection of plugins for compositing and video editing apps, in 2021, and older still image editor Photokey by 2023. FXhome and Imerge now officially discontinued: no further updates or product support Users with paid subscriptions have now been switched to non-renewing plans with “some additional effects, but no third-party software”. It remains possible to activate and use HitFilm – including the free edition and older perpetual licenses – but users will not receive product support once their paid subscription ends. The software will not receive future updates, and Artlist says that it “cannot guarantee that older software will activate or run seamlessly on newer hardware or operating systems”. https://help.fxhome.com/hc/en-us/sections/23801837777821-FAQs Adobe to raise price of Substance 3D subscriptions Adobe is to raise the price of subscriptions for its Substance 3D software on 25 March 2025. The price of individual Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions, which include Substance 3D Designer, Substance 3D Painter and Substance 3D Sampler, will rise by $5/month or $30/year. Individual Substance 3D Collection subscriptions, which also include Substance 3D Stager and Substance 3D Modeler, will rise by $10/month or $50/year. Below, we’ve put together our FAQs on the 2025 Substance 3D price rises. Who is affected by the 2025 Substance 3D subscription price rises? The price rises affect Substance 3D users worldwide, including the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. You can find a full list of countries affected in Adobe’s online FAQs. How much are Substance 3D subscription prices going up? For users who pay for their subscriptions in US dollars, price rises range from 9% to 25%. For individual artists, Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions will rise in price from $19.99/month to $24.99/month, up 25%, and from $219.88/year to $249.88/year, up 14%. Texturing plans include material authoring software Substance 3D Designer, 3D texture painting software Substance 3D Painter, and 3D capture software Substance 3D Sampler. Individual Substance 3D Collection subscriptions will rise in price from $49.99/month to $59.99/month, up 20%, and from $549.88/year to $599.88/year, up 9%. Collection plans include the same apps as Texturing plans, plus layout and rendering tool Substance 3D Stager and VR modeling software Substance 3D Modeler, For companies, Teams subscriptions, which include all five applications, rise from $1,199.88/year to $1,439.88/year, up 20%. Enterprise subscriptions are priced on enquiry. For other users, the exact price changes will “vary by currency and country”. When do the Substance 3d price rises begin? The changes come into force on 25 March 2025 for new subscribers. Existing subscribers will be affected once their subscription renews. Why are the prices of Substance 3D subscriptions rising? Adobe describes the new pricing as reflecting “significant enhancements to Substance 3D tools, including years of continuous feature updates and product innovation”. While many would argue that regular updates are simply the quid pro quo for subscription pricing, which removes users’ freedom to choose which releases they pay for, it has indeed been some years since Adobe last raised the price of the Substance 3D products. The cost of Substance 3D Collection subscriptions has not changed since they were originally introduced in June 2021, since when prices of goods have risen by an average of 17%, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ online calculator. Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions currently still cost the same as the Indie subscriptions offered by Allegorithmic, the tools’ original developer, when it was acquired by Adobe in 2019, although that was for a rent-to-own model. Adobe also recently removed download limits on the Substance 3D Assets library, available with all paid Substance 3D subscriptions, giving subscribers unmetered access to the assets. Are Adobe’s other creative applications affected by the 2025 price rises? Creative Cloud applications like Photoshop and After Effects are not affected by the Substance 3D price increase, having had subscription price increases of their own in 2022 and 2023. Is there an alternative to subscriptions for the Substance 3D tools? Adobe offers perpetual licenses for some Substance 3D tools, including one year of updates. It currently does so for Substance 3D Designer, Substance 3D Painter and Substance 3D Modeler, having discontinued perpetual licences of Substance 3D Sampler last year. Perpetual licenses of Substance 3D Modeler cost $149.99. Perpetual licenses of Substance 3D Painter and Substance 3D Designer cost $199.99. Adobe did not update the Steam listing for either app last December, as it has done in previous years, so both are listed as the 2024 releases, including free updates “to the end of 2024”. However, the ‘Recent Events’ section of the listing for Substance 3D Designer mentions Substance 3D Designer 14.1, which was released in January 2025. Substance 3D Designer and Substance 3D Painter 2025 perpetual licenses will be available in the coming months. Substance 3D Sampler 5.0 Substance 3D Sampler 5.0: path tracing in the 3D viewport Substance 3D Sampler 5.0 introduces support for path tracing when previewing assets within the software, as an alternative to the existing real-time rendering system. The new “advanced rasterizer and path tracer” makes it possible to preview materials more accurately, supporting properties including coating, sheen, translucency and SSS. Integrates with HP’s Z Captis material scanner The other major change is support for the Z Captis, HP’s material scanner. Substance 3D Sampler now integrates directly with the scanner to preview and launch a capture, automatically process the PBR channels, and export a digital material. The feature is only available to businesses with Teams or Enterprise subscriptions, and with non-commercial Educational plans, not to individual users. Workflow, performance and pipeline integration changes There are also quality-of-life improvements, including Quick Actions, a new set of presets that automatically populate the layer stack with the layers required for common workflows. The software homepage has been redesigned, and provides quick access to learning content, sample projects, and the Quick Actions themselves. The 3D View gets new options to display shadows and reflections in the ground plane, and a grid to show the scene origin, plus the option to save render snapshots. Other changes include support for the Adobe Standard Material shader when exporting USD files, performance improvements when opening projects, and updates to the plugin UI. Price and system requirements Substance 3D Sampler is compatible with Windows 10+, RHEL 8.6/9.4+ Linux and macOS 12.0+. The software is available subscription-only. The Windows and macOS editions are available via Adobe’s Substance 3D Texturing subscriptions, which currently cost $19.99/month or $219.88/year; or