HappyPolygon

Surprize... it does get called Paralax Shader. I've found a Blender tutorial but it still has a major difference as this looks like layers of textures on top of each other where as in Spyro it looks totally solid.You can fake depth on textures in C4D using the compositing tag to reflect a geometry not seen by camera but that's much slower than that...

I was playing Spyro the Dragon again (for 1000th time) but this time the remaster. I noticed that the crystal texture that is used heavily in the Dream Weavers world has some very nice 3D parallax. Is it similar to that "I-don't-rmember-how-its-called" box texture used to fake depth to building rooms in games ? Can this be replicated using a Normal map in a weird way on other channels ? Can it be replicated in any other renderer like Redshift, Octane or Corona ? Video Project 2023-08-06.MP4

I think I've asked this in the past but can't find the post. Where should I assign all CGAxis channels ? Texture Map -> Channel/Reflectance Layer Diffuse = Albedo -> Color/Layer Color Normal -> Normal/Bump Strength ? Reflection -> Reflection Strength Glossiness -> Specular Strength Roughness -> Bump? / Bump Strength ? Height -> Bump/SubPolygon Displacement? / Bump Strength ? Alpha -> Alpha or Transparensy ? Emission -> Luminance Translucency -> SubSurfaceScattering AO -> ? Is there any particular reason for someone to use the Bump map instead of the Normal map, or they should both be assigned ? Second question ... How the heck do they create maps for AO, Reflections, Normals and Height from photos ? Is there some special equipment to read so detailed depthmap ?

@Zerosixtwosix

@Cerbera

Try contacting him and request an updated version.

Latest news https://www.creativebloq.com/news/adobe-staff-ai-concerns

Ah... the rig is contructed in a way that it doesn't allow for two colors. Ask 0626 to split it in two. Cause I'm lost with it.

ISBN: 0849390508 | 324 Pages Abstract: Rapid advances in 3-D scientific visualization have made a major impact on the display of behavior. The use of 3-D has become a key component of both academic research and commercial product development in the field of engineering design. Computer Visualization presents a unified collection of computer graphics techniques for the scientific visualization of behavior. The book combines a basic overview of the fundamentals of computer graphics with a practitioner-oriented review of the latest 3-D graphics display and visualization techniques. Each chapter is written by well-known experts in the field. The first section reviews how computer graphics visualization techniques have evolved to work with digital numerical analysis methods. The fundamentals of computer graphics that apply to the visualization of analysis data are also introduced. The second section presents a detailed discussion of the algorithms and techniques used to visualize behavior in 3-D, as static, interactive, or animated imagery. It discusses the mathematics of engineering data for visualization, as well as providing the current methods used for the display of scalar, vector, and tensor fields. It also examines the more general issues of visualizing a continuum volume field and animating the dimensions of time and motion in a state of behavior. The final section focuses on production visualization capabilities, including the practical computational aspects of visualization such as user interfaces, database architecture, and interaction with a model. The book concludes with an outline of successful practical applications of visualization, and future trends in scientific visualization. The fact that this book showcases things we only got after 2015 (tracer) (voxels ?) or still to see (ok, this exists but in CV tools) I've no idea how this works and I'm too afraid to know

What orthogonal bars ? The planes on which the waves travel on ? S&T has some issues with transparencies. The best I can think of is to just render in a loop each wave separately (from orthographic views) with a light-colored background (red/blue accordingly). Make a new scene and put the videos on materials with Alpha to make the background transparent and assign them on their respective planes. Just put a new rectangle spline with the same scale on each plane and paint it with the respective color with the S&T material again to make the frame. Allow S&T to only render the splines and the rest with the standard renderer.

