Next Generation of Award-Winning Visual Effects Software Enables Performance and Productivity Improvements for Linux Flame, Inferno, Flint HD and Smoke HD Users
CAMBRIDGE, MA, Mar 09, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- GenArts Inc., the premier provider of specialized visual effects software for the film, television and video industries, announced today the availability of GenArts Sapphire(TM) v5 for Autodesk systems users. Announced in November, Sapphire 5 promises to unlock artists' creativity with marked improvements to performance and productivity, all while significantly reducing infrastructure costs.
Sapphire 5 enables a completely interactive user experience at HD resolutions, thanks to full GPU-accelerated render speeds up to 700 percent faster than version 4. Now, batch jobs once requiring overnight processing can be processed in a fraction of the time. Sapphire 5 also uses full floating point for all internal processing, which improves visual effects quality - even on 8-, 10- and 12-bit footage -- and offers photorealistic image quality with the highest possible dynamic range. Sapphire 5 can also handle 16-bit floating point footage natively on the desktop and in batch, without clamping. By removing these performance limitations of versions past, Sapphire 5 enables artists to explore the full range of their creativity without the worry of incurring additional infrastructure costs.
"I've been testing Sapphire 5, and I must say I'm impressed with the speed of the plug-ins," said Victor Wolansky, Flame artist from e3 Post. "In addition, the full float support offers a huge difference in effects like blurs or vignettes where I used to see banding. Now they're absolutely perfect, and there is no speed impact. My Flame would not be complete without them."
In addition to performance and productivity improvements, Sapphire 5 also offers 15 vibrant new effects, including TVDamage, TVChannelChange, Technicolor and many new transitions. (A full list of new effects can be found at http://www.genarts.com/product/sapphire/autodesk/whatsnew)
New parameters are also offered in this release - many from customer requests:
All Threshold controls now go beyond 1 to support high dynamic range (HDR).
ZBlur and ZDefocus support Boost Highlights to give an "HDR look" even to normal footage.
New Blur parameters are included in Glint and Glare for improved realism.
Glow now has options for Show Threshold and Combine Mode to enhance flexibility and give new looks.
"Sapphire 5 for Autodesk is a critical component of our strategy to grow GenArts via innovation, as well as through acquisitions and alliances," said Steve Bannerman, CMO of GenArts. "Sapphire has been completely re-architected to not only deliver dramatic performance, usability and image quality enhancements today, but to serve as a platform upon which we can deliver entirely new classes of innovation in the future. We're extremely pleased with the feedback we've received from our early testers, and we're confident that Sapphire 5 will empower visual effects artists in completely new ways as they push the envelope to thrill and amaze audiences around the world."
Since the company's founding in 1996, GenArts software has been utilized in thousands of films, television broadcasts and commercials, including more than 20 Oscar-nominated pieces such as Titanic; I, Robot; Armageddon; Star Wars Episode I, II and III; The Matrix trilogy; The Lord of the Rings trilogy; Pearl Harbor; Spider Man; Pirates of the Caribbean; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; Transformers; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Avatar and many more.
About GenArts GenArts, Inc. is the premier provider of specialized digital visual effects for the film, broadcast and video industries. As visual effects have become essential to the art of storytelling, GenArts' tools have emerged as the standard for creating high-end visual effects at leading studio, broadcast and post-production facilities around the world. GenArts' products have been used extensively to create an array of breathtaking effects for not only countless feature films, but television shows, commercials and music videos as well. GenArts enjoys the unique distinction of having been a key component of an Oscar-nominated film for the past 13 consecutive years.
The GenArts Sapphire(TM), Monsters(TM), Raptors(TM), Tinder(TM) and particleIllusion(TM) portfolio equips digital artists with a collection of state-of-the-art visual effects tools such as glows, light rays, lens flares, film, fire, fluid and particles that seamlessly integrate as software plug-ins into leading editing and compositing systems. GenArts was founded in 1996 in Cambridge, Mass. www.genarts.com.
Planning on attending the San Francisco SuperMeet on Friday, February 5th?
Today (Monday, January 4th) is the last day to get Early Bird $10 pricing on SuperMeet tickets. Earlybird pricing ends Tuesday morning Jan 5, 2010 at 2:00AM PST.
After that, it goes up to $15.00, or $20 at Door. Get your tickets now!