Substance 3D Collection subscriptions, which currently cost $49.99/month or $549.88/year. https://helpx.adobe.com/substance-3d-sampler/release-notes/version-5-0-substance-3d-sampler.html SuperSplat 2.0 View and edit 3DGS data for free in a standard web browser First released last year, SuperSplat makes it possible to import and edit 3D scans captured as 3D Gaussian Splats (3DGS) in a standard web browser. Users can import data in PLY format, and hide, remove or re-orient individual splats, or select and crop out larger parts of the scan using volume selection tools. You can read more about how it works in our story on the SuperSpat 1.0. SuperSplat 2.0: create camera flythroughs and share them in the new SuperSplat gallery SuperSplat 2.0 builds on the new animation timeline added in SuperSplat 1.13 earlier this year for playing back ‘4D Gaussian Splats’ (4DGS) – time sequences of 3DGS scans in PLY format. The latest update makes it possible to add animations to static scans, with new timeline controls enabling users to record and export camera flythroughs. Scenes can now be published to a new SuperSplat gallery website, where they can be viewed on desktop monitors, or using virtual reality or augmented reality headsets. Licensing and system requirements SuperSplat can be used for free in a web browser. It should work with current desktop browsers. The source code is available under an open-source MIT license. https://superspl.at/editor KeenTools 2025.1 KeenTools 2025.1 is primarily a workflow update to KeenTools’ tracking plugins, with both FaceTracker and GeoTracker getting a new wireframe render option. It makes it possible to render a wireframe view of the tracked geometry the plugins generate, either in isolation, or overlaid on the source footage to help when previewing a track. The plugins also get a Start frame selector for clips and Sequence Masks, providing a quick way to reposition footage and masks in the timeline. All of the KeenTools plugins, including 3D head generator FaceBuilder, get support for the Blender 4.4 and Nuke 15.2 betas, with support for the Nuke 16.0 beta to come. Price and system requirements The KeenTools plugins are compatible with Blender 2.80+ and Nuke 12.2v4+. GeoTracker is also available for After Effects 17.0+. The software is available rental-only, with each individual plugin costing $18/month or $179/year for individuals, or $499/year for studios. https://keentools.io/news/2025-1-0 Red Giant 2025.3 and Universe 2025.2 The Red Giant 2025.3 focuses mainly on Maxon Studio, Maxon’s new tool for creating motion graphics in After Effects by customizing readymade ‘Capsules’. The update adds new scaling options, making it possible to apply a Capsule at its original size, or to scale it to the width of a composition, its height, or both. Subscribers also get 200 new Capsules with 9:16 aspect ratios for use on social media. Maxon has now added a Maxon Studio Open button to all of its other After Effects plugins, making it possible to launch Studio from within the Magic Bullet, Trapcode and VFX tools. The update also improves interoperability between Particular and Form, Red Giant’s 3D particle toolsets, with a new button to apply Form default settings within Particular. Universe 2025.2 is a much smaller update, adding the Maxon Studio Open button to all of the Universe tools in After Effects. Red Giant is compatible with After Effects 2024+ on Windows 10+ and macOS 12.0+. Some individual tools are compatible with other host applications, including DaVinci Resolve. Complete Red Giant subscriptions, which include Universe, cost $85/month or $639/year. Individual Universe subscriptions cost $32/month or $214/year. https://www.maxon.net/en/red-giant Redshift 2025.3 Redshift 2025.3 reworks the renderer’s handling of Area and Dome lights, making their contribution to a scene less dependent on their visibility to the render camera. Lights can now be visible in a scene, but not themselves cast shadows; or be invisible in a scene, but still be seen through transparent materials, as in the image above. The update also improves multiscattering in volumes, with both the Standard Volume and classic Volume shader getting a new Extinction Falloff parameter. It reduces scattering and transmittance with successive bounces of volume rays, making it possible to simulate “hundreds” of bounces without the usual performance penalty. The Standard Volume also now has a single Displacement input, making it possible to apply volume displacement to the volume and emission channels simultaneously. In addition, the Redshift USD procedural is now supported in Maya as well as Houdini and Katana, making it possible to load and render USD files using the RS Proxy. The USD assets are then only loaded at render time, resulting in a lighter primary scene file. The USD Procedural also now supports UsdPreviewSurface materials, and denoising and post effects. The update also introduces experimental support for the GeForce RTX 50 Series, NVIDIA’s new consumer GPUs based on its Blackwell architecture, now becoming commercially available. For Mac users, Redshift’s Alembic procedural is now supported on Apple Silicon processors. Redshift 2025.3 is compatible with Windows 10+, glibc 2.28+ Linux and macOS 13.3+. The renderer’s integration plugins are compatible with 3ds Max 2018+, Blender 3.1+, Cinema 4D R25+, Houdini 18.5+, Katana 4.5+ and Maya 2018+ (Maya 2022+ on Linux). The software is rental-only, with subscriptions costing $46/month or $264/year. Vantage 2.7 First released in 2020, Vantage is a hardware-accelerated ray tracing renderer intended for exploring large V-Ray production scenes in near-real time. The initial release was targeted at visualization, but in 2023 Chaos added support for rendering deforming meshes, like animated characters, and began pitching Vantage at VFX work. Vantage 2.7 adds support for more of V-Ray’s native features, particularly from Chaos Scatter, its object scattering system. The renderer now supports scatter distribution maps, introduced last year in V-Ray 7, and scatter surface color from .vrscene files. Vantage also now supports V-Ray’s VRayDirt texture map, described on Chaos’s blog as a “highly requested” change. The Sun and Sky system has been updated to the PRG Clear Sky model introduced in V-Ray 7, which generates more realistic results at sunrise and sunset. Vantage 2.7 also introduces a new lens distortion system, with users able to mimic distortions created by real-world camera lenses using ST maps, as in many compositing and camera tracking apps. The renderer also now supports vignetting – both camera vignetting and optical vignetting – and gets new Blur/Sharpen controls in the Color Corrections tab for post effects. Other key changes include support for VFX color management standard OCIO (OpenColorIO). DLSS, NVIDIA’s AI-based image reconstruction system, first integrated into Vantage in 2023, has been updated to DLSS 4, the current generation of the technology. According to Chaos, the change “improve[s] temporal stability