Monthly Archives: April 2015

e-on Software introduces the new FREE VUE Pioneer 2015, as well as the newly updated VUE Esprit 2015, VUE Studio 2015 and VUE Complete 2015!  Plus save 30% with special introductory pricing.

This finalizes the introduction to the market of VUE 2015.

This new release adds significant functionality, such as an exciting non-photorealistic renderer, faster rendering, improved overall performance, a new displacement mapping engine and more.

Here is a shortlist of some of the important new features included in the VUE 2015 product line for 3D Artists*:

• Faster rendering
• High-amplitude displacement mapping
• Non-Photo-Real engine analyzes renders like an artist to create stylized artwork
• Faster Previewing
• Energy Conservative AntiAliasing
• Import geo-located terrains
• Export Rocks

* Some of the new features may require an additional module for VUE Pioneer, Esprit or Studio.

Read the full feature list here

A SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY DISCOUNT FOR THE ARTIST LINE IS AVAILABLE UNTIL MAY 3, 2015

Save up to 30% on VUE Esprit, Studio and Complete 2015! Or get the free VUE Pioneer now.

 Check the special offer here

Abvent introduces an Export Plug-in to Artlantis whether you use ArchiCAD,SketchUp, Vectorworks, Autodesk Revit or Rhino, Abvent have got the plug-in you need to work seamlessly with Artlantis. These direct links between your modeler and Artlantis offer a double advantage — send more detailed information while allowing you to synchronize the updated files.

To avoid using a standard exchange file format between your modeler and Artlantis, and losing information, Abvent has developed specific plugins for ArchiCAD, Rhinoceros 5,VectorWorks , Autodesk Revit, SketchUp and Arc + that are freely available on Artlantis.com.

Because a project is always subject to modification, the “Use reference file” function enables the user to make updates to a project in the modeler without losing any of the data already entered into Artlantis, regardless of the exchange format used.

Artlantis imports the most commonly used 3D formats: DXF, DWG, DWF, OBJ, FBX or 3DS. It is worth noting that, for 3DS format files, Artlantis recovers certain data such as map textures and lights.

Get the Plug-ins here:

ArchiCAD

Rhinoceros 5

VectorWorks

Autodesk Revit

SketchUp

Read more here

Video Copilot announces Element 3D v2.2 coming soon.

Some very cool new features are added for compositing, rendering, workflow and design!  Plus some improved C4D integration.  There are at least 5 impressive new features in this update!

The poster graphic was also created entirely inside of Element 3D V2.2 using the Motion Design 2 pack!

Upgrading:
Element 3D V2.2 will be a free upgrade from V2!
If you are still running V1.6, you can upgrade to V2 now and receive the new update when it is ready!

Lear more.

Red Giant are having a 24-hour Spring Sale on April 28th, where you can save 25% off everything in the redgiant.com store.

• When: Tue. April 28th, 2015 8:00am PST – Wed Apr 29th, 8:00am PST (24 hours)
• Discount: 25% off everything in the redgiant.com store.

The sale discount is for everything in the Red Giant store, including:

• Suites
• Individual products
• Full licenses
• ​Upgrades
• Universe Subscriptions
• ​Academic store (which is already 50% off)

If you have any pre-sales questions, please contact redgiant.com/support

HOW TO SAVE 25%: To redeem the 25% discount, simply apply the coupon code that will be found on the site on April 28.

IMPORTANT: This sale does not include  Red Giant Volume Program.

The Foundry has released Nuke Non-Commercial, its new free edition of Nuke for learning, personal projects and research work. The new version was released to coincide with NAB 2015.

No watermark, but still quite a few restrictions
First announced last October, Nuke Non-Commercial provides users with access to the complete feature sets of Nuke, NukeX and Nuke Studio 9.

Unlike the PLE edition it replaces, its output isn’t watermarked, although there are still quite a few restrictions, including a couple of new ones since the edition was originally announced.