The San Francisco SuperMeet promises to be the single largest Bay Area social gathering of digital filmmakers, content creators, Final Cut Studio, Adobe and Avid Gurus and users in all of 2010.
SPEND THE DAY WITH US IN SAN FRANCISCO Sign up for Free SuperWorkshops during the day by Canon, Adobe, Autodesk & Red Giant, some sessions almost filled & your choices will be narrowing soon!
WORLD FAMOUS RAFFLE Don't forget! We will be raffling away tens of thousands of dollars in prizes at the SuperMeet. Prizes include:
Canon 5D Mark II HDSLR (with 2010 Firmware Update) and 24mm-105mm F4 L IS lense ($3,499 value)
AJA KiPro ProRes Recorder ($4,495 value)
Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium ($1,700 value)
Avid Media Composer 4 w/ Production Suite ($2,295 value)
AND A WHOLE LOT MORE!
Complete details and links to purchase tickets and sign up for workshops at: supermeet.com.
Thanks! Dan ---- Daniel Berube Co-Producer, SuperMeets BOSFCPUG
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – December 17, 2009 -- GenArts Inc., the premier provider of specialized visual effects software for the film, television and video industries, today announced pricing for its GenArts Sapphir 5 licenses for Autodesk systems. A new Sapphire 5 license for Linux Flame, Inferno, Flint HD and Smoke HD will be priced at $8,499. This price represents a $1,500 decrease from Sapphire 4. Upgrades from Sapphire version 4 to Sapphire 5 will be priced at $3,499. In addition, new Sapphire 5 burn licenses have been reduced 50% from version 4 to $450.
Announced in November, Sapphire 5 will offer GPU-accelerated render speeds up to 700 percent faster than version 4, as well as support for full floating point workflows, enabling true photorealistic image quality with the highest dynamic range available. This increase in performance will dramatically change the complexion of the visual effects pipeline by lifting barriers to artists' creativity, while significantly reducing infrastructure costs.
Sapphire 5 is scheduled to ship in the first quarter of 2010 for Autodesk users. Please visit www.genarts.com/5 for more information.
GenArts Specialized Visual Effects Software: magic in every frame.
FX Guide has an article up about Autodesk Smoke coming to the Mac. The rumors have been flying for a while now and John Montgomery is saying it's true! He's been under NDA so it couldn't be revealed, but there will be more news on this soon.
Seven companies joined forces at NAB last month to launch The Open Effects Association. This non-profit, UK-based company aims to develop and promote open standards across the visual effects community. Founding members are Assimilate, Autodesk®, Digieffects, FilmLight, The Foundry, GenArts® and RE:Vision Effects. These companies have helped artists create ground-breaking VFX shots on just about everything that hits cinema screens.
The Association's initial focus is to improve the OFX image processing plug-in standard launched by The Foundry in 2004. The goal for the OpenFX API is to reduce the level of development and support required for plug-ins across different compositing and editing host platforms. The OpenFX API has, to date, been adopted by:
Assimilate® SCRATCH®
Autodesk® ToxikTM software
FilmLight's Baselight
GenArts® Sapphire® plug-ins
The Foundry's Nuke compositor and Tinder, Keylight and Furnace plug-ins
RE:Vision Effects' ReelSmartTM Motion Blur and DE:Noise plug-ins
Digital Vision's FilmMaster
Grass Valley's Bones
Eyeon Fusion
Avid DS
Photron's Primatte Keyer
The Association hopes that as a new, independent organization, it will encourage increasingly open communication and collaboration between hosts and plug-in developers and establish a uniform specification to benefit everyone involved, starting with the artists.
Bruno Nicoletti, Chief Technical Officer at The Foundry and main creator of the original OpenFX API comments: "It was always The Foundry's aim to make life easier for everyone. I'm reinvigorated by the formation of this new independent body, delighted to have been appointed to the board and am looking forward to collaborating with the other members and encouraging uptake of OpenFX API as a standard."
Gary Oberbrunner, Chief Scientist, Vice President of Engineering at GenArts and newly appointed Director of the OFX Association adds, "GenArts Sapphire has a well-earned reputation for supporting a wide range of host platforms. We've been supportive of the OpenFX premise since its inception, and Sapphire runs on all major OpenFX hosts. We at GenArts are excited about the OFX Association, and we believe this new approach will enable the industry to advance our common goals more quickly."
If you are interested in learning more or joining the OFX Association, please contact Bruno Nicoletti, bruno@thefoundry.co.uk.