to minimize artifacts like ghosting and flickering” during real-time rendering. The update also adds support for video encoding on AMD and Intel GPUs, and the option to export 16-bit as well as 8-bit PNG files, although they remain standard dynamic range images. Chaos Vantage is compatible with Windows 10+ and DXR-compatible AMD, Intel or NVIDIA GPUs. The software is rental-only, with subscriptions costing $108.90/month or $658.80/year. https://docs.chaos.com/display/LAV/Chaos+Vantage%2C+v2.7.0 Adobe launches the Firefly Video Model in public beta Although the Firefly Video Model can generate 2D and 3D animation – Adobe’s initial blog post showed examples of generated footage resembling 3D, hand-drawn and stop-motion animation – its main initial use case is more naturalistic video. According to Adobe, it “excels at generating videos of the natural world … like landscapes, plants or animals”. However, the firm also cites a range of other possible uses, including creating FX elements like fire, smoke and dust that could be composited into VFX or motion graphics projects. Although the Firefly Video Model could potentially generate entire video sequences, current generative video tools struggle to maintain temporal and stylistic consistency in their output. Adobe’s blog post suggests that its initial use will be to generate supplementary material for projects shot conventionally – essentially, generating AI stock footage – citing use cases like generating B-roll and missing establishing shots. As well as the source image and/or text prompt – it supports up to 1,000 characters of text – the implementation of the Video Model in the Firefly web app includes built-in controls. Users can select the aspect ratio of the video generated (currently only 16:9 or 9:16), and choose from a range of presets for shot size (ranging from extreme close up to extreme long shots), camera angle (including aerial shots), and camera moves (including handheld shots). In the initial public beta, generated clips are limited to 5 seconds in length and 1080p resolution. Although the Firefly tools are available online, Adobe is also increasingly integrating them into its Creative Cloud apps. So far, the only one in which the Firefly Video Model will definitely be included is video editing software Premiere Pro, beta builds of which now include Generative Extend. However, Adobe’s initial blog post also namechecked compositing app After Effects. The firm has previously shown tech previews of generative AI tools suitable for After Effects. Adobe describes the Firefly Video AI model as “commercially safe and is only trained on content we have permission to use”. Earlier in 2024, the firm updated its Terms of Use to explicitly rule out the use of users’ content – aside from that uploaded to stock content marketplace Adobe Stock – to train AI models, following a widely publicised artist backlash. As with many of the other Firefly services, pricing for the Firefly Video Model is credit-based. Adobe has introduced new pricing to coincide with the public beta. Generating video initially uses 20 credits per second of footage, set to rise to 100 credits per second. The new $9.99/month Firefly Standard plans provide 2,000 video credits per month; $29.99/month Firefly Pro plans provide 7,000 credits per month. Credits are also included as part of Creative Cloud subscriptions. The Firefly Video Model is now available via the Firefly web app. Text to Video and Image to Video are both in beta. https://firefly.adobe.com/ Paint System for Blender Tawan Sunflower describes Paint System as a “simple but flexible painting system for non-photo-realistic-rendering in Blender” – in the video above, he describes it as inspired by the painterly look of Netflix animated series Arcane. It enables users to paint directly onto the surface of 3D geometry, using a range of preset brushes: the add-on supports the brushes included in Blender’s Essentials asset library. Painting is layer-based, supporting layer opacity, layer clipping, and – as of Paint System 1.1.6, the latest release – Adjustment Layers. Paint System also supports Photoshop-style layer blending modes, including Hue, Saturation, Value, Multiply, Divide, Lighten and Darken: the full list is shown in this part of the demo video. However, one of the most eye-catching is Erase Alpha, which renders that part of the layer transparent, making it possible to ‘erase’ parts of the object by painting over it. Paint System’s selling point looks to be its ease of use: it has a simple, intuitive UI, and is designed to avoid users having to manipulate Blender’s Shader Nodes. However, artists willing to dive into the node graph can generate an even wider range of results. By adjusting the connections between the node group Paint System creates the rest of a material network, users can paint texture channels other than surface color, including the normal map. It’s a sizeable update, adding shader layers, and the option to bake layered textures for export. Other features added in recent updates include automatic UV unwrapping, for texturing assets without UV maps, and the option to lock layer settings. Paint System is compatible with Blender 4.1+. It’s a free download. The source code is available under a GPL v3 license. https://tawansunflower.gumroad.com/l/paint_system LightWave 2025 LightWave 2025 will be the third major update to the software since late 2023. It follows a three-year hiatus during which development was suspended by previous owner Vizrt, which acquired NewTek, LightWave’s long-time developer, in 2019. The software’s current owner, LightWave Digital, is a start-up whose management team comprises people who were closely involved with the software in its NewTek days, including former NewTek staff, plus key add-on developers and LightWave users. LightWave 2025 features new tools for procedural modeling and both preview and final-quality rendering, and updates to the Rhiggit character rigging system added in LightWave 2024. Details can change during feature development, so we’ll update this story once LightWave 2025 is released, but this is the summary that LightWave Digital sent to users last week: RIPR A real-time preview system designed for HDR-illuminated pre-visualisation. Seamlessly switch between VPR, RIPR, and GL previews without breaking your creative flow. Steppit, Handdit & Pickkit Three powerful tools integrated into Rhiggit to help you bring characters to life more quickly than ever. Featuring automated walk cycles (with key framing), intuitive hand animation, and a streamlined joint selection system. LW Construct An instantaneous generator of stairways, bookshelves and decks with an intuitive user interface. Quickly create indoor or outdoor stairs, change the spindles, adjust the landing size and handrails, all with a click. Cel Shader A post shading tool (visible in VPR) that offers impressive control over object and surface-based shading for a stunning stylised finish. For more details, you can find a recording of last week’s preview