Recently saw this... not quite like painting in body paint

Unigene 2.17 Description later this month https://unigine.com/get-unigine/ I wonder if C4D generates all these occlusion optimizations automatically... Pixar and partners launch Alliance for OpenUSD Five key players in the technology industry have launched the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD), a new organisation to guide future development of Pixar’s open-source Universal Scene Description technology. As well as Pixar itself, the founder members of the AOUSD are Adobe, Apple, Autodesk and Nvidia, with Epic Games, Foundry, SideFX and Unity all due to join as general members. The project will be housed online by Linux Foundation affiliate the Joint Development Foundation. The aims for the alliance include laying the groundwork for OpenUSD to become an international standard, and to expand it from an entertainment-industry technology to “embrace the needs of new industries”. Developed in-house at Pixar, and open-sourced in 2016, the Universal Scene Description has become a key part of current visual effects, feature animation and game development pipelines. Now supported by nearly every major DCC software application, USD – officially renamed OpenUSD earlier this year – is also now being adopted outside the entertainment industry. A key factor in this expansion has been Omniverse, AOUSD founder member Nvidia’s USD-based online 3D design and collaboration platform. Last year, the firm announced an initiative to “expand USD’s capabilities beyond visual effects” to markets that Nvidia is targeting with Omniverse, including architecture, manufacturing and industrial digital twins. Backed by many of the major players in CG software development The founder members of the AOUSD are largely the same as the partners listed for that original initiative: Pixar, Autodesk, Adobe and Nvidia itself, plus Apple. Incoming general members include Cesium, Epic Games, Foundry, SideFX and Unity. Other technology firms can join the alliance, providing they are members of the Linux Foundation, and pay the $10,000/year general membership fee. The initial objectives for the AOUSD include developing written specifications for OpenUSD’s core features. The work will enable “inclusion by other standards bodies into their specifications” – the first step towards making OpenUSD an international standard recognised by the ISO. The alliance will also provide a forum for “collaborative definition of enhancements to the technology”. Those enhancements seem likely to expand OpenUSD’s focus, with the AOUSD’s press release describing OpenUSD as an ideal platform to “embrace the needs of new industries”. So how should entertainment artists view these changes? Will broadening OpenUSD to meet the needs of new industries benefit them directly, or simply bloat the format with features unnecessary for VFX work? It’s a question that we put to AOUSD chair, Pixar CTO Steve May, at a press briefing ahead of today’s launch. He acknowledged that the adoption of OpenUSD by other industries could be a “double-edged sword”, commenting: “It’s very exciting for us at Pixar, but it’s also a little bit scary.” However, he argued that “the point of having the Alliance … is not to [let OpenUSD become unwieldy], and instead reap benefits from drawing in other industries”. “The history of computer graphics, computer animation and visual effects is all about drawing from other industries,” he said. “I think if done properly, [this] will have great benefits.” https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/announcing-alliance-for-open-usd-aousd https://aousd.org/ D5 Render 2.5 D5 SR (D5 Super Resolution) is D5’s proprietary AI-based image super-resolution technology: its equivalent for Nvidia’s DLSS, AMD’s FSR or Intel’s XeSS, all of which D5 Render already supports. Like the alternative technologies, it speeds up rendering of large images by enabling the software to render at a lower resolution, then upscale the result. In the initial release, D5 SR is not supported for EXR output, or on AMD or Intel GPUs. The Advanced Camera tool can be placed in the scene independently of existing cameras. It supports picture-in-picture display, and a wider range of aspect ratios than standard cameras. The asset library gets over 200 new assets, including interior parallax assets, 3D plants and Asian characters, plus support for car paint material parameters for 3D vehicles. As ever, there are a lot of smaller feature and workflow improvements: find a full list via the links below. D5 Render is available for Windows 10. It requires a GPU capable of hardware-accelerated ray tracing: Dimension 5 recommends a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060+, an AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT+ or an Intel Arc A3+. Integration plugins are available for 3ds Max 2014-2016 and 2018+, ArchiCAD 21+, Blender 2.93+, Cinema 4D R20+, Revit 2018+, Rhino 6.1+ and SketchUp 2017+. The Community edition is free; subscriptions to the Pro edition, which includes advanced features, access to the full asset library and sequence rendering, cost $38/month or $360/year. https://www.d5render.com/ Prism 2.0 Prism 2.0 is a major overhaul – projects aren’t backwards-compatible with Prism 1.x – and has been in development for some time: the update was first announced in 2021, and was previously in closed beta. The key change is that Prism now enables users to create a pipeline based around the Universal Scene Description format (USD: now officially renamed OpenUSD). Its new USD plugin supports Houdini, Maya – via either the native USD for Maya plugin or Multiverse | USD – and ZBrush. Other DCC applications will be supported in future, but in the initial release, users will be able to export data from other apps in Alembic or OBJ format that can be referenced by USD files in Prism. A range of Hydra render delegates are supported, including 3Delight, Arnold and Karma, with the default HdStorm delegate and AMD’s Radeon ProRender are available out of the box. Users can author Hydra-compatible materials via QuiltiX, a new standalone node-based material editor based around the USD-compatible MaterialX standard. You can see it in action at 30:00 in the video above. New options for setting up custom workflows and managing cloud-based teams Prism’s UI and core workflow have also been overhauled, with the interface getting a new “modern stylesheet”, and a more streamlined layout for the Project Browser. Directory structure and filenames can now be customised on a per-project basis, and custom environment variables can now be defined per-user and per-project. A new Studio plugin lets users manage multiple projects, and a Cloud plugin manages remote teams. New integration plugins for DCC applications, some of them paid-for The number of DCC applications that Prism supports directly has also expanded, with new integration plugins available for DaVinci Resolve, Kitsu, Open RV, Substance 3D Painter and Unreal Engine. The core plugins, including 3ds Max, Blender, Houdini, Maya, Nuke and Photoshop, will remain free. In a change to the licence model, the other plugins – including the new USD plugin, Unreal Engine and ZBrush – will become paid add-ons when Prism 2.0 is officially released. Prism 2.0 is available free in open beta until September 2023. By default, beta users get 30 licences for plugins, though you can request more. The core software is available for Windows only. The versions of the host software compatible with the integration plugins are listed in the online documentation. Once Prism 2.0 is officially released, source code for the core application and eight of the plugins will be released on GitHub under an open-source LGPL licence, making them free for use in commercial projects. The 3ds Max, Blender, Deadline, Houdini, Maya, Nuke, Photoshop and PureRef plugins will also be open-source; the other plugins will require commercial licences. The prices haven’t been announced yet. https://prism-pipeline.com/docs/latest/index/changelog.html https://prism-pipeline.com/ QuiltiX QuiltiX is a standalone editor for creating, importing and exporting MaterialX materials. Workflow is node-based, with artists able to preview materials on their own imported models, viewing the results of changes in real time in the viewport. The software is designed to be artist-friendly, with some nice quality-of-life features: for example, when adding a new node, QuiltiX lists only those nodes that can actually be connected to the input selected. QuiltiX supports Hydra, the Universal Scene Description’s rendering framework, so any renderer with a Hydra delegate can be used for the viewport preview. By default, QuiltiX uses HdStorm, the native USD renderer, but there are instructions on GitHub for switching the viewport to use Arnold or Houdini’s Karma renderer. The software is designed to be used in professional production pipelines, is based around standards like Python and PySide, and is described as highly extensible. QuiltiX also integrates with Prism, Richard Frangenburg’s open-source VFX pipeline, version 2.0 of which has just been released in open beta, although it can be used without it. Developed by Industrial Light & Magic as a way to transfer material and look dev data between tools in VFX pipelines, MaterialX is now an open-source project maintained by the Academy Software Foundation. It is increasingly being adopted in production, particularly as part of pipelines based around the Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) format, and is supported in CG applications including Maya and Houdini. MaterialX materials should display near-identically in renderers that support the standard, like Arnold, Karma, RenderMan and Unreal Engine. The format is supported in Blender via AMD’s USD Hydra plugin. QuiltiX is free. Compiled binaries are available for Windows only on the product website. The source code is available under an open-source Apache 2.0 licence, and can also be compiled for Linux and macOS. You can find instructions for compiling it on GitHub. https://prism-pipeline.com/quiltix/ https://github.com/PrismPipeline/QuiltiX Milo 2023.1 The software’s