Guest blogger Mathew Schirado gives the NAB Wrap-up. Matt is much more of a hardware person than I am, and goes into a lot of products that Toolfarm doesn't sell, so enjoy the news. Matt has a way with words ;-)
We'll have an NAB video with some interviews coming hopefully this week.
Time to get back in the action...
Sadly this economy kept me from attending NAB 2009, but Michele Yamazaki was there in the thick of it. Yes, attendance was down, but ironically it meant shorter lines at the bathroom and more face-time with representatives at booths.
There were some rumors that Apple would announced Final Cut Studio 3.0 on Tuesday of NAB, but we got nothing. Subsequent rumor reports posted the announcement for the World Wide Developer Conference in June.
Avid perplexes me to no end. They announced Final Cut Pro support on Unity and ISIS storage systems, which is odd since I took pictures of them showing FCP and Premiere Pro doing just that at NAB 2007! Ummm....Beavis? Avid's new logo is nice, memorable. They're reshuffling their support plan options, offering Standard, Priority, Uptime and Enterprise, but I'm not impressed that they won't disclose each option's pricing. Will they be any more affordable? Or useful? Avid's 1st quarter results were down about 17 million from last year, so their turnaround plan isn't paying off so far. With television broadcasters the one kind of client they hold consistently, and TV stations cutting operating budgets left and right, it makes me wonder about Avid's future viability.
Big players AJA and Blackmagic Designs were met by Matrox with cool news. AJA showed the 2-pound Io Express for $1000. Using a PCIe interface (ExpressCard 34 or optional desktop PCI card) It's the first portable Io for Windows and Mac, with HD-SDI and HDMI in/out, and Component analog out. It's AC or battery-powerable and works with FCS, Premiere Pro and "unnamed" others.
It's hard to justify buying a KONA 3 card now that there's the KONA LHi for $1500, offering 3G/HD/SD-SDI in/out, Component analog in/out, all the up/down/cross conversion capabilities of it's big brother, the same HDV and DVCPro HD hardware acceleration, and adding HDMI in/out instead of a 2nd HD-SDI output. The only thing I can see missing is 4:4:4 dual link and 2K support. The older KONA LHe is discounted to $1300 for a limited time.'
AJA's Ki Pro box ($4000) is a ProRes field-capture/recorder box with much of the Io HD's connectivity. It will mount as a hard drive over FireWire 800 to your Mac. You record to removable 250gig, FireWire 800 field packs (with optional solid-state media) or to two ExpressCard 34 slots (a la Sony's SxS flash storage). All the up/down/cross conversion you can eat during capture, and control it over WiFi with Safari or your iPhone/Touch. It's designed to mount below your camera, on top of your tripod head. A protective cage option gives you rail bars for adding follow focus or matte box to your camera.
John Flowers has written an open-source utility called HD Speed Test, available at www.unscale.com/DST.html. It tests hard drive or RAID read-write speeds using "real world" video test files, which give you much more accurate benchmarks for capturing/playing back various compressed or uncompressed video streams. Most advertised benchmarks are using data sets that your NLE will never use, inflating the performance of your storage system.
JVC's next-generation ProHD camera, the GY-HM700 ($8995) offers a standard Canon 14x lens on a solid-state, dual-SDHC memory card recording system. It will record HDV but also all of Sony's XDCam HD formats (19, 25, and 35 megabit), with under/over cranking, and an optional GY-HM700UXT SxS recorder module, just like Sony's XDCam EX memory cards. Files automatically have .MOV wrappers for immediate import and editing in FCP.
JVC's $4000, 3-pound, hand-held GY-HM100U also records to dual SDHC card slots, in 19, 25 and 35 megabit MPEG data rates, as QuickTime files. Two 32-gig cards offer up to 6 hours of HD recording time. You can output via HDMI or USB 2.0.
RED Digital Cinema "mentioned" RED ROCKET, a $5000 PCI Express accelerator card for crunching REDCODE files and outputting full-rez 4K out of four HD-SDI and 4 DVI connections. Works with Premiere Pro, FCP, AE, and any other app using the RED SDK. Don't expect to see any details until next year. They're shipping new Prime lenses and compared them favorably to the best competing lenses in the industry; get a 6 lens set for around $23,000. There's a hands-on training initiative called REDucation, and RED showed last year's demo reel played off of a REDRAY, with a data rate of 10 megabits per second (remember DV is 25 mbps). Holy cow!