livestream on YouTube and a longer list of features announced during the previews on the LightWave Discord server. LightWave 2025 is due out in “Q1 2025”. It is currently available to pre-order. The current stable release, LightWave 2024.1, is compatible with Windows 10+ and macOS 10.15+ (macOS 11.0+ for Apple Silicon Macs, and macOS 13.3+ to use the Octane renderer). New licenses cost £795 (around $980). https://lightwave3d.com/information-pages/new-features/ ForestPack 9.1 Described by iToo as “the ultimate scattering tool for 3ds Max”, Forest Pack is designed to distribute objects across a scene: usually plant models, but also rocks, buildings or lights. The scattering process is fully parametric, and object distribution can also be controlled by image maps, splines or painting directly onto terrain geometry. Forest Pack can scatter both static and animated objects, with the option to randomise both texture maps and the time offset of animation cycles, or control them via image maps. The last major update to the software, Forest Pack 9.0, introduced ForestIvy, a new plugin for generating 3D ivy and other climbing plants. Users set the overall form of the ivy using a combination of manual and procedural workflow, drawing it directly onto surfaces, generating it automatically, or blending between the two. Since then, Itoosoft has updated ForestIvy steadily through a series of ForestPack 9.1 updates: the latest listed on the forum is ForestPack 9.1.7. (Full disclosure: it was actually released just before the New Year, but we only spotted it when Itoosoft mentioned it in its email newsletter.) New features include the option to generate ivy along a path, without the need for an underlying 3D surface, as shown in the image above. It is also possible to create or save paths as standard 3ds Max splines. There are also new Surface Offset and Check Ground Hit options, which shift the ivy away from an underlying surface, and flatten it along the ground, even without a ground object in place. ForestIvy is also now compatible with real-time ray tracer Chaos Vantage, and V-Ray 7, the latest version of the production renderer. Forest Pack 9.1.7 is compatible with 3ds Max 2019+ running on Windows 10+. New perpetual licences cost $275. There is also a free Lite edition. It’s feature-limited, but can be used on commercial projects. https://forum.itoosoft.com/announcements/forest-pack-litepro-9-1-7/ https://www.itoosoft.com/blog/forest-ivy-updates-new-features-improvements-for-better-climbing-plants-in-3ds-max Optics 2025 Optics becomes the latest Boris FX application to integrate Mask ML, the AI masking technology recently introduced in roto and tracking tools Silhouette and Mocha Pro. Users click on objects within a photo to have Optics isolate them automatically, creating a mask that can be used to selectively edit that part of the image. Other new features include a set of Particle Brushes, along the lines of those in tools like Flame Painter or Photoshop plugins like ParticleShop. They can be used to paint effects like fire, water or magical energy directly onto images, and come with over 250 presets. The release also adds a Looks tab within the Filters window providing access to multi-layer filter and mask presets. Users can export Looks and share them with other artists. You can find a list of smaller UI and workflow improvements on Boris FX’s blog. Optics 2025 is available as a plugin for Photoshop CC+, Photoshop Elements 2018+ and Lightroom Classic, and as a standalone application for Windows 10+ and macOS 12.0+. A new perpetual licence costs $149; rental costs $9/month or $99/year. A single licence provides access to both the plugins and the standalone editions. https://cdn.borisfx.com/borisfx/store/optics/2025-0/Optics-2025-WhatsNew.pdf Pulldownit 6 for Maya Key features in Pulldownit 6 for Maya include a new Edge Fracture Tool, for shattering the inner borders of existing fragments. It is iterative, making it possible to play the updated simulation immediately, and non-destructive, making it possible to undo operations or recover the original fracture pattern. Pulldownit 6 also improves path-based shattering, which now generates more rounded fragments, resulting in more realistic dynamics for stone-like materials, as shown above. Auto replace cut material, which assigns a separate material to the inner surfaces of fragments, can now be performed even after baking a simulation, and now supports jaggy fragments. In the dynamics toolset, the Clusterize parameter, which groups fragments into clusters to guide how an object breaks apart, now generates less blocky-looking results. There are also two new clustering options: Excluded from Cracks Propagation, which forces a cluster to break apart only on direct collision, and Relative to Mass. The Fracture Body also gets a Relative to Mass option to control hardness, which generates more debris in impact areas by making those parts of the object more brittle. Simulation performance has also been improved with instanced shapes now computed “up to 30% faster” making it possible to simulate “thousands of shapes” in a few minutes. Pulldownit 6 is available for Maya 2020+ on Windows and macOS only. The software is rental-only. Node-locked licences cost €290/year (around $300/year), and floating licences cost €360/year ($375/year). https://www.pulldownit.com/versions-logs.php?idcate=3 V-Ray 7 for Maya New features in V-Ray 7 for Maya include support for 3D Gaussian Splats (3DGS). A new 3D scanning method, 3D Gaussian Splatting generates high-quality reconstructions of real-world objects or scenes from source photos or video. Although there are free third-party add-ons for rendering 3DGS data in Blender, Unity and Unreal Engine, V-Ray is one of the first CG applications to support the technology natively. Chaos tells us that it expects the functionality to appeal to both architectural visualization and VFX studios, particularly as a way of creating detailed background environments. You can read a good overview of how 3D Gaussian Splats work, and the pros and cons of workflows based around them in this post on Chaos’s blog. The release also adds support for shadows within V-Ray’s Light Path Expressions. Users can now isolate shadows within renders using LPEs for more precise control during compositing. In addition, the V-Ray Sun and Sky system has been updated to support the PRG Clear Sky model used in Corona, Chaos’s other major production renderer. According to Chaos, it generates more realistic lighting effects than the previous model, particularly at sunrise and sunset, and when rendering the sky from greater altitudes. The firefly removal algorithm, for removing bright flecks in renders, has been updated, while V-Ray’s implementation of render denoiser Open Image Denoise now supports a prefilter pass V-Ray GPU, V-Ray’s hybrid CPU and GPU renderer, gets initial support for rendering caustics, bringing it closer to feature parity with the main CPU render engine. You can see a list of the remaining features not supported