rendering pipeline has been “totally rewritten”, improving performance, reducing memory use, and reducing visual discrepancies between on-screen previews and final renders. In particular, turntable renders now update interactively, and FBX import is “much improved”. Under the hood, Milo has been updated to Unreal Engine 5.2, the latest stable version of the engine. One consequence for macOS users is that the software is now available as a universal binary, and now runs natively on Apple Silicon processors in current Macs. Both M1 and M2 processors are supported. Silo amd Milo are available for Windows 10 and macOS 10.14.6+. Perpetual licences of Silo have an MSRP of $159, which includes Milo. The update is free to anyone who has bought the software in the past year. https://nevercenter.com/silo/features/#release_notes ASWF, Adobe, Autodesk announce OpenPBR VFX industry standards body the Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) has announced OpenPBR, a subproject of MaterialX, the open material standard it maintains. Created by Adobe and Autodesk with “guidance from the MaterialX Technical Steering Committee”, the open-source shading model will replace the Adobe Standard Material and Autodesk Standard Surface. When launched publicly later this month, OpenPBR should increase interoperability of materials between CG software, with any tool that supports MaterialX supporting OpenPBR automatically. At the minute, Adobe and Autodesk maintain separate, but parallel, technical specifications for 3D materials: the Adobe Standard Material and Autodesk Standard Surface. Both are intended to streamline look development and rendering by making it possible to transfer materials between applications, with materials displaying near-identically in each app. Both also draw on many of the same sources, including Disney’s Principled Shader and Allegorithmic’s PBR shading model, with Adobe even citing the Autodesk Standard Surface as an influence. However, at present, both are really only supported in the developers’ own software: in the case of Autodesk Standard Surface, Arnold, 3ds Max and Maya, for Adobe Standard Material, the Substance 3D tools. OpenPBR should unify the two models, making it possible for materials to display consistently across Adobe and Autodesk software. In fact, materials should display consistently in a much wider range of apps, since OpenPBR is a sub-project of open standard MaterialX, supported in a range of CG software, including Houdini, RenderMan and UE5. MaterialX materials are also supported in Blender via AMD’s USD Hydra plugin. At launch, a reference implementation of OpenPBR will be available in MaterialX, meaning that “anything that already supports MaterialX will automatically support OpenPBR”. The OpenPBR repository will launch publicly on Github this month. The ASWF’s blog post doesn’t give any more details, but MaterialX itself is available under an Apache 2.0 licence. https://www.aswf.io/blog/academy-software-foundation-announces-openpbr-a-new-subproject-of-materialx/ Flame 2024.1 t’s a significant update under the hood, moving flame to a new graphics architecture: instead of OpenGL, the software now uses Vulkan for GPU compute and rendering on Linux, and Metal on macOS. According to users quoted in Autodesk’s blog post, “some render times are faster by 50%” on macOS. The new Metadata Overlay introduced in Flame 2024 has been updated, and is now available in Batch, Batch FX and Modular Keyer. The existing Resize tool has also been updated, streamlining workflow when using it to crop images, and introducing new Adaptive and Scaling Presets modes. Other changes include a redesign of the Keyboard Shortcuts editor, and workflow improvements to Batch, Timeline and Timeline FX. Flame 2024.1 is available for Rocky Linux 8.5/8.7 and macOS 11.1+ on a rental-only basis. Since Flame 2023, the cost of subscriptions has risen to $610/month, up $30/month, or $4,870/year, up $235/year. Flare 2024 and Flame Assist 2024 are also available for Rocky Linux 8.5/8.7 and macOS 11.1+. Single-user subscriptions now cost $2,595/year. Lustre 2024 is only available on Rocky Linux 8.5/8.7. A single-user subscription now costs $4,870/year. https://help.autodesk.com/view/FLAME/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-3B373CA8-B0C7-4CBE-8632-28F963E27324 https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Deprecation-of-Support-for-Sparks-Questions-and-Answers.html Omniverse 2023.1 apps USD Composer 2023.1 adds new features for creating and viewing design variants, for troubleshooting imported assets, for recording simulations, and native XR viewing capabilities. USD Presenter 2023.1 refocuses the software as a dedicated scene viewing and markup tool, streamlining the user interface. Audio2Face 2023.1 adds the option to stream facial blendshapes from the AI animation tool to DCC software like Unreal Engine, and a new AI model based on a female Chinese character. (Full disclosure: the USD Composer and Audio2Face updates have been out for several weeks, but we didn’t manage to post stories on them at the time.) Officially launched last year after a year in beta, Omniverse enables artists and designers anywhere in the world to collaborate on projects in real time. Data is exchanged between compatible CAD and DCC applications and Omniverse in OpenUSD format, with connector plugins available for tools including 3ds Max, Maya, Revit, Rhino, SketchUp and Unreal Engine. Although the platform was initially pitched a range of markets, including VFX and game development, Nvidia’s current product website focuses more on industrial use cases like digital twins. Previously named Omniverse Create, scene assembly tool USD Composer gets a sizeable update, adding new tools for generating and presenting design variants. A new Variant Editor makes it easier to author USD variants that can be viewed and managed in the new Variant Presenter, also now available in sibling tool USD Presenter. New features for troubleshooting imported assets and recording animation and simulation Other new features include the Asset Validator, for identifying and fixing technical issues with imported assets, and Metrics Assembler, for automatically converting scale units and co-ordinate axes. For animation and simulation, the update adds a game-style Navigation Mesh system for scene agents, and Scene Recorder, for recording animation and simulation takes. Updates to existing features include UV generation in the Scene Optimizer, and the option to edit USD Preview Surfaces directly in the Material Editor. A new denoiser and “greatly improved” distiller for materials in MDL format improve visual parity between the RTX Realtime and RTX Interactive rendering modes. Omniverse XR functionality now available directly inside USD Composer In addition, extended reality viewing app Omniverse XR has been deprecated, in favour of the ability to view XR content directly inside USD Composer. Pipeline changes include support for Python 3.10, as specified in the CY2023 VFX Reference Platform specification, and for USD 22.11. There are also two new asset collections: an Automotive Asset Pack of materials and dome maps, and the SimReady Explorer content browser, which comes with over a thousand assets. Previously named Omniverse View, scene viewing and annotation tool USD Presenter gets a UI overhaul. USD Presenter 2023.1 removes the option to create new files, refocusing the software as a pure scene viewer, and introduces three use modes: View, Review and Approve. View makes it possible to view scenes, with a range of render quality options. Review adds scene markup, measurement and analysis tools, including sun study tools for visualisations; more advanced render modes like white mode and section views; and movie capture. Approve is itended for clients and supervisors to approve scene markups added in Review mode, but is described as “not 100% complete” in the current release. The online release notes also list a new Fabric Scene Delegate, and the option to lock height when navigating a scene. Audio2Face, Nvidia’s experimental AI-based tool for generating facial animation from audio sources, gets support for live streaming the facial blendshapes it generates to other software. Before Audio2Face 2023.1, blendshapes had to be imported manually. The video above shows the process for a MetaHuman character in Unreal Engine, although the Audio2Face release notes only mention a live link plugin for Unreal Engine 4, not Unreal Engine 5. Other changes include Claire, a new AI model based on a Chinese female character, supplementing Mark, the existing AI model, which is for a white male character. Users can switch between the two from a new AI Models panel. In addition, the software now generates blendshapes for the tongue, as well as the rest of a character’s face; and emotion keyframes can now be exported in JSON format. Availability and system requirements The Omniverse apps are compatible with Windows 10+ and CentOS 7/Ubuntu 20.04+ Linux. Most require a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU or better. Find detailed system requirements here. Ominverse is free for individual artists. For teams, commercial Enterprise subscriptions are available through Nvidia’s partner firms. You can find current pricing information here. https://docs.omniverse.nvidia.com/composer/latest/release_notes/2023_1_rh.html https://docs.omniverse.nvidia.com/presenter/latest/release-notes.html#id1 https://docs.omniverse.nvidia.com/audio2face/latest/release-notes/2023_1_highlights.html Deadline 10.3 The release introduces support for Unreal Engine 5, including the Movie Render Queue, and current versions of other key DCC applications, including 3ds Max, After Effects, Cinema 4D and Maya. In addition, Deadline has been moved to Python 3.10. Support for Python 2 and 3.7 has been removed. The release is one of the largest to Deadline since AWS made the software available free last year, along with the rest of its AWS Thinkbox product line. Key changes include support for Unreal Engine 5, the current version of the game engine and real-time renderer, which was released last April. Unlike the previous Unreal Engine 4 