Wow. Cheapest 35mm lens adapters for super cheap Canon palmcorders (or prosumer), with spinning ground glass elements, battery powered, giving you 35mm depth of field. A 43mm thread size, Canon FD mount is $375. Go to www.jag35.com to see a large line of adapters.
The Foundry's Nuke 5.2 was announced with many bug fixes, stereoscopic updates, Python scripting improvements, pre-comping tools, RED Redcode importing, and offering video monitoring on AJA's Kona and Xena cards as well as Blackmagic Design's cards. Download the update at www.thefoundry.co.uk. Nuke 6.0 ($3500) was demoed as two versions, the original Nuke and NukeX, Nuke 6 contains a re-written paint/roto engine and the Keylight Keyer as standard. NukeX 6 ($6000) adds a 3D camera tracker, lens distortion tools and revamped Furnace plug-ins named FurnaceCore. Any NukeX projects will fully open inside of Nuke.
Matrox MXO2 Mini ($450) uses PCI Express or ExpressCard 34 to a MacBook Pro (you get one or the other with your purchase). It will output HDMI and Analog Component HD at the same time, as well as hardware up/down/cross conversion, HD to SD, SD to HD, 720 to 1080i or reverse . HDMI output is 10-bit 4:2:2 and can be color calibrated for inexpensive grading. HDMI 8-channel audio output gives you 5.1 or 7.1 surround mix monitoring. You can get Matrox MAX hardware included inside the unit for $850. What's MAX?
MAX is a hardware acceleration technology for crunching H.264 encoding jobs. Available as a PCI Express card called CompressHD ($495), users can accelerate Apple Compressor so exporting H.264 for BluRay, iPod, AppleTV, YouTube, Flash or mobile occurs faster than realtime. One 90-minute long export on an octo MacPro only took 18 minutes using CompressHD. This same MAX hardware can be ordered this summer in the MXO2 (normally $1595, to $1995) and MXO2 Rack (normally $1995, to $2395)
Like free? Celtx version 2.0 is out for Windows and OSX 10.4 and up (Linux coming), and it's a great open-source film management/scheduling/scriptwriting/storyboarding/online collaboration application. Add annotated PDF's , photos, videos and sound to your project. You can add new productivity tools with Toolbox, or help code your own as a developer. Publish your project to mobile devices like the iPhone. New paid web services called Celtx Studios offer storage, archiving, previews and collaboration options. Download it at www.celtx.com.
Zaxwerks 3D Serpentine AE plug-in ($120) will extrude and animate any 2D shape along a 3D motion path, termed a noodle. Noodles can have bump and reflection maps applied, and receive 3D lighting.
FreeForm AE ($199) from Digieffects uses an intuitive 3D mesh for reshaping and distorting a flat layer, for animating billowing cloth for example. FreeForm AE offers displacement mapping, and a custom 3D render engine for speedy renders.
nVidia announced the Quattro FX 4500 graphics card ($1800) for MacPro 2008 and 2009, This top professional card, with 1.5 gigabytes of VRAM, is much cheaper than the previous one, costing over $2800.
Earlier this year Blackmagic Designs updated the DeckLink HD Extreme PCI capture card, offering dual-link 3Gb/s HD-SDI in/out at 4:4:4 uncompressed color space, as well as a hardware downconverter, 2K support, and HDMI. You also have all analog HD/SD in/out connections for $995.
Last week Blackmagic offered Linux driver and SDK support on all of its DeckLink, Intensity and MultiBridge products. They cut the price of the DeckLiink SDI to $295 from $395, the Intensity Pro HDMI card to $199 from $349, and the HDLink Pro to $495 from $795. Shipping in June, the Blackmagic UltraScope ($695) is a PC software scope monitoring app bundled with their new DeckLink Optical Fiber PCI card ($495 separately). UltraScope requires a 24 inch monitor, but is designed to replace hardware video scopes costing thousands of dollar, using any cheap Windows PC on hand. The DeckLink Optical Fiber is the same as the Decklink SDI but with HD-SDI Optical FIber in/out ports, which can handle extremely long cable runs.
Terragen 2.0, a powerful 3D landscape and sky generation program, is available for $299 with animation enabled, and $199 without. A bundle with XfrogPlants twenty-two 3D vegetation and plant libraries costs $699. Terragen was initially developed at Digital Domain, and there's a Classic version you can use non-commercially for free, or register for $99 to use on a job. Go to www.xfrog.com and www.planetside.co.uk to find out more.