in V-Ray GPU here. Performance improvements include the option to use system memory for textures, making it possible to render larger scenes without running out of GPU memory. For rendering animation, the update reworks V-Ray’s algorithm for caching bitmaps between frames, speeding up rendering of image sequences “up to 50%” in “some cases”. V-Ray GPU also now supports Apple’s Metal API, which should improve performance on macOS: Chaos says that rendering is “up to 3x” faster on MacBooks with current M4 processors. The V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB), for viewing and editing images rendered in V-Ray, gets a new Vignette Layer, making it possible to apply vignetting effects to renders. The VFB now supports freeform region rendering, making it possible to specify render regions of arbitrary shape to help resolve key areas of an image more quickly. The update also adds a new Filters tab with access to readymade color correction presets. Chaos Scatter, V-Ray’s new object scattering system, gets a Look At function, making it possible to orient scattered objects to face the camera. There is also a new falloff curve to control how scattered vegetation varies with altitude. V-Ray 7 for Maya also introduces support for the new OpenPBR open material standard. Overseen by the Academy Software Foundation, OpenPBR is intended to streamline look development for VFX, with materials developed for one application displaying near-identically in others that support it. The base V-Ray Material (VRayMtl) now includes a new OpenPBR mode, which Chaos describes as proving more control over Sheen effects, and simplifying the creation of layered materials. V-Ray for Maya also supports the native OpenPBR Surface introduced in Maya 2025.3, including within its implementation of MaterialX Other changes specific to Maya include support for USD for Maya 0.30, the current version of Maya’s USD plugin. V-Ray Clipper, V-Ray’s geometric primitive for creating cutaway renders, is also now supported in USD workflows. Outside the core software, Chaos Cosmos, the online asset library available with all V-Ray subscriptions, now supports asset variants. The functionality, which makes it possible to switch between variant looks for an asset without having to re-import it into the scene, is initially being used for seasonal changes to foliage. It is also now possible to multi-select assets within Chaos Cosmos. Chaos has also raised the price of V-Ray subscriptions since the previous release. V-Ray Solo subscriptions now cost $84.90/month or $514.80/year, up $5/month or $48/year, and V-Ray Premium subscriptions cost $119.90/month or $718.80/year, up $24/year. V-Ray Enterprise subscriptions are unaffected. V-Ray 7 for Maya is compatible with Maya 2022+, running on Windows 10+, RHEL, CentOS and Rocky Linux, and macOS 10.13+. It is rental-only. You can find current pricing in the story above. https://docs.chaos.com/display/VMAYA/V-Ray+7 IlluGen Real-time simulation tools developer JangaFX has announced IlluGen, a new application for creating “the majority of assets” used to assemble the “illusions” for visual effects in games. The software, which had previously been teased on JangaFX’s Discord server, gets its own section of JangaFX’s new public roadmap, along with a brief, enigmatic product description. The roadmap also shows the upcoming features in JangaFX’s other tools, smoke and fire simulator EmberGen, liquid simulator LiquiGen and terrain generator GeoGen. The entry in the online roadmap is effectively the official announcement for IlluGen: it’s certainly the first time that we can recall seeing a logo for the software. However, the title of the entry is simply, “IlluGen is an illusion”, while the description reads, not much more helpfully: “Visual effects in games are [composed] of a bunch of smoke and mirrors. … If only there were a better way to create the majority of assets used to assemble these illusions.” JangaFX hasn’t officially announced what IlluGen is yet, never mind its system requirements, release date, or how much it will cost. https://roadmap.jangafx.com/c/6-unveiling Dash 1.8.5 Dash 1.7 adds a lot of new features to the software, but the most eye-catching is Create Vines on Selection, for growing 3D vegetation procedurally across any surface. Despite the name, it isn’t confined to growing vines, since you can use texture atlases from the Megascans asset library – free for use in UE5 – to customize the leaf type. The basic workflow will be familiar to anyone who has used an ivy generator such as the ones available for 3ds Max and Blender, with users able to control the form of the vegetation by adjusting parameters for growth, surface adhesion and gravity. Other new features include the Blend material, which makes it possible to create custom ground surfaces by blending from three source surfaces. Polygonflow describes is as being a ‘lite’ version of Quixel Mixer, blending the surface color, height map and noise settings from the sources. There is also a new Image to Grading system, which makes it possible to color grade the viewport display to match a reference image: either a local file, or a URL. In addition, Dash now includes a library of IES profiles for recreating real-world lights in architectural visualizations, based on free online libraries like IES Library. The scattering toolset has also been expanded, with the new Volume Scatter tool making it possible to scatter objects in 3D, as well as over surfaces. It is possible to use any mesh as the scatter volume, as shown in the video above, where a blobby mesh is used as a volume within which to distribute a flock of birds. The 2D scattering tools get the option to use any landscape paint layer as a mask, and the randomize the colors of the scattered objects. In addition, Dash 1.7 makes it possible to tag assets within a user’s Asset Library automatically using Open AI’s GPT-4 AI model. AI tagging was originally introduced in Dash 1.5, but Polygonflow describes the original open-source AI model it was using as “fairly limited in quality and speed”. The new GPT-based system uses a ChatGPT Enterprise plan, so OpenAI cannot use Dash users’ data for training its AI models. When tagging assets manually, it is now possible to multi-select objects. Workflow improvements include a new Reference system, which supersedes the old Variables system for controlling shared properties used by Dash tools. It is also now possible to export assets and all of their dependencies from an Unreal Engine project as .zip archives. Other key changes since we last wrote about Dash include the option to use assets from multiple UE5 projects in an environment, which was added in Dash 1.6. The update reworks Dash’s user interface, splitting features into distinct menus, and unifying many floating panels into a single Tools panel. The software’s path-based tools – Road Tool, Quick Pipe, Decal Scatter and Path Scatter – have also been “revamped from the ground up” to make them easier to use. New features in Dash 1.8 include