integration, the new plugin supports Unreal’s Movie Render Queue, used for rendering image sequences and videos for offline work, including VFX, animation and visualisation. The update also adds support for the current versions of other major DCC apps, including 3ds Max 2024, After Effects 2023 (After Effects 23), Cinema 4D 2023 and Maya 2024. Under the hood, Deadline has been moved to Python 3.10, the version of the programming language set out in the current CY2023 VFX Reference Platform specification. Support for Python 2 and 3.7 has been removed. Python 2 hasn’t been part of reference platform specs since 2019, but removal of Python 3.7 may be an issue for studios still running the CY2021 spec. In addition, a new Deadline Command plugin makes it possible to execute Python scripts with no prior configuration of Deadline or installation of Python. Use cases including validating new Deadline installations. Support for ASWF-supported package manager Rez added in Deadline 10.2 Deadline 10.2 introduced support for Rez, the open-source package manager that the Academy Software Foundation adopted as a hosted project last year. Deadline 10.3 is available for Windows 8.1+ and Windows Server 2012+’ CentOS/RHEL 7.0, Debian 9.0 and Ubuntu 18.04/20.04 Linux; and macOS 11.0+. You can find detailied system requirements here. Over 80 DCC applications are supported out of the box. The software is available free to anyone with an AWS account. To register for one, you will need to enter credit card details, but you won’t actually be billed unless you use other AWS services. https://docs.thinkboxsoftware.com/products/deadline/10.3/1_User Manual/manual/release-notes.html#deadline-release Deep Compositing and Eddy 3.0 Unity’s new Unity Wētā Tools division has unveiled two Nuke add-ons, deep compositing toolset Deep Compositing, and GPU-accelerated gaseous fluid simulation tool Eddy 3.0. Both tools were announced at SIGGRAPH 2023, and are expected to become available at the show. That will make them the first of Weta Digital’s in-house tools to be made available to the general public following Unity’s acquisition of the legendary VFX facility in 2021. The first product, Deep Compositing, is based on Weta’s Scientific and Technical Academy Award-winning deep compositing toolset, used in production at the studio for the past decade. It is being released as a Nuke add-on, providing around 90 new nodes for making use of depth data within compositing pipelines. The new nodes “give compositors greater creative control of CG objects, resulting in more accurate shots with … effects that can be edited without re-rendering the entire scene”. Although Nuke has its own deep compositing toolset, VP of Unity Wētā Tools Natalya Tatarchuk told CG Channel that the new add-on goes “well beyond” the software’s native capabilities. While the core workflow remains unchanged, the new nodes provide more scope to work non-destcructively, providing “a ton of options for seamless editing during the compositing flow”. Data is also stored in a “much more compact format than the standard deep Nuke format”, making scenes quicker to compile, and further speeding up iteration. Deep Compositing is also designed to process volumetric effects generated by Unity Wētā Tools’ second new Nuke plugin, GPU-accelerated gaseous fluid simulator Eddy 3.0. It enables artists to generate effects like smoke and fire directly inside Nuke, rather than having to import them from specialist tools like Houdini. The software is intended to enable compositors to create background effects like chimney smoke, leaving simulation teams free to concentrate on hero effects. According to Unity, creating FX elements within Nuke also provides “instant visual feedback, facilitating creative adjustments so shots are a closer match to creative direction”. Although the software has been around for some time – we first wrote about it in 2016 – this will be the first time that Eddy has been available off the shelf. It was originally developed by a separate company, VortechsFX, which licensed it through distributors to visual effects studios including Digital Domain, Framestore and MPC. However, all of its co-founders worked at Weta, and the firm formed part of the Unity buyout. Deep Compositing and Eddy 3.0 are compatible with Nuke 13.2 on Linux only. Windows builds are coming “soon”. Eddy is compatible with Nvidia GPUs only. Both products are due to become generally available at SIGGRAPH. You can register to be notified of the releases via the link below. https://unity.com/solutions/unity-weta-tools Toolbag 4.06 The main focus of the Toolbag 4.06 update is to extend support for the Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) format, following the introduction of USD import and export in Toolbag 4.05. Changes include the option to export a selected mesh in OpenUSD format, rather than the entire scene. Users can also export a wider range of proprietary Toolbag object types in OpenUSD format, including cameras, turntable objects, shadow catcher objects, fog and backdrop objects. In addition, a wider range of material properties can now be exported in OpenUSD format, including emissive, displacement and clearcoat material values. That should mean that PBR materials display more consistently between Toolbag and other DCC applications and game engines, as illustrated in the image above. Other changes include the option to export meshes with quads and n-gons in file types that support them, and a new Weld Vertices option to fix topological issues in meshes. Toolbag also now supports meshes or sub-meshes with multiple material assignments. Users can also now render videos in EXR format, making it possible to generate HDR image sequences. There are a lot of smaller changes to the texturing, baking, rendering and file export toolsets, including some signfificant bugfixes. You can find a full list via the link at the foot of this story. Outside the core software, Toolbag’s bundled asset library gets a new Objects preset type. It enables users to create and reuse mesh and lighting presets – for example, three-point lighting set-ups – rather than always having to populate scenes from scratch. Toolbag 4.06 is available for Windows 10 and macOS 10.15+. It is compatible with any Direct3D 12-capable GPU on Windows, and macOS GPU family 2. New licences now cost cost $319 for individual artists, and $879 for studios. Subscriptions cost $15.99/month for individuals and $43.99/month for studios. https://marmoset.co/posts/toolbag-4-06-available-now/ https://marmoset.co/toolbag/history/ Skybox AI 0.6 The releases mark the start of commercial pricing for the service. While you can still register for a free account, they are now limited to 15 skybox generations per month, and the skyboxes they generaate are watermarked. Depth maps are now restricted to paid accounts, along with new advanced features like the prompt enhancer system (shown above), which fleshes out brief text prompts into ones that generate better results. Users with paid subscriptions also get access to new readymade Premium art styles. Skybox AI is currently in beta. It’s browser-based, so it should run in standard modern web browsers, although some features are only available on desktop machines or larger tablets. Users with free accounts can generate up to 15 skyboxes per month. Exports are watermarked, and are licensed under a CC-BY licence. Basic accounts cost $120/year, include the advanced features, and can generate 1,200 skyboxes per year. Pro accounts cost $240/year, can generate 3,000 skyboxes per year, and include full commercial licensing. Technowizard accounts cost $578/year can generate an unlimited number of skyboxes. Ziva VFX 2.2 First released publicly in 2017, Ziva VFX is now a staple of visual effects pipelines, with users including DNEG, Scanline VFX and Image Engine. The plugin mimics the stiffness, density and volume preservation of real tissues, including bone, tendons, muscles and skin; and supports multiple types of physical damping. As well as editing parameters directly, Ziva VFX supports a brush-based workflow making it possible to paint material properties and mesh resolution, and even paint in muscle attachment points and muscle fibres. The plugin was acquired by Unity last year along with its original developer, Ziva Dynamics, and is now part of the firm’s new Unity Wētā Tools division. The main new feature in Ziva VFX 2.2 is the new GPU solver: a GPU implementation of the Iterative Solver introduced in Ziva VFX 2.0. It’s CUDA-based, and requires a Nvidia GPU from the Turing generation or later: roughly speaking, any Nvidia consumer or workstation card less than five years old. The documentation doesn’t put a figure on the likely speed boost from solving on the GPU, but notes that performance is better when an asset is large and complex. For light assets, the GPU solver will be “less performant”. In addition, it is now possible to visualise stretching of attachments in the Maya viewport, using user-defined colours to indicate how much each part is being stretched. Ziva VFX 2.2 is available for Maya 2019+, running on Windows 7-10 or RHEL/CentOS 7.3+ Linux. The software is available rental-only. Node-locked Ziva VFX Indie licences, intended for productions with total revenues of under $500,000/year, cost $50/month or $500/year. For larger projects, floating Ziva VFX Studio licences cost $1,800/year. https://docs.zivadynamics.com/vfx/release_notes.html#version-2-2 Arnold 7.2.3 Despite the small change in version number, Arnold 7.2.3 represents a significant improvement in performance if you’re rendering on GPU, or if you’re a Houdini user. The new Global Light Sampling (GLS) system introduced in Arnold 7.2.1 is now supported in Arnold GPU. As with the original CPU implementation, it mainly benefits scenes with “moderate to large” numbers of lights – roughly speaking, those with 10 or more lights – which render “2-6x faster”. Scenes that do not benefit tend to render “a few percent” faster, and may even render slower. In addition, Arnold for Houdini (HtoA), the Houdini integration plugin, gets native support for Apple Silicon, Houdini itself having begun to support the