Keyshot 3.1 released
An absolutely stunning and very unique metallic paint material, an interactive Environment Editor that allows real-time editing of the lighting environments and new material templates that allow you to quickly ‘auto-paint’ your models on import. Add to that network rendering to queue render jobs and spread them across multiple computers and a few other tid-bits and you’ve got one vicious piece of software to crank out amazing images.
- Metallic paint- includes the option to render realistic metallic flakes. These can be added to the material by using the two new parameters shown in the box below. Easily control flake size and visibility with simple sliders – all in realtime.
- Material templates- allow users to automatically assign materials to any model on import. For example, if a shiny plastic is used on several products KeyShot can be customized to automatically assign a shiny plastic to all parts that include the name “shiny plastic.”
- Improved texture mapping- The manipulator will now correspond with the center of the projection. This will be particularly helpful for mapping labels and textures around cylindrical objects
- 3Dconnexion certification- KeyShot 3.1 will be officially certified to work with all 3Dconnexion devices
- Network Rendering – Network rendering is now available with KeyShot 3. This much more robust version introduces an installer, a queue with manageable jobs and the ability dynamically add or remove slaves from the network even while jobs are being processed. Animations and stills can be rendered using any of the KeyShot 3 render output modes
- Maya Importer – Maya scenes can now be directly imported into KeyShot. All hierarchy, material assignments and names will be retained. NURBS surfaces are supported and will be tessellated on import.
V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino Beta Now Available
The V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino Beta is now available! Now users can enjoy features such as V-Ray RT, Dome Light, Proxy and many more. Sign up now to evaluate the new features and enhancements included in the latest release.
Please, note that upon release the new version of V-Ray for Rhino will be running with a Hardware Key (licensing dongle) installation only.
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New Features
- V-RayRT
- Dome Light
- V-Ray Proxy
- Lens Effects (Glare / Bloom )
- Dispersion
- Retrace Threshold
- Ambient Occlusion
- VRayDirt
- Interpolation (Reflections and Refractions)
- IES Light
- Sphere Light
- Additional Parameters
- Improved Rhino Integration
- V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino supports the RDK Sun
- V-Ray 1.5 for Rhino supports the 32 and 64 bit versions of Rhino 5.0. as well as the 32 bit version of Rhino 4.0
Maxwell Render Suite 2.6 is out NOW!
Highlights
- Hair rendering: Introducing a new procedural primitive for rendering hair- compatible with the most popular hair systems (Shave & Haircut, Maya Hair, Max Hair, Ornatrix, Cinema Hair)
- Particle rendering: New procedural primitive for particles- compatible with the most popular particle systems (RealFlow particles, Maya particles, 3dsMax)
- Support for Vector displacement has been added
- Much faster (transform) motion blur
- Referenced MXS files: It is now possible to load references of MXS files in your main scene file, which are added only at render time, dramatically reducing export times especially for animations, and reducing scene transfer times when network rendering.
- Support for referenced materials has been added
- Scripting: Maxwell Render SDK now includes a standalone python editor and scripting examples
- Displacement: A second displacement algorithm has been added, much faster than the previous one
- Big improvements in image processing, filtering and aliasing: Enhances overall quality of the render, aliasing, sharpness, chromatic noise, dithering, etc and faster image generation routines. A new interactive parameter -sharpness -interactively controls the aliasing
- Advanced integration with RealFlow- a new smart workflow which allows you to handle RealFlow output and generate both meshes and particles in render time, saving precious disk space and greatly reducing export times.
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Flamingo nXt
Have you tried rendering with Flamingo nXt?
Everyone is invited to download the pre-release version of Flamingo nXt and give it a try.
The latest build includes these enhancements:
- Caustics improved in the pathtracer engine
- New transparency calculations for better glass
- Improved exposure controls including a new histogram function
- Alpha channel masking improved
- Better support for blocks
- Improved the sun angle calculator
- Many refinements to the interface
- Many bugs fixed
Fake or Foto
Fake or Foto? Do you have a good eye?
The Challenge…
Do you remember this popular contest from last year? Now FakeOrFoto has new pictures up.
Today we’re presented with images in movies, on TV, and in the press that are of such good quality we don’t even think to consider whether the picture is of something that exists in reality or if it was generated by computer software. Movies can be considered as being at the high-end of the range of uses for computer generated imagery that mimics real-life, but there are many more day-to-day examples that challenge our ability to tell what’s real and what’s not.
Come along now, you may know that answer. I got 9 of 12 on the first try. How about you? I’ll expect the answer.