the new Dash Board tool, an experimental new reference image organization tool, described as “similar to Miro and PureRef“. The update also adds a new Chat-GPT-based AI assistant, which makes it possible to type in plain-language questions and receive answers from the online documentation. The Surface Scatter tool gets several new features, including the option to use the top, bottom and center of objects being scattered as pivot points, and to modify the size of scattered objects according to distance from a target object. The Blend Material added in Dash 1.7 has been updated to support rain and snow. Using curves to deform terrain is itself a new feature in Dash 1.8.5: in previous releases, it was only possible to use noise patterns to deform a landscape mesh. The update also introduces “basic” heightmap support. Other changes include new options to hide visible texture repetitions in the Material Edit and Blend Material tools, and new options to control object rotation in the scattering tools. The update also adds support for Fab, Epic Games’ new online marketplace, with Unreal Engine assets downloaded using the Fab plugin now added to the Dash Content Browser. Polygonflow has also cut the price of Dash. For Freelance users – those with funding under $250,000/year – the cost of monthly subscriptions falls from $20/month to $14/month, while annual subscriptions fall from $190/year to $133/year. For larger studios, the cost of monthly Enterprise subscriptions falls even further, from $89/month to $14/month, although annual subscriptions remain unchanged at $850/year. Studio can also buy perpetual licenses of Dash, which were previously only available to Freelance users. Dash is compatible with Unreal Engine 5+ on Windows 10+ only. For artists earning under $250,000/year, perpetual Freelance licenses cost $230, while Freelance subscriptions cost $14/month or $133/year. For larger studios, perpetual Enterprise licenses cost $999, while Enterprise subscriptions cost $14/month or $850/year. https://docs.polygonflow.io/advanced/release-notes NVIDIA unveils GeForce RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti and 5070 GPUs NVIDIA has unveiled the GeForce RTX 5090, GeForce RTX 5080, GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and GeForce RTX 5070: the top-of-the-range cards in its GeForce RTX 50 Series of consumer GPUs. The GPUs, which will all be available by February, and which are priced between $1,999 and $549, are the first desktop cards to use NVIDIA’s next-gen Blackwell GPU architecture. Although primarily gaming cards, NVIDIA also markets the RTX 50 Series at artists, so below, we’ve rounded up their key specs for DCC work, and performance comparisons for CG software. In terms of core specs, the new GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs are a sizeable improvement over their counterparts from the current-generation GeForce RTX 40 Series. All have all higher counts of the three key hardware core types: CUDA for general GPU compute, Tensor for AI operations, and RT for hardware-accelerated ray tracing. The RT cores are also now fourth-generation, and the Tensor cores fifth-generation, although NVIDIA hasn’t provided much detail on how that will affect GPU rendering performance. What will definitely affect GPU rendering is the increased GPU memory capacity of the top-of-the-range GeForce RTX 5090: up to 32GB, from 24GB in the current-gen RTX 4090. The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti also has more GPU memory than its predecessor, although there is no change with either the GeForce RTX 5080 or GeForce RTX 5070. In addition, the entire GeForce 50 Series uses the latest GDDR7 memory, rather than the older GDDR6X memory used in the GeForce RTX 40 Series. There is less change in display connectivity: the GeForce 50 Series cards have one HDMI and three DisplayPort connectors, the same as the GeForce RTX 40 Series. However, they support DisplayPort 2.1, the latest version of the standard – and will support the upcoming DisplayPort 2.1b – whereas the GeForce RTX 40 Series supports DisplayPort 1.4a. Those increases in processing power come with a corresponding increase in power consumption – all four GeForce RTX 50 Series cards have a higher Total Graphics Power than their precursors. However, they are also more compact – unlike the high end of the GeForce RTX 40 Series, all are dual-slot cards – and most of them are cheaper than their predecessors, at least at launch. The exception is the GeForce RTX 5090, which has a launch price of $1,999, up $400 from the GeForce RTX 4090, although NVIDIA claims that it offers double the overall performance. Given that GeForce RTX 50 Series are gaming cards, most of the performance comparisons that NVIDIA has released are for games rather than CG software. One exception is architectural GPU renderer D5 Render. The comparison chart above shows over a 2x increase in performance on the GeForce RTX 5090 compared to the current-gen RTX 4090, presumably using the standard D5 Render Benchmark. Although NVIDIA has a blog post on how the new cards will affect creative workflows, it focuses very much on generative AI rather than DCC software. However, it does feature a section on video editing and video production, which claims that the GeForce RTX 5090 can export video “60% faster” than the current-gen GeForce RTX 4090. The comparison chart above is taken from a video on DaVinci Resolve, although the blog post also mentions Premiere Pro. The GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 will be available on 30 January, priced at $1,999 and $999. The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and 4070 will be available in February, priced at $749 and $549. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/50-series/ Flame Painter Escape Motions has made the iOS editions of Flame Painter, its particle-based digital painting software, and Inspirit, its mandala-creation software, available free. Both apps, which are compatible with iPads and iPhones, are now free downloads, and the in-app purchase needed to unlock the full toolset of Flame Painter is also now free. Like its desktop counterpart – it’s also available for Windows and macOS – the iOS edition of Flame Painter makes it possible to paint with customisable particle-based brushes. It’s particularly well-suited to adding magical effects and light trails to images, but can also be used to create abstract backgrounds. On its release, an in-app purchase of $0.99 or $2.99 was required to unlock its full feature set, but this has now been removed. Inspirit is aimed more at casual users, and is intended as an intuitive way to create mandalas and kaleidoscopic patterns. On its release, the iOS version was priced at $0.99. Inspirit is compatible with iOS 8.0+ and iPadOS 8.0+. Flame Painter is compatible with iOS 9.0+ and iPadOS 9.0+. Both are free downloads, and the in-app transaction required to unlock the full toolset of Flame Painter is also now free. The Windows and macOS versions remain paid