Funniest story I heard was DaVinci's booth (www.davsys.com) showing their Resolve color correction hardware, with prices in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, in a corner, for a technology demo, they had Resolve "software-only" running on a standard MacBook Pro.
Autodesk Mudbox 2009 ($749) is out now for both Windows and Intel Mac. It's a 3D sculpting/painting app like ZBrush, and got a five star review at MacWorld UK (http://www.macworld.co.uk/procreative/reviews/index.cfm?reviewid=3223). You can download a trial at http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/mform?siteID=123112&id=10707843.
Nearly 180 Visual Effects Filters for Linux-based Autodesk Systems
Marlborough MA - April 20, 2009 - Boris FX, the leading developer of integrated effects technology for video and film, today announced Boris Continuum Complete 6 Sparks for Autodesk Effects and Finishing Systems (BCC 6 Sparks). Based on the Autodesk Sparks plug-in architecture, BCC 6 Sparks brings nearly 180 filters to Autodesk Smoke, Autodesk Inferno, Autodesk Flame, and Autodesk Flint systems. The release features over 20 new filters including Pixel Fixer, DV Fixer, and Smooth Tone tools, Swish Pan, Lens Blur, Cartoon Look, Pencil Sketch, and Water Color effects, and OpenGL-accelerated effects such as Lightning, Prism, Scanline, and Tile Mosaic.
"Boris Continuum Complete 6 Sparks packs a vast array of features that are difficult to find with other plug-in suites," commented Boris Yamnitsky, president and founder, Boris FX. "Tough economic times call for top-performing, yet affordable solutions. BCC 6 Sparks delivers on both fronts." New BCC 6 Sparks Feature Highlights
XML-based Animatable Presets are now compatible across all Boris Continuum Complete host applications, including Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, and Linux-based Autodesk effects and finishing systems. Effects can be animated offline and saved for future application in any supported host application.
New Fast-rendering OpenGL Filters such as Lightning, Prism, Scanline, and Tile Mosaic.
Pixel Fixer removes bad pixels resulting from a faulty digital camera sensor or dust on a camera lens. Up to ten bad spots can be repaired with a single filter application - without any degradation of image quality or sharpness.
Smooth Tone is an “electronic makeup” method that automatically smooths or softens human skin tones while preserving detail contrast, making skin silky-smooth without loss of sharpness in the image.
Other New Effects include Swish Pan, Lens Blur, Charcoal Sketch, Pencil Sketch, Water Color, Cartoon Look, a Swish Pan transition filter, and DV Fixer for removal of jaggies from an image clip.
Significant Performance Gains. Every BCC 6 Sparks filter is either OpenGL-based or multiprocessor-accelerated for ultimate rendering speed.
Pricing and Availability Boris Continuum Complete 6 for Autodesk Effects and Finishing Systems will be available in June 2009 for an MSRP of $2,495 USD. Owners of previous versions of BCC Sparks may upgrade for an MSRP of $595 USD. Customers who buy BCC 5 Sparks now will receive a free upgrade to BCC 6 Sparks when it is available. About Boris FX Founded in 1995, Boris FX is the leading developer of integrated graphics and effects technology, delivering 3D compositing and vector graphic products for the broadcast, post production, film and multimedia markets. Boris products have grown to serve over 200,000 artists worldwide. The company's success lies in its ability to tightly integrate and leverage technologies through strong partnerships with industry-leading manufacturers such as Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Avid, Grass Valley, Media 100, and Sony.
London, UK. March 26th 2009 Much has changed at leading VFX software developer, The Foundry, during the last twelve months. This will be reflected on the show floor at NAB 2009, as the company plays host to a series of exciting 'behind the scenes' demos and product announcements at its booth #SL326 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Continuing the development and support of its Academy Award®-winning compositing and plug-in technologies has necessitated the addition of 15 staff globally. The company now has offices in Los Angeles, a local presence in southeast Asia and has expanded into two additional floors at its HQ in Soho, London.
Blockbuster VFX demos on Nuke: At NAB 2009, The Foundry will let its customers do the most of the talking. Leading visual effects professionals will treat visitors to a series of behind-the-scenes looks at how Nuke was used to great effects on the international blockbusters Iron Man and Watchmen as well as the game World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.