processors, used in current Macs, earlier this year. The change results in a speed boost of “up to 1.45x”, but in the initial release, only Apple’s previous-generation M1 processors are supported. Native Apple Silicon support was previously only available in Arnold for Cinema 4D and Arnold for Maya. Other changes in Arnold 7.2.3 include new return direction and distance to nearest hit parameters in the distance shader, used to create the digital makeup effects in the video above. In addition, the update further extends OpenUSD support, primarily when rendering curves. Support in the integration plugins Currently, three of Arnold’s integration plugins have been updated to support the new features: 3ds Max: Not yet updated Cinema 4D: C4DtoA 4.6.4 Houdini: HtoA 6.2.3.0 Katana: Not yet updated Maya: MtoA 5.3.3 However, check before updating: at the time of writing, the releases have a bug that can cause renders to be watermarked on Windows and macOS. You can find details here. Autodesk is working on a fix. Arnold 7.2.3 is available for Windows 10+, RHEL/CentOS 7+ Linux and macOS 10.13+. Integrations are available for 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Katana and Maya. GPU rendering is supported on Windows and Linux only, and requires a compatible Nvidia GPU. The software is rental-only, with single-user subscriptions costing $50/month or $400/year. https://help.autodesk.com/view/ARNOL/ENU/?guid=arnold_core_7230_html After Effects 23.6 Adobe has released After Effects 23.6, the latest version of the compositing software. It’s mainly a bugfix release, but adds one new feature: the option to access the Essential Properties of a layer from the new Properties panel added in After Effects 22.4. The previous update, June’s After Effects 23.5, was also a bugfix release. After Effects is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 11.0+ on a rental-only basis. In the online documentation, After Effects 23.6 is also referred to as After Effects 2023.6 or the August 2023 release. Subscriptions to After Effects cost $31.49/month or $239.88/year, while All Apps subscriptions, which provide access to over 20 of Adobe’s creative tools, cost $82.49/month or $599.88/year. https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/whats-new/2023-6.html GeoTracker KeenTools has released GeoTracker for Blender, a new Blender edition of its popular object-tracking tool, in open beta. The beta was released as part of the KeenTools 2023.2 product updates, which also includes new versions of GeoTracker for Nuke and After Effects. Originally available for Nuke and After Effects, GeoTracker for Blender is intended to make everyday motion tracking tasks accessible to VFX and motion graphics artists as well as specialist match-movers. The plugin uses an intuitive workflow with users clicking in the viewport to ‘pin’ a tracking object – either 3D primitives or imported custom 3D models – to the corresponding object in video footage. GeoTracker then reconstructs the motion of the object throughout the course of the footage, generating a 3D track that can also be exported for use in other DCC apps. The plugin can cope with changes in focal length during a shot, and artists can refine the results by using 2D or 3D masks to exclude parts of the frame occluded by foreground objects. As well as hard surface objects like props and vehicles, GeoTracker can track faces, and can be used with custom 3D head meshes generated by separate plugin FaceBuilder for Blender. The GeoTracker for Blender open beta has been released as part of the KeenTools 2023.2 updates. The releases improve performance in the Nuke and After Effects editions of the plugin, making video analysis “up to 2x” faster, and improving tracking performance “up to 20%”. GeoTracker for Blender is currently available free in beta. It is compatible with Blender 2.80+ on Windows, Linux or macOS. The macOS edition supports Apple Silicon Macs. After the beta, it will be available rental-only, with subscriptions also including the Nuke and After Effects editions. Freelancer subscriptions cost $18/month or $179/year; floating Studio subscriptions cost $499/year. https://keentools.io/products/geotracker-for-blender Treezy The lightweight $20 add-on generates realistic 3D trees inside the open-source software, with the option to generate wind animation, using Blender’s Geometry Nodes system to control the results. Treezy generates 3D trees inside Blender, using the software’s particle system to scatter leaves, flowers and fruit along the branches. Density, placement and randomness can be adjusted through simple slider controls, as can shader properties, making it possible to set up seasonal colour variants. It’s also possible to randomise the scale and rotation of the trees generated, to give a more natural look when populating a scene. Users can also apply wind animation to the trees – the implementation uses Blender’s Geometry Nodes – again, with slider controls for wind strength and modulation. The trees come with PBR textures, and can be converted to static meshes to improve performance. In the initial release, Treezy comes with four tree species, all of them temperate forest species: the Norway spruce, black alder, European ash and paper birch. According to the product’s Blender Market page, more species will be added in future, along with more control parameters, distribution presets, and the option to apply forces like explosions and collisions.' Treezy 1.0 is available for Blender 3.5+. It costs $20. https://blendermarket.com/products/treezy Kiri Engine The app’s new Featureless Object Mode uses a NeRF-related approach (Neural Surface Reconstruction or NSR, discussed in this story) to reconstruct shiny or reflective objects. You can see Kiri Innovations CEO Jack Wang discussing the relative strengths and weaknesses of traditional photogrammetry and AI-based approaches for 3D scanning like NeRF and NSR in the video above. Kiri Engine 2.9 is available for Android 7.0 and iOS 14.0. The app itself is free to download, and users can export up to three 3D scans for free per week; to export more requires a paid Pro account, which now cost $14.99/month or $59.99/year. The new Featureless Object Mode is restricted to Pro accounts. Firefly and Omniverse Officially launched last year after a year in beta, Omniverse enables artists and designers anywhere in the world to collaborate on projects in real time. Data is exchanged between compatible CAD and DCC applications and Omniverse in OpenUSD format, with connector plugins available for apps including 3ds Max, Maya, Revit, Rhino, SketchUp and Unreal Engine. Although the platform was initially pitched a range of markets, including VFX and game development, Nvidia’s current product website focuses more on industrial use cases like digital twins. Changes to Omniverse’s connector plugins for DCC applications include support for two-way live sync with Reallusion’s iClone animation software. Previous versions of the plugin required users to export USD files from iClone then load them manually in an Omniverse app in order to trigger automatic updates. In addition, Houdini users can now load assets in its HDA format directly into the Omniverse viewport. Omniverse Cloud, Nvidia’s suite of cloud-based services built around Omniverse, gets new APIs for developers of OpenUSD-based pipelines. They include RunUSD, for translating OpenUSD files into path traced rendered images by checking the uploaded files against OpenUSD releases, and generating renders using Omniverse’s native renderer. APIs in development include ChatUSD, an AI agent for “generating Python-USD code scripts from text and answering USD knowledge questions”, developed on NVIDIA’s NeMo framework. Nvidia has also announced plans to make Firefly, Adobe’s family of creative generative AI models, available as APIs in Omniverse. At the time of writing, Nvidia hasn’t announced when the Firefly APIs will become available. The Omniverse apps are compatible with Windows 10+ and CentOS 7/Ubuntu 20.04+ Linux. Most require a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU or better. https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-releases-major-omniverse-upgrade-with-generative-ai-and-openusd Nvidia RTX 4000, 4500 and 5000 GPUs Nvidia has announced the RTX 4000, RTX 4500 and RTX 5000, the three latest workstation GPUs to use its Ada Lovelace architecture. The firm pitches the $4,000 32GB RTX 5000, available today, as a “huge performance leap” over its predecessor, the Ampere generation RTX A5000. The $2,250 24GB RTX 4500, due in October, is described as a “balanced performer” – while the $1,250 20GB RTX 4000, due next month, is the “most powerful single-slot GPU on the planet”. The new cards were announced at Nvidia’s keynote at SIGGRAPH 2023. All three of the new cards are based on Nvidia’s current Ada Lovelace GPU architecture, intended to provide “revolutionary performance for ray tracing and AI-based neural graphics”. It features iterative improvements to all of the cards’ key hardware core types: CUDA cores for general GPU computing, Tensor cores for AI operations, and RT cores for hardware-accelerated ray tracing. According to Nvidia, all three core types see improvements of “up to 2x” in raw performance over its previous Ampere architecture. The architecture also features a new Optical Flow Accelerator, used by DLSS 3.0, the latest version of Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling technology. Initially a render upscaling system, DLSS is used in real-time visualisation tools like D5 Render to improve viewport frame rates by rendering frames at lower resolution, then up-resing them to display resolution. Technical specifications The three cards fill out the mid range of Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace generation of workstation GPUs, between the RTX 6000 and the RTX 4000 SFF. Of the three, the RTX 4000 is noteworthy in being the first single-slot card in the line-up – and, according to Nvidia, the “most powerful single-slot GPU on the planet”. It’s certainly a step up from the RTX 4000 SFF, its small form factor sibling, providing close to a 40% increase in single precision (FP32) compute performance, but almost doubling power consumption. The change of form factor also provides space for full DisplayPort ports rather than Mini DisplayPort. Its other key specs – core counts and on-board memory – are identical to the RTX 4000 SFF, aside from a significant increase in memory bandwidth. The RTX 4500 and RTX 5000 are both dual-slot cards, and have more or less the specs you would expect from their relative positions in the product range. Core counts, compute performance, memory capacity and memory bandwidth all increase roughly in line with price, as does power consumption. Unlike with some previous GPU launches, Nvidia hasn’t provided detailed performance figures for the new cards with DCC or CAD software. The closest we have to a benchmark comparison is that the RTX 5000 is “3x” faster than the previous-gen RTX A5000 for GPU rendering with RTX Renderer, the native renderer in Nvidia’s Omniverse platform. For third-party GPU renderers, the speed boost is lower, with Nvidia quoting an average figure of “2x”, although we don’t have any details on which applications were tested. Prices and release dates The RTX 4000 has a MSRP of $1,250 and will be available in September 2023. The RTX 4500 has a MSRP of $2,250 and will be available in October. The RTX 5000 has a MSRP of $4,000, and is available this week. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/desktop-graphics/ Animator 23.6 The update makes replays editable, making it possible to record new takes or retime existing takes. It is also now possible to select only the takes within the work area, or overlapping the work area. Despite the version number, it’s the first update since Character Animator 24.1: the release is numbered in parallel to Adobe’s other video software, like After Effects 23.6, also released this week. Character Animator is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 11.0+. In the online documentation, Character Animator 23.6 it also listed as the August 2023 release. The software’s Starter mode is free to use if you have an Adobe account; the full version is available rental-only via Adobe’s All Apps subscriptions, which cost $82.49/month or $599.88/year. https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/using/whats-new.html 3DCoat Pilgway releases new builds of 3DCoat every few days, so features are added over the course of multiple updates, but 3DCoat 2023.26 is the first version since 3DCoat 2023 that the firm has specifically promoted. At the time of writing, the online release notes haven’t been updated, but according to Pilgway’s email newsletter, one of the main new features is support for Vector Displacement Maps (VDMs). Also supported in ZBrush and, more recently, Blender, VDMs may be used to add detail to surfaces during sculpting, like standard 2D alphas. However, rather than displacing the surface in the normal direction, they displace it in three dimensions, making it possible to create complex overhanging 3D forms with a single dab of the brush. The implementation in 3DCoat makes it possible to convert geometry under the brush cursor to a VDM and transfer it to another mesh – shown in the video above to copy the nose of one 3D head to another. The software comes with a built-in library of VDMs for common use cases like detailing skin and rocks. It is also possible to export VDMs in EXR format for use in other DCC applications that support them. The other key change in 3DCoat 2023.26 is the new Python API. Like the Core API introduced in 3DCoat 2022, it can be used to automate repetitive tasks, customise the funcationality of the software, or create new tools, but uses Python, not C++. According to Pilgway, the two APIs are very similar: an “almost 1:1” correspondence. However, the Python API can be used without any extra set-up, and makes it possible to use existing Python libraries within 3DCoat, at the cost of reduced performance, particularly for complex tasks. 3DCoat 2023 is available for Windows 7+, Ubuntu 20.04+ and macOS 10.13+. For individual artists, new perpetual node-locked licences of 3DCoat cost €379. Subscriptions cost €20.80/month or €169.85/year. Rent to own plans require 11 continuous monthly payments of €41.60. For studios, new perpetual node-locked licences of 3DCoat cost €539; floating licences cost €579. Subscriptions cost €29.85/month or €299/year for node-locked; €34.85/month or €319.85/year for floating. https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/25785-3dcoat-20212-development-thread/ 3ixam Description later this month https://3ixam.com/en Neuralangelo AI Neuralangelo is the result of Nvidia’s latest work in neural surface reconstruction, an AI-based alternative to the multi-view stereo (MVS) approach used in traditional photogrammetry tools. The new methods train a neural network to generate and progressively optimise a volumetric representation of a scene from a set of source images. Although neural surface reconstruction avoids some of the drawbacks of MVS – like its difficulty in resolving regions of an object with strong colour variation or large areas of homogenous colour – current methods struggle to recover detail from real-world scenes. Nvidia has now released the source code for Neuralangelo. The GitHub repository includes prebuilt Docker images, so it should be possible to run them on Windows, Linux or macOS. The code is released under a custom Nvidia Source Code Licence. It’s a modified Apache 2.0 licence that limits use to the development of non-commercial applications, and only for Nvidia GPUs. https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/06/01/neuralangelo-ai-research-3d-reconstruction/ https://github.com/nvlabs/neuralangelo Cloth Builder Although Blender has its own native cloth simulation toolset, Bystedt’s Cloth Builder – strictly, it’s written without the apostrophe – streamlines the process of working with cloth in Blender. As with the native tools, any object can be converted to cloth, and made to collide with other scene objects designated as colliders. It supports self-collision, and pressure, for creating inflatable objects. It’s possible to control the results of the simulation by adjusting properties like bending stiffness via slider controls, or by painting weights using the built-in weight painting tools. It’s also possible to store the state of the cloth at any point in the simulation as a Shape Key, which can then be used as the starting shape for a new simulation. In addition, Bystedt’s Cloth Builder comes with a set of readymade assets, including items of clothing like capes, pants/trousers and sweaters, plus male and female characters for use as collision objects. The first add-on from one of the Blender community’s best-known artists Bystedt’s Cloth Builder is the second custom tool that Bystedt has released publcly, following on from Bystedt’s Blender Baker, which streamlines the process of baking texture maps and lighting. Now senior concept artist at Goodbye Kansas Studios, Bystedt was one of the highest-profile artists to embrace Blender before its milestone 2.80 release, creating some of the key demos of its Eevee renderer. Bystedt’s Cloth Builder is available for the current release of Blender. It’s a free download. https://3dbystedt.gumroad.com/l/bystedtsClothBuilder Howler 2024.2 The release introduces a new hybrid CPU/GPU render engine – it’s an instance-based bucket rasterizer that uses the GPU for final shading – described as “up to 9x faster” than the previous renderer. It supports PBR materials using the roughness/metalness convention, tonemapping and gamma correction. The first use of the engine within Howler is in the tool for creating brushes from rendered 3D objects. The update also introduces a new text tool with “full word processing capability”, including a spell checking and support for mixed formatting – including text styles, colours and font sizes – in a single passage of text. Howler 2024.2 is available for Windows only. It has an MSRP of $59.99, although the software is usually available at a significantly lower price. http://www.pdhowler.com/WhatsNew.htm NIM 6.0 Developed in house at LA post facility Ntropic, NIM is intended to provide a locally installed alternative to cloud-based production management platforms. Although users view and manage jobs within a standard web browser, the system is supplied as a virtual machine that can be installed behind a company’s firewall. It provides a fairly standard range of scheduling, production tracking and shot review features, plus more specialised features for timecard management, bidding jobs, and financial projections. Users include VFX houses Digital Domain and Glassworks, and commercials specialist Taylor James. NIM 6.0 overhauls NIM’s bidding system, reworking the UI, and removing limtations of scale: the system “works just as fast on 100 line items as it does on 10,000”. New features include the option for studios to set a target profit margin for bids, and a new Client Contacts section, making it possible to view rates previously paid by a client before making bids. Other changes include updates to NIM’s overall UI, its notifications system, and more granular control over user permissions: you can find a full list in the online release notes. NIM 6.0 is available now. Subscription costs $40/month/user or $360/year/user. NIM is delivered as a preconfigured Ubuntu Server virtual appliance. Users can use virtualisation tools like VirtualBox or vSphere to run the virtual machine on Windows, other flavours of Linux and macOS. https://nim-labs.com/videos/ https://nim-labs.com/docs/NIM/html/whats_new_6-0.html Character Animator 23.6 The update makes replays editable, making it possible to record new takes or retime existing takes. It is also now possible to select only the takes within the work area, or overlapping the work area. Users working in Starter mode, the free cut-down edition of the software, can now set a custom background image for animations, as shown above. Despite the version number, it’s the first update since Character Animator 24.1: the release is numbered in parallel to Adobe’s other video software, like After Effects 23.6, also released this