products. https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/escape-motions-s-r-o/id435313642 Wrap 2024.11 and Wrap4D 2024.11 First released in 2014, Wrap is a topology transfer tool for 3D scan data. It transfers clean topology from a reference mesh to a raw 3D scan, speeding up the process of creating animation-ready digital doubles of actors. The process is semi-automatic, and due to Wrap’s node graph-based architecture, adjustments made for one scan can then be rolled out to others. The extended edition, Wrap4D, is part of a set of tools for creating time sequences of scans from head-mounted camera rigs, for capturing an actor’s facial expressions in 3D. The software is used by game developers and visual effects studios including EA Vancouver, Rocksteady Studios, Framestore and The Mill. Wrap 2024.11 is the first update to the software in a year, and it’s a sizeable release. There are a number of important quality-of-life improvements when working in the node graph, including the option to group nodes, to find nodes within large graphs by searching by name, and to temporarily disable nodes to speed up graph evaluation. A new SwitchGeom node switches between input geometries for a graph, helping to preview experimental changes. There are also new nodes for cleaning and retargeting scan data, including nodes for smoothing geometry to remove high-frequency artifacts, blending between transforms, and mirroring geometry. Wrap’s brush toolset, for cleaning and editing scans manually, gets a number of updates. It is now possible to display reference images within Wrap, as a guide for editing geometry. There are also five new brush types: Move Surface, Relax Surface, Mirror Clone, Clone Project and Erase. The update also extends workflows based around vertex masks, with new Draw and Fill modes to define how brushstrokes overlap when painting masks manually. There are also new nodes for displaying the difference between two geometries as a vertex mask, for transferring vertex masks between geometries with different topologies, and converting vertex masks to images, for export to other DCC applications. For pipeline integration, it is now possible to export geometry sequences from Wrap to other applications as a single Alembic file. It is also now possible to export cameras created in Wrap to other applications, this time in FBX format. Wrap4D 2024.11 has all of the same features, plus a complete new blend rig pipeline. It’s a set of new nodes for creating, editing and exporting blendshape-based facial rigs, combining 3D geometries for facial expressions and corrective blendshapes. According to Faceform, solving a 4D sequence within a blendshape rig makes it easier to carry out common tasks like modifying gaze direction, or enhancing expressions. Wrap 2024.11 and Wrap4D 2024.11 are compatible with Windows and Linux. For users with revenue under $100,000/year, perpetual node-locked Indie licenses of wrap cost $570. Full Professional licenses of Wrap cost $1,070 for node-locked licenses; $1,470 for floating licenses. The software is free to students and educational institutions. Wrap4D is priced on enquiry. https://docs.faceform.com/Wrap/WrapChangeLog/WrapChangeLog.html https://docs.faceform.com/Wrap/Wrap4DChangeLog/Wrap4DChangeLog.html Uniform 1.3 The major change in Uniform 1.1 is the introduction of GeoCurves: a new object type that can be used for creating forms based around spline curves, like stylized hair. You can see it in action in the tweet above, where it is used to draw out hair strands across a character’s scalp. Other new features include a physical rope solver – which presumably can also be used to generate rope-like organic forms, like tails and tentacles. In addition, support for surface transparency makes it possible to paint transparency into textures, as shown in the video at the top of this story. Workflow improvements include support for multiple consecutive operations per brush, making it possible to sculpt and paint simultaneously with the same brush stroke. There are also some key changes to the UI, including a new Outliner and Object Inspector, helping to keep complex projects organized. The update adds a simulation component for cloth and ropes – which, as well as creating actual cloth and ropes, makes it possible to deform models in a cloth-like way, as shown above. Any deformation tool can be used to interact with the simulation in real time, and the system supports force fields, damping, self-collision, and collisions with other objects in the scene. Other new features include the Surface Transfer tool (above), for baking high-poly geometry to texture maps. It is possible to keep using the sculpting tools to refine the resulting normal map. The update also introduces a new Curvature Surface Influence brush system, which can be used on both high-poly meshes and normal maps. For exporting assets, Uniform introduces a new combined scene exporter. It can take a scene with multiple objects, UVs and textures at different resolutions, and merge them into a single mesh and texture set with a fixed texel density. The update overhauls the software’s user interface, making it possible to customize it completely by dragging tools and panels around on-screen, as shown in the video above. For previewing assets, the release also introduces a new deferred viewport renderer with path-traced global illumination. There are also some significant new features for creating assets, including a new system for creating procedural objects. As well as procedural modeling, it can be used for instancing and scattering, making it possible to create motion-graphics-style effects like the scene shown in this video. There is also a new projection painting system, making it possible to paint a texture image onto the surface of a model in a way that will be familiar to users of tools like ZBrush. Other new features include a Manifold solver for trimming meshes, a new Symmetrize node tool, and support for layer visibility. Uniform is compatible with iPadOS 18.0+. It is designed for use with the Apple Pencil, so some features may not be accessible through touch gestures alone. It costs $49.99. MoonRay 1.7 Open-sourced last year, along with Arras, DreamWorks’ in-house cloud rendering framework, MoonRay is a high-performance Monte Carlo ray tracer. It was designed with the aim of keeping “all the cores of all the machines busy all the time”, and has an hybrid GPU/CPU mode with that matches the output of CPU rendering. MoonRay is capable of both stylized and photorealistic output, and has the key features you would expect of a VFX renderer, including AOVs/LPEs and deep output. It comes with a Hydra delegate, hdMoonRay, making it possible to integrate MoonRay as a viewport renderer in DCC apps that support Hydra delegates, like Houdini and Katana. The renderer is still in active development at DreamWorks Animation, and was used on the studio’s recent movies, including Kung-Fu Panda 4 and The Wild Robot. New features in MoonRay 1.7 include a new PortalLight light type. The