New Nuke products: The Foundry team will showcase Nuke 5.2, the latest release of its acclaimed compositing software, featuring new pre-comp tools, Python UI and metadata improvements, plus support for 3D LUTs and OpenGL GLSL shaders, video output cards and a RED R3D Redcode format-reader enabling full 32-bit floating point processing. RED Digital Cinema will be represented on The Foundry's booth on 21st, 22nd and 23rd April demonstrating the new RED-to-Nuke workflow.
Visitors can take a look at Nuke 6.0 (due for release in Q3), which promises a new Paint and Roto toolset. The release of 6.0 is set to coincide with the launch of NukePro, a brand new product offering incorporating lens tools, a camera tracker, FurnaceCore and Keylight all in one compositing package. All Nuke 5.2 orders with maintenance taken before the end of NAB 2009 will receive NukePro automatically as it becomes available later in the year, delivering a saving of over $2,500 on list price.
Plug-in developments: The Foundry has reinforced its commitment to the development of industry-leading creative and image-processing plug-ins with the recent appointment of Tom Cowland as plug-in product manager. Brand new products on show at NAB are FurnaceCore for Fusion (also integral to NukePro) and Tinderbox 4 for Nuke. Future releases planned for later in 2009 include a new keyer for Autodesk and Adobe and some exciting tools for Final Cut Pro.
Ocula 3D stereo toolset: The Foundry is also continuing development of Ocula, its range of stereoscopic plug-ins, with the release of new tools driven by production feedback later in the year. Ocula was used by Digital Domain on a stereo 3D commercial spot for SoBe broadcast to 96million viewers during SuperBowl XLIII, and is currently being put through its paces by Weta Digital on James Cameron's Avatar.
FXGuide and FCP: During NAB 2009 The Foundry is also sponsoring FX Guide's Bar Camp on 20th April at the Renaissance Hotel and is again supporting the FCP Supermeet on the 21st at the Rio Hotel. To attend please visit www.lafcpug.org/nab_2009.html.
About The Foundry The Foundry is a world-leading innovator of visual effects and image processing technologies that boost productivity in motion picture and video post production. On February 10th 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded a Sci-Tech Award® to The Foundry's development team for the Furnace image processing suite. The company now has two Academy Award® winning technologies including the high-end compositing system Nuke.
The Foundry's products support a wide range of host platforms including After Effects, Autodesk® Media and Entertainment Systems, Avid DS, Baselight, Film Master, Nuke, Scratch and Shake. The company has also driven OpenFX, an open standard for visual effects plug-ins, now broadly adopted by host and plug-in developers such as Autodesk®, Assimilate, FilmLight, Digital Vision, Eyeon Software Inc, Grass Valley, Soluciones Graficas por Ordenador (S.G.O.), Photron, Final Cut Pro and others.
London, UK. January 28th 2009 - The Foundry (www.thefoundry.co.uk) a leading developer of visual effects, image-processing and compositing software, announced today that, under an exclusive arrangement with Autodesk®, it can once again offer support for the Autodesk Sparks range of its Tinder, Furnace and Keylight products.
The Foundry had previously been winding down support an£d development for plug-ins on Autodesk System products following Autodesk's termination of The Foundry's Authorised Developer Network programme membership at the end of 2008. The Foudry's CEO, Bill Collis, commented: "We are delighted that a workable solution has been reached. Since The Foundry's inception, we have worked very closely with our Autodesk customers to develop tools that artists find genuinely useful. It would have been extremely sad to be forced to abandon this community when sales demand for our Sparks are at an all time high. We can now confidently look forward to continuing these long-established relationships."
Chief Scientist and Co-Founder, Simon Robinson, added: "Since our January 1st press release about the ADN termination, we've had enthusiastic support from our clients which has been immensely inspiring. We're very pleased to say that our maintenance releases for 2009 have returned to our schedules along with planned new product releases from The Foundry's Academy Award-winning team."
The huge Autodesk plug-in price reductions will continue until Feb 14th, 2009 when prices will revert to normal. All products purchased during the price-cut will be fully supported.
Reduced Pricing On Node Locked Autodesk plug-ins - Ends 14.02.09
The Foundry is a world-leading innovator of visual effects and image processing technologies that boost productivity in motion picture and video post production. On February 10th 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded a Sci-Tech Award® to The Foundry's development team for the Furnace image processing suite. The company now holds two products with Academy Award® winning technology including high-end compositing system Nuke.