week. Character Animator is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 11.0+. In the online documentation, Character Animator 23.6 it also listed as the August 2023 release. The software’s Starter mode is free to use if you have an Adobe account; the full version is available rental-only via Adobe’s All Apps subscriptions, which cost $82.49/month or $599.88/year. https://helpx.adobe.com/adobe-character-animator/using/whats-new.html Axiom Solver Theory Accelerated – aka former Naughty Dog TD Matt Puchala – has released Axiom Solver, a new free iPad app based on Axiom, his GPU-accelerated sparse volumetric fluid solver for Houdini. The app, which also runs on Apple Silicon Macs, makes it possible to sketch ideas for smoke and fire simulations on the go, then transfer them to full version of Axiom to refine them. First released in 2020, Axiom is a GPU-accelerated sparse volumetric fluid solver, intended as a faster alternative to Houdini’s Sparse Pyro solver for developing visual effects like smoke and fire. It has been used on game cinematics by Riot Games and Valve, and in visual effects by Muse VFX. Axiom Solver brings the solver – or a cut-down version of it, at least – to mobile devices, making it possible to “sketch ideas on the go” for smoke and fire simulations. Users can add fluid sources, influences, collision objects and sink to a scene, move or scale them within the viewport, and adjust their basic properties and colours. The completed scene can then be exported to the Houdini edition of Axiom to refine the simulation. However, it can also be used as a standalone app: announcing the release on Discord, Puchala describes it as a way for new users to learn about simulation and VFX, using the same tools as professional artists. Axiom Solver is free. It is compatible with iPads running iPadOS 16.4+ and Apple Silicon Macs running macOS 13.4+. Exporting a scene to Houdini requires Axiom 3.1.095+. Axiom itself is compatible with Houdini 19.0+ running on Windows, Linux or macOS. Commercial node-locked licences cost $199; the software is free for non-commercial use. https://theoryaccelerated.notion.site/Axiom-for-iPad-07d3bb78f05c4c308893d2efac6c2b39 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/axiom-solver/id6443941087 Ivy Generator 2 for Maya Version 2 of the plugin introduces more ways to control the ivy it generates, including the option to use curves to control the growth path, and support for “more forces”. There are also parameters to create secondary stems, and more controls for sub-branches and leaves; plus the option to use falloff shapes or texture maps to control parameters. The plugin is also now multi-threaded to improve performance. Ivy Generator 2 is compatible with Maya 2022+. It costs $25. Ivy Generator 1 is compatible with Maya 2022. It’s a free download. https://mh999.gumroad.com/l/tmjov https://mh999.gumroad.com/l/xjlwx Baga Ivy Generator 2 The update adds two new ivy generators, giving users a choice of Fast, Accurate and Precision modes, making it possible to trade computation speed against fine control. Precision mode, aimed at generating sparser patches of ivy, lets users create ivy branch by branch. As well as ivy, the update adds 40 new preset species of climbing plants. Baga Ivy Generator 2 is compatible with Blender 3.5+. It has a MSRP of $55, down $5 since version 1. The free ivy generator is still available, both as a standalone tool and as part of the free BagaPie modifier, both of which are compatible with Blender 3.0. https://abaga.gumroad.com/l/bagaivy SynthEyes SynthEyes becomes Boris FX’s latest acquisition, following VFX and motion graphics plugin collection Sapphire, roto and paint tool Silhouette and, most recently, audio plugins CrumplePop. The firm now plans to “leverage the 3D technology” across its other brands, as it has done with Mocha, the planar tracking technology it bought in 2014, and which is now integrated throughout Boris FX products. Russ Andersson will “remain in his leadership role” across a new combined development team. Boris FX’s announcement doesn’t mention any changes to pricing or licensing, although it describes the price of SynthEyes as “starting at $499 for a permanent licence”. That’s actually the price of the Pro edition, so we’ve contacted the firm to ask whether the lower-priced Intro edition will remain available, and will update if we hear back. SynthEyes is available for Windows, Linux and macOS. The current stable release is SynthEyes 2304. Silo 2023.4 It’s primarily a bugfix and performance update – loading of large FBX files has been sped up “up to 100x” – but it adds one new feature, a New Window command for opening a new instance of the software. World Creator 2023 Available in early access since the start of the year, World Creator 2023 has gone through a series of preview builds, but got its first stable release last week. The most visible change is the new UI, intended to reduce the number of clicks needed to create terrain. Workflow stays layer-based – announcing the update on Discord earlier this year, BiteTheBytes memorably described nodes as “ugly spaghetti wired crap” – but is intended to handle layers “more intelligently”. New features include Biomes and Biome Layers. Biomes describe the look of a region of terrain, including the filters, materials and colour palette used to generate it, while Biome Layers act as masks for generating smaller variations within Biomes. The update also adds a more general system of Mask Layers, and the Path and Shape Filters from World Creator 2 have been reinstated in the software, also as layers. Other new features mentioned on the product website include “powerful sediment and erosion filters, sat-maps [and] presets for everything”. In addition, where the previous release capped the resolution of a single terrain at 4,096 x 4,096px, it is now possible to generate terrains of unlimited size and detail. The Bridge Tools – a set of plugins for exporting terrain directly to other DCC applications and game engines – have been expanded, and now cover Blender, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Unity and Unreal Engine 5. You can find more details in the online documentation and the changelog channel of the Discord server, although as far as we can tell, there isn’t a complete overall changelog. Since the previous release, BiteTheBytes has also cut the price of World Creator for indie artists. Whereas perpetual licences used to cost $349 for individual artists or $689 for companies with revenues under $1 million/year, BiteTheBytes has now moved to pricing based on number of employees. Professional licences, for freelancers or firms with five or fewer employees, now cost $289; for larger firms, the cost of Company licences remains unchanged at $2,489. https://www.world-creator.com/ Character Tracker for Maya Mobile game studio and tools developer Trikingo has released Character Tracker, an interesting new plugin for controlling 3D characters inside Maya in a way similar to a videogame. The plugin, intended as a quick way to block out animations, makes it possible to control a character using game-like navigation, with the plugin automatically blending between existing movement cycles. Founded by Industrial Light & Magic pipeline TD Felipe Za, Trikingo develops a range of Maya plugins and character rigs, the latest being Character Tracker. The add-on lets animators control 3D characters inside Maya in a similar way to a videogame, by moving a target object around on screen, and having the character follow it automatically. Users import their own treadmill animation cycles – the demo videos show idle, walk and run cycles – with the plugin blending between the cycles and changing the character’s direction. It’s possible to adjust the results by setting the speed at which the character turns, and the thresholds between it switches between movement cycles. Users can record a movement sequence in real time, then bake it out, making it possible to clean the animation up manually, and use it in offline work. A previous version of the software, available free on Trikingo’s website, made it possible to control the character using an Xbox game controller. Character Tracker is compatible with Maya 2023. It has a MSRP of $29.99. https://trikingo.com/product/character-tracker-maya/ Ayon 2023.8 The update officially moves Ayon out of early access and into production beta: as well as being largely stable, it now has “near feature parity” with the latest release of OpenPype. However, for many users, the most significant change will be that it is now possible to use Ayon “without touching any code or building anything yourself”. Ayon server now comes as a Docker image, while desktop application Ayon launcher now comes with prebuilt binaries and Python dependency packages “for all platforms”. Ayon is available free in beta. It can be deployed on Windows, Linux and macOS. The source code is available under an open-source Apache 2.0 licence. Ynput hasn’t announced a final release date yet. https://ynput.io/ https://openpype.io/docs/artist_getting_started/ Skybox AI 0.7 The update adds the option to export images in EXR and HDR format, which the video above describes as “HDRI” – although according to the welcome screen on the site, the files aren’t 32-bit images, so while they could be used to light a 3D scene in a DCC app, they wouldn’t actually be High Dynamic Range images. As well as latlong images, it is also now possible to export environments as PNG cube maps, and to export HD videos of the environment. Skybox AI is currently in beta. It’s browser-based, so it should run in standard modern web browsers, although some features are only available on desktop machines or larger tablets. Users with free accounts can generate up to 15 skyboxes per month. Exports are watermarked, and are licensed under a CC-BY licence. Basic accounts cost $120/year, include the advanced features, and can generate 1,200 skyboxes per year. Pro accounts cost $240/year, can generate 3,000 skyboxes per year, and include full commercial licensing. Technowizard accounts cost $578/year can generate an unlimited number of skyboxes. https://skybox.blockadelabs.com/