online documentation only lists its control attributes, but in other renderers, portal lights are rectangular area lights used to improve Global Illumination in indoor scenes. In addition, hdMoonRay now supports the Cryptomatte ID matte-generation system. XPU mode, MoonRay’s hybrid CPU/GPU render mode, now accelerates both regular rays and occlusion rays for NVIDIA GPUs MoonRay 1.6, released in July, made it possible to build and run the software on current M-Series Macs with Apple Silicon processors, running macOS 14+. Mac builds support XPU mode, denoising via Open Image Denoise, and hdMoonRay. The update also added a new fisheye camera, and usd_mipmap_images, a command-line tool to prepare USD scenes with non-tiled, non-mipmapped textures for rendering. MoonRay is available under an open-source Apache 2.0 licence. The software can be compiled from source on Linux and macOS: it is tested on Rocky Linux 9 and macOS 14.3. You can find build information in the online documentation. XPU mode requires a NVIDIA GPU that supports CUDA and OptiX on Linux, and an Apple Silicon processor on macOS. https://github.com/dreamworksanimation/openmoonray/releases/tag/openmoonray-1.7.0.0 https://openmoonray.org/ Shapelab 2025 Released in 2023 after several years in early access, Shapelab is designed for sculpting 3D models – primarily organic forms like characters and creatures – in VR or on desktop systems. Unlike tools like Adobe’s Medium and Substance 3D Modeler, it represents 3D models as conventional polygonal geometry, rather than Signed Distance Fields. Shapelab uses a brush-based sculpting workflow, with a base set of brushes that will be familiar to users of apps like ZBrush, plus the option to use alpha textures as stamps. Users can adjust the resolution of the mesh locally, via a brush-controlled dynamic topology system, or via a set of global controls. It is also possible to clone, mirror or perform Boolean operations on geometry to build up more complex forms. For texturing sculpts, Shapelab includes a vertex painting toolset with support for masks; or users can apply a set of readymade materials. Shapelab 2025 makes it possible to customize the background environment for a sculpt, by importing HDRIs or choosing custom colors to use with the Skybox, Ambient Light and Environment Reflections. Users can also now adjust the orientation of directional lights, and toggle the workspace floor on and off. The update improves the software’s handling of parametric primitives, which now have their own section of the UI, rather than being available via the Create Tool and Sculpt Stamp Brush. There are new parameters to adjust the form of 3D primitives, including bevel, chamfer, taper and hole; or they can be reshaped using gestures when working in VR mode. The update also extends kitbashing workflow, making it possible to import models in OBJ or FBX format to the shape library, to use as kitbash parts, or to add shapes from the scene. There are also a number of workflow improvements, including support for angle and grid snapping in the Create Tool and Sculpt Tool, and when grabbing and moving objects. When viewing scenes, new scene alignment tools re-orient the scene vertically, automatically adjust zoom so that the entire scene is in view, or reset zoom to its default level. A new brush scaling option dynamically adjusts brush size relative to the scene, ensuring that brush strokes remain a consistent size regardless of zoom level. In related news, Leopoly also recently released Shapelab Lite, a lower-cost standalone edition of the software intended for “devices with lower processing power”. It has the “essential” features from the full edition, and should maintain a workable frame rate on relatively complex sculpts: Leopoly says that fps begins to drop “around 1.5 million polygons”. It is currently compatible with Meta’s Quest 3 and 3S headsets. Shapelab 2025 is compatible with Windows 10+. Find a list of supported VR headsets here. Perpetual licenses have a standard price of $64.99, down $5 from the previous release; subscriptions now cost $59.99/year, up $10/year since the previous release. Shapelab Lite is compatible with Meta Quest 3 and 3S headsets. It costs $14.99. https://leopoly.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/3/topic/c34f9e85-131e-4d19-a00b-3a8bef5b5494/article/636518415 https://shapelabvr.com/ Photoshop 26.2 It’s a minor workflow update, adding the option to expand or collapse the list of Classes and Tags used to filter fonts in the Font browser by clicking the icon highlighted in the image above. Photoshop 26.2 is compatible with Windows 10+ and macOS 12.0+. In the online documentation, it is also referred to as the December 2024 release or Photoshop 2025.2. The software is rental-only, with Photography subscription plans, which include access to Photoshop and Lightroom, starting at $119.88/year. Single-app Photoshop subscriptions cost $34.49/month or $263.88/year. https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new/2025-2.html

I think the main reason why we see less animusic animations is because they are all very similar to each other and visually monotonous so people get less and less interested in wasting their time seeing one. One more reason is that usually the music involved is already known (classical music to avoid copyright infringement in YT, FB Insta etc...). I think viewers who watch these staff really like the music to hear one more time or the type of people who like the "satisfying" factor of it (the on-time interaction). most people will watch something more visually intensive like a VJ Big trends are Low-Fi music with minimum animation And performance music videos

Hi @Cerbera, thank you for this solution. I'm going to try it too. Eudes. P.S. We post almost at the same time!

@Freemorpheme Hide it with MoGraph selection. Select Fracture, use MoGraph selection brush, from MoGraph menu go hide selected, then you can keyframe the newly made effector (strength)

If I was doing it I would set up a separate render file just for the mask, in that file you set the background to 100% flat white, put a 100% flat black on the people and the floor to 100% reflection, when you render that you should end up with a totally BnW reflection to use for a mask. I usually do the white in a luminosity channel, drop out all the lights and it should render in seconds being only BnW. Deck

Thank you for the Loop Carried Value suggestion! That was the main issue. I misinterpreted that for loop. Since it uses values that were modified in the previous iteration Loop Carried Value was necessary. Another thing I had to do is do an Inverse Matrix on that matrix. Either that or reverse the order of the cross product to generate the bitagent. I'm not sure if this is because I messed up something else somewhere or C4D and Houdini store matrices differently. But in the end it works just like in the tutorial. The spline distribution doesn't work quite the same. It has issues at changes of orientation along the curve while this doesn't.