First of all, everything the software saves or exports, including scripts and gizmos, and data copied to the clipboard, is encrypted; and cannot be loaded by the commercial editions.

Output is capped at HD resolution, there is no support for third-party plugins or Frame Server slave rendering, and Python scripting and use of Terminal mode are restricted.

In addition, 2D format support is disabled for MPEG-4 and H.264, as are the WriteGeo, Primatte, Ultimatte, BlinkScript and GenerateLUT nodes; and there is no video monitor output support.

As you might expect, users of the Non-Commercial edition don’t qualify for one-to-one support, but The Foundry has set up a dedicated product support forum.

So who can use it?
The new edition is descrbed as being for “anyone who wants to learn, explore and have fun with Nuke”.

That includes students wishing to learn the software, but unlike Autodesk’s educational licences, it can’t be used by educational institutions wishing to teach the software.

And unlike Pixar’s free edition of RenderMan, research use doesn’t include developing commercial plugins.

The Foundry has quite a detailed FAQs section on its website covering who is and isn’t eligible to use the software, so if you’re unsure, it’s worth checking that out first.

Availability
The free Nuke Non-Commercial edition is available now for 64-bit Windows 7 and 8, Mac OS X 10.8 and 10.9, CentOS/RHEL 5 and CentOS/RHEL 6.

The software is available as a rolling licence, so you’ll need to be online every 30 days to keep using it. You can run the software on up to two machines at a time.

Read more about Nuke Non-Commercial on The Foundry’s website
(Includes download link: registration required)

For a limited time you can get anything from Video Copilot for 25% Off!

Thanks to the NAB 2015 show, all Video Copilot Products for 25% Off, Including popular products like Element 3D, Optical Flares, Twitch, Action Essentials, Bundles and more.

Shop Now

Use the Coupon Code:
NAB2015

The sale is on for this week only!

So Hurry Up!

Autodesk has unveiled 3ds Max 2016, the latest update to its industry-standard modelling, animation and rendering software, at NAB 2015, alongside new versions of Maya, Mudbox, MotionBuilder and Flame.

Despite a lack of pre-release hype, 3ds Max 2016 looks to be one of the strongest updates in recent years, adding a new node-based tool-creation system, a new physical camera, and Alembic and OpenSubdiv support.

Top of the list of new features in 3ds Max 2016 is the Max Creation Graph (MCG): a new node-based environment for content creation and tools programming, intended to be accessible to less technical artists.

In the promo video above, senior software developer Christopher Diggins describes MCG as a “very bold” alternative to traditional “black box” modifiers.

Instead, MCG enables users to create their own custom tools by wiring together operator nodes. “With creation graphs, any artist can look at a tool, open it up … and rewire it,” says Diggins.

Despite the obvious similarities, MCG isn’t an implementation of Softimage’s ICE visual programming toolset within 3ds Max: an issue discussed by Diggins in a blog post on Autodesk’s AREA community site.

Instead, the set of available operator nodes seems to be primarily geometry-related, with the examples shown in the video covering the creation of procedural geometry and scattering objects across a surface.

The graphs themselves can be packaged for export and shared with other Max users, opening up the possibility for many more users to create and distribute their own custom tools.

The XRef system for referencing objects from other 3ds Max scenes has also been updated, improving stability and adding support for “non-destructive animation workflow”, as shown in the video above.

According to 3ds Max product manager Eddie Perlberg, a referenced character could be “running in one file, jogging in another. Changes made in the source file will automatically be inherited in their local scene.”

Users can also publish animatable parameters, for quick access directly in the modifier stack.

New rendering options
In the rendering toolset, 3ds Max 2016 introduces a new physical camera, co-developed with V-Ray creators Chaos Group, including standard options such as Shutter Speed, Aperture, Depth of Field, and Exposure.