How did you manage to arrange the leafs ? I'm never sutisfied with the usual clone to volume/surface of sphere... plus they intersect with each other or look too flat from sertain angles...

I think Octane is the best renderer for C4D. Then Cycles and Redshift... Thanks for letting me know. This narrows a lot my renderer options.

Sure but I will copy it to the main post for better logging. Any idea what's wrong with the main DNS ? Are there any other plugins Robert offers ?

This post is a list to contain all plugins I've encountered across the web. I will be updating this post regularly so keep visiting it every month or so... I will only provide links to the plugins/scripts, not the plugins/scripts themselves unless the author gives permission. You can p.m. me to add things to make the list grow faster. Scripts : Gabriel Smetzer Callout Rig Bounding Box Vidar Nelson Fake Diffusion Limited Aggregation Effector (R16-R19, Read comment for R20-2023) Lightning Generator (R19-2023) Frank Willeke/fwilleke80/C4D-Jack Oscillator FlockModifier TrainDriver 1.2.1 (R20 - R23) PointProjector 1.4.4 (R20-R23) SplineDataVisualizer (R20) GearBuilder (R16,R18) SceneDocumentor (R16) CanStack (R18) RotaryKnob CustomGUI (R18) SwitchObject (R18) Sidewalk (R18) Maksim Bitiukov Ihor Dmytrenko Quick Copy Paste (R24-Present) iDTools (R22-Present) Free Plugins : fwilleke80 PointProjector(R20) SwitchObject (R18) RotaryKnob 0.4 (R18) SplineDataVisualizer (R18) Oscillator (R23, S24) SceneDocumentor(18) GearBuilder (R16) TrainDriver(R20 - R23) FlockModifier(R23,S24) Valkaari Py-Timer (R12-R13) Easy Light (R13-R16) hot4D (R14-R21) Spider Web (R15-R18) Uniform Resizer (R16-R21) Safina NES EMULATION Torus Knot (R20-2024) L - OBJECT (R20-2024) SELECTIONS TO OBJECTS (R20) OBJECT SWITCHER (R21-2023) RANDOM COLOR (R20-R23) ZARABIC (R14-R23) FLAPPYBIRD (R19-R21) SNAKE (R19-R21) SPACE SHOOTER (R19-R21) TETRIS (R19-R21) Lasse Clausen Import Adobe Color CC Swatches (R18) PickFocusDistance (R18) Toggle Deformer, Effectors & Forces (R18) Instance Renamer (R18) C4D_Renamer-Pack (R18) Add Null to Selection (R18) Group Objects / PSR-Zero (R18) Transfer all Objects to last selected (R18) A_Simple-Spline (R18) Delete All Tracks (R18) Toggle Visibility of selected Objects (R18) Welters Site All are compatible up to R25 with Insidiums' Bridge UVtoObject CopyPastePolys Smooth Point Collapse Tool Transform Duplicate Object Noise Deformer SplineConnector SplineNoiseDeformer UV Deformer Atmosphere Shader Cellular Shader Extended Starfield ThingsOnSurface Shader Time Shift Simple Colormap Vidar Nelson Color4D (R15) Softbox shader (R14) Ola Sikström Ocean Wave Effector (R13) Microbion About Object (R19 - R2023, S22 not compatible) ArrowMaker (R19 - R2023, S22 not compatible) ChemLoader (R26, 2023) LightShade (R23 - R2023, S22 not compatible) Mirror, Mirror (R14-2023, S22 not compatible) Nudge-It (R19 - R2023, S22 not compatible) Plotter3D (R23-2023) Quick Render (R16-2023, S22 not compatible) sIBL Loader (R26, 2023) AutoRename (R14-R19) DarkTree simbiont (R14-R21) Insydium INSYDIUM Bridge (R20-S26) Cactus Dan's CD Tools (R14-S24) Curious Animal Cluster Effector (R15-R21) Difference Map (R15-R21) Super Source Falloff (R15-R19) Boole Falloff (R15-R19) Noise Falloff (R15-R19) Grid (R14-R19) Membrane Deformer (R15-R21) Rebend (R15-R21) Motion Stretch (R15-R21) Seam (R15-R21) Expand (R15-R21) Poly Edge Spline (R15-R21) Populate (R15-R21) Shadow Falloff (R15-R19) Spline Faoff (R15-R19) Snap Deformer (R15-R21) Impact (R15-R19) Sphere Wrap (R15-R19) Scroll Roll (R15-R19) Twirl deformer (R15-R19) Velocity Effector (R15-R21) Robert Hitzer InstanceMan (R18-2023) Eggtion egg object . 2.1(R20-Present) AL'EM . py 1.2 (R20-Present) roll it (R20-Present) Code Vonc Selections (R22-R23) Utils Deform (R22-R23) Tools (R22-R23) SVG Import (R22-S24) Proc3Durale (R18-R25) Point deformer (R20-Present) Gélatine (S22-R25) Spline Guide (S22-R25) Subdivision inverse (S22-R25) Aturtur CAMERA FRUSTUM OBJECT (R21-2023) SHOW INDICES GENERATOR (R21-2023) MIRROR GENERATOR (R21-2023) WIRES GENERATOR (R21-2023) RANDOM INDEX EFFECTOR (R21-2023) TEXT ANIMATOR (R21-2023) NODE TOOLS (R21-2023) COLOR DELAY EFFECTOR (R21-2023) SEPARATOR NULL (R21-2023) SELECTOR FIELD (R21, 2023) ALIGN OBJECT TO PLA POLYGON (R21-2023) AUTO ADD EFFECTORS TO GENERATOR (R21-2023) CINEMA 4D LOG VIEWER (BETA) MOGRAPH TO SPLINE DATA (2023) FIXED RANDOM PSR EFFECTOR (2023) QUANTIZE PSR EFFECTOR (2023) Master Slider 2 (2023) CUSTOM COLOR EFFECTOR (2023) FADE CLONES EFFECTOR (2023) INHERITANCE PYTHON TAG (2023) ZERO SCALE FIX EFFECTOR (2023) MIX GRADIENTS (2023) CINEMA 4D SPLINES TO AFTER EFFECTS MASKS (R19-R20) CONNECT X-PARTICLES EMITTERS (2023) TURBULENCE FD DIRECTION TOOL (2023) DELETE EFFECTOR (2023) COLORISE PLUG-IN (R20-2023) PILE UP EFFECTOR (2023) TAKE CONTROL EFFECTOR (2023) IMPORT AND PLAY OBJ SEQUENCES (2023) FOLDERLINK (2023) DISTRIBUTED SLICES WITH VORONOI FRACTURE (R23) DATA FROM PROCESSING TO CINEMA 4D (R21) BPM IN XPRESSO (R19) VERTEX MAPS AND PYTHON TAG (R19) DATA FROM MOGRAPH TO X-PARTICLES (2023) CONNECT SPHERES (2023) SOUNDFLOP – A MISSING PIECE OF THE SOUND EFFECTOR (2023) CLONE OFFSET WITH A PYTHON EFFECTOR (2023) X-PARTICLES COLORS TO OCTANE RENDER (2023) TURBULENCEFD (2023) Aturtur's Cinema 4D Scripts (R25-Present) kaktak Drop To Floor (R25-Present) Chain Effector (R25-Present) Organic Effector (R25-Present) MoTracer (R20-Present) Kengo Ito Motion Manager for Cinema 4D (S24-Present) mikeudin Advanced Instance (R12-R25) Duplicate with Materials (R12-2023) FastPinNulls (R16-R23) Images To Planes Importer (R16-R23) Import Colors Script (R20-R24) Merge Objects Script (R12-R21) Multi Spline Mask (R14-R21) Open Folder (R12-R23) Sequence tracks (R12-R20) Shuffler (R12-R23) Spline Flow (R12-R25) Step Offset (R12-R23) Commercial Plugins : Insydium X-Particles (R19-Present) NeXus (R19-Present) Taiao (R19-Present) TerraformFX (R19-Present) MeshTools (R19-Present) Cycles 4D (R19-Present) Code Vonc UV Projector (S22-R25) Unfolder (S22-R25) Alvéole (S22-R25) Influence Point (S22-R25) TexTerrain (S22-R25) kaktak CopyPoints (R25-Present) Legacy Bundle (R21-2023) MoConnections (R20-R26) Kengo Ito Gemgen (R23-2023) Matthäus Niedoba Spline from Edge (R19-Present) Spline Outline (R19-Present) Spline Chamfer (R19-Present) Selection to Object (R19-Present) Aturtur HAWKEYE (R25-2023) Redshift Proxy Exporter (R21-2023.2) VARIABLE TOKENS (R21-2023) florenoir Building Generator (R24-2023) CityBuilder Pro (R21) CameraRIG (R21-2023) RetroRIG 1.0 (R21-2023) CITY RIG 1.9 (2023) MANTIS (R20) mikeudin File Sequence Exporter (R17-2023) Batch Processor (R18-2023) Custom Buttons (R17-2023) PolyDivider (R20-R25) Target 4D (R17-2023) UV Colorizer (R14-S26) Terrain Builder (R17-S26) Fast Spline Connector (R17-2023) Flash Buffer (R17-S26) TakeMatPass (R17-2023) Valkaari Delta Mush (R20-R21) Prizrak_KD Terrain Builder Cinema 3 (R23-2023) 3dtools / Merk Plugins TILE-PRO GEO|Projector Spline|UV Mapper Rhino.IO Tile3d Soft|Patch v2.0 C4D Material Filter SnapShot INTERIOR|Mapper Topoformer 2.0 TopoFormer 1.1 (R15-R22) Trypogen 2.0 (R23-2023) Respline 1.3 (R23-2023) Poly Greeble 1.3 (R15-2023) Topowire 1.3 Toporizer 1.4 (R19-2023) Symex 1.3 (R15-2023) Snap To Floor 1.5 (R15-2023) Line Object 1.5 (R15-2023) Snowgen 1.0 (R20-2023) Trypo Lite Paracloth Cosmegen Differential Growth Fractal Polypedia RedShift OSL: RedshiftOSLShaders

Me neither, it was provided as an example scene with the script 🤣

Yes but it's usually monochromed. Will the Pyro fire-smoke transition be preserved through the VDB ? Or the color emitted from vertex maps ?

What about color ? Is color also saved in the VDB ?

Well, title says it all... Can Corona render Pyro ? If so how ?

Download the Project Files: https://bit.ly/BossFightFiles Join the Discord: https://bit.ly/CreateWithClint Download Rokoko Video: https://rokoko.co/pwnisher Pick up some Boss Fight stickers: https://bit.ly/BFStickers

Akira made vertical with AI akira.mp4

Thank you, I found these shortly after I posted but couldn't delete the post.