The Foundry's products support a wide range of host platforms including After Effects, Autodesk® Media and Entertainment Systems, Avid DS, Baselight, Film Master, NUKE, Scratch, Shake and Final Cut Pro. The company has also driven OpenFX, an open standard for visual effects plug-ins, now broadly adopted by host and plug-in developers such as Autodesk®, Assimilate, FilmLight, Digital Vision, eyeon Software Inc, Grass Valley, Soluciones Graficas por Ordenador (S.G.O.), Photron and others. Customers include: Digital Domain, The Moving Picture Company, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Warner Bros and Weta Digital Ltd. The Foundry is headquartered in London, and has offices in Los Angeles.
The Foundry announced today that effective immediately, the company is significantly reducing prices on plug-ins for Autodesk® advanced systems, as it is no longer part of the Autodesk Authorized Developer Network programme and can no longer guarantee continued development or support. The decision follows notification by Autodesk that they will not renew their development license with The Foundry, citing competitive issues. The decision ends Autodesk's twelve-year development relationship with The Foundry and its users.
Autodesk have provided a non-binding, verbal assurance to The Foundry that may be sufficient to enable The Foundry to continue supporting Autodesk plug-in products (Sparks). Due to the uncertain nature of this assurance, The Foundry can only guarantee 'best effort' support to their Autodesk plug-in customers at this time. The Foundry is also unable to predict whether it will be able to develop or support future releases on Autodesk systems platforms.
The Foundry, formed in 1996, was the first developer of Sparks on Discreet Logic 's® Flame® systems and has continued to bring its Academy Award® winning technology to digital artists through a variety of highly regarded and popular plug-in products including Tinder, Furnace and Keylight.
Chief Scientist and Co-Founder, Simon Robinson comments: "The Foundry was originally established to develop Tinder on Discreet Logic® so it is particularly sad that this relationship is altering so significantly. We'd like to thank our loyal Autodesk customers who helped us build The Foundry into the successful company it is today."
CEO, Bill Collis, adds: "Our customers always come first and we will, of course, continue to support them to the best of our ability. However, without a legal agreement in place, we cannot guarantee how long we will be able to continue to provide this service. Many of our Autodesk customers are key industry players who have strongly influenced our development path and we are committed to keeping them informed about any changes in service or development." REDUCED PRICING ON NODE LOCKED AUTODESK PLUG-INS: Effective 1st January 2009
The Foundry Tinder = $1000; a set of 90 eye candy plug-ins. Blurs and flares that extend the creative possibilities of your Autodesk system.
The Foundry Keylight = $500; an industry proven green and blue screen keyer that is particularly efficient where hair and reflections are involved. FREE BURN LICENSES Notes to Customers: The Foundry cannot guarantee to make any new builds after 1st January 2009. Bug fixing or upgrades to future versions of Autodesk systems may not be possible. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Why have you reduced your prices so significantly? Due to the lack of any formal agreement with Autodesk, The Foundry is currently unable to guarantee a desirable level of support to their Autodesk customers or guarantee development of software for future Autodesk releases. Therefore, The Foundry feels it is only fair that this is reflected in a significant price change.
Why can you no longer guarantee support? In order to support Autodesk customers effectively, The Foundry is reliant on Autodesk's provision of current and historic software versions. At this time we have no Autodesk licenses and are not clear when that situation will change, or under what terms.
What is the ADN (Autodesk Developer Network)? The ADN provided The Foundry with the technical access required to develop plug-in products and provide support to their customers. Full information on the Autodesk ADN can be found here. Can you continue as normal outside the ADN? Autodesk have given The Foundry a verbal assurance of support outside the official programme. However, without any contractual obligation, development would be a big risk for The Foundry. The Foundry is hopeful that some support might be possible, but can make no guarantees. I bought Autodesk plug-ins at full price recently. Where does this leave me? Please contact sales@thefoundry.co.uk or your personal Foundry sales contact with your specific query and we will respond. How long will the reduced pricing be available for? The reduced pricing will be available for the whole of January 2009. It is unclear at this stage whether this offer will be extended.