The built-in iray and mental ray renderers have also been updated, with iray getting a new irradiance render element for rapid feedback on illumination levels in a scene, and support for iray section planes.

Iray’s Light Path Expressions have also been extended to enable users to isolate objects and lights into render elements based on their layer name.

Mental ray gets a new GPU-accelerated ambient occlusion render element, and support for Light Importance Sampling, for cleaner results on complex scenes.

And like AutoCAD and Revit, 3ds Max 2016 also includes built-in cloud rendering via Autodesk’s A360 platform.

OpenSubdiv and Alembic support
The features introduced in the subscriber-only 2015 Extension 1 release also make their way into Max 2016, including support for Alembic and OpenSubdiv and enhancements to the ShaderFX shader-authoring toolset.

Both have been extended since their debut: Alembic now has a new playback caching system – and, according to a user comment on CGPress, “re-timing, arbitrary channel import, multi-UV export [and] particle export”.

OpenSubdiv gets a neat-looking view-dependent adaptive subdivision system, which automatically reduces the number of sub-ds shown according to the distance of the geometry from the camera, increasing performance.

Adaptive subdivision is supported both in the viewport and in final-frame renders.

In the animation toolset, two features introduced in the 2015 Extension 2 release make their way into 3ds Max 2016, in the shape of the new camera sequencer and dual-quaternion skinning.

Previously only available via third-party tools like XRayBlendSkin, dual-quaternion skinning avoids ‘bow tie’ artefacts when deformers are twisted or pivoted, particularly in a character’s wrists or shoulders.

Another feature from Extension 2 to make its way into the 2016 release is the new templating system.

Templates enable users to create custom start-up configurations complete with preset environments, scale units, lighting set-ups and render settings, and share them with collaborators on a project.

One Max to rule them all
Another major change in 3ds Max 2016 is that it now comes in a single version: the old separation of the software into entertainment-focused standard and arch viz-focused Design editions has been scrapped.

Instead, users choose the Classic or Design settings on initial installation, then customise the toolset on an “install what you need, ignore what you don’t” basis.

Autodesk attributes the change to new interactive visualisation workflows blurring the boundaries between the two market sectors, and to the decreasing need to ship a complete installation on physical media.

But if you do work in visualisation, you can use the new Design Workspace introduced in 3ds Max 2015 Extension 2, which streamlines access to common layout, modelling, texturing, lighting and rendering tools.

Users can also import Revit .rvt and SketchUp .skp files directly; and data interchange with non-Autodesk tools like SolidWorks and Pro/Engineer has been improved.

Multi-touch support, other smaller features
Other new features in 3ds Max 2016 include support for multi-touch navigation on Wacom’s Intuos5, Cintiq 24HD and Cintiq Companion pen tablets, as well as touch-enabled Windows 8 devices.

There are also a number of ‘SURFS’ (Small User-Requested Features), listed in full on the AREA blog post.

Read more about the new features in 3ds Max 2016 on Autodesk’s AREA community site

Visit the 3ds Max 2016 product website

Take a look at all the awesome work The Foundry’s clients have created over the past year!

Itoo Software are proud to announce the release of RailClone 2.4. This update adds a host of improvements that significantly increase ease-of-use, including the ability to import and wire multiple segments, categorised and expanded exportable parameters, drag-to-swap links, auto-renaming of parameters and base objects, and the ability to automatically calculate and export the current size of segments.
In addition to the release, they have published the first of three guides to help you improve your RailClone skills. This first installment, aimed at beginners, introduces the core concepts required to get new users up and running as quickly as possible.
RailClone 2.4 also introduces new features including the UVW XForm operator to edit and randomise the tiling, rotation, and offset of UVW coordinates; a new Count mode to specify a fixed number of evenly rows and columns; the ability to add offsets to the start, end, top and bottom of generators; improved box mapping to allow multiple channels, plus many more features and fixes.

To find out more, check out the release notes, promo reel and features tour at www.itoosoft.com