What does 'best effort' support mean? The Foundry always endeavours to support their customers to the best of their ability and will continue to do so. However, if your query is complex and we do not have software in house that enables us to replicate and try to solve the problem we will be limited in the assistance that we can provide. What does this change in relationship with Autodesk mean for The Foundry? The Foundry has grown considerably since its early days, when Autodesk plug-in revenue was fundamental to the business. However, Autodesk customers still include some of the industry's most influential innovators and The Foundry will work hard to provide them with their technology via other routes if necessary. What else does The Foundry do? The Foundry has developed and marketed its highly respected Nuke compositing system with marked success since 2007.
The Foundry's plug-ins are also now available on a multitude of other hosts including Shake, Nuke, Fusion, Final Cut Pro, Avid DS, Combustion and After Effects.
The Foundry's large Academy Award-winning research team contributes significant advances in image-processing, both inside Nuke and in new plug-in technologies such as the stereo-3D toolset, Ocula.
Together these products have facilitated great visual effects on recent block busters Australia, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Quantum of Solace, The Dark Knight, Prince Caspian, Sweeney Todd; The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, IronMan and many more.
Will I be able to use my Foundry plug-ins on future versions of Autodesk systems? At the current time, The Foundry has no formal agreement with Autodesk and therefore cannot guarantee to make their Autodesk plug-ins compatible with future versions. The Foundry hopes very much that an agreement will be reached that enables them to do so.
Final Effects Complete is now available for Linux-based Autodesk Flint, Flame, Inferno, and Smoke systems. Final Effects Complete 5 Sparks is a set of 100+ visual effects filters re-designed for the Autodesk Sparks plug-in architecture. Popular filters include specialized particle systems for rain, snow, and hair effects, eye-catching effects such as Mr. Mercury, Mr. Smoothie, and Ball Action, auto-animated transitions such as Glass Wipe, Blur Dissolve, and Light Wipe, and many organic warps and distortions. Unique workflow features include 1,000+ factory-installed, customizable presets, the ability to save/load Final Effects Complete presets from Adobe, Avid, and Apple host applications, and the built-in Boris PixelChooser matte and masking system. Final Effects Complete 5 Sparks offers full multi-processor support for optimal performance under Linux.
The regular price of Final Effects Complete 5 Sparks is $1,995 USD. The first 50 customers to purchase the package will receive a 50% discount, paying just $997.50 USD. Please contact us for more information.
Toolfarm is hosting the Boris BCC Rays Cartoon Plugin! For a limited time, we're offering a free, fully-licensed plug-in from Boris Continuum Complete 5 - Rays Cartoon.
Tutorial: BCC Rays Cartoon for Adobe After Effects CS3 and FxPlug (Final Cut Pro/Motion) - Use the BCC Rays Cartoon in Adobe After Effects CS3 or Final Cut Pro and Motion to generate a volumetric lighting effect on an animated text element.
*If you download the BCC Rays Cartoon plug-in, your information will be shared with Boris FX. Normally we do not share any of this information with any of our vendors or anyone else, but in this case, we've made an exception, so we can bring this free plug-in to you. With any other download, your email will not be shared with anyone.
Dave Basulto has put up a video overview at Digital Producer called Getting acquainted with Nuke - Part 1. Check it out!
Already acquainted with Nuke? Get your Nuke plugins at Toolfarm! Toolfarm caters to a lot more than just After Effects, Final Cut Studio and Avid crowd. Check out the expanded list of plug-ins along the left side of the site. We have tons of plug-ins for 3D apps such as Cinema 4D, Lightwave, Maya and 3ds Max. Need Sony Vegas or Eyeon Fusion or something for your Autodesk software? We got'em. Even Protools... yeah, that's right! View all Plug-ins.
Major update to the popular visual effects package for Autodesk Advanced Compositing and Finishing Systems adds 13 new filters
Marlborough MA - May 22, 2008 - Boris FX, the leading developer of integrated effects technology for video and film, announced that Boris Continuum Complete 5 for Autodesk Sparks (BCC 5 Sparks) is now available. Version 5 feature highlights include a new Optical Flow-based Motion Key for foreground object removal, Optical Stabilizer for smooth image stabilization, and a range of other new effects. OS and host support extends to the latest version of Linux and the 2009 lineup of Autodesk compositing and finishing systems: Flint, Flame, Inferno, and Smoke, including Burn network rendering. The BCC 5 Sparks package contains a total of 145 filters including the popular Glint, Glitter, and Glare series, Lens Flare, Film Process, Film Damage, Particle Systems, Volumetric Lighting Rays, and Wipe effects.
"The new Autodesk Sparks update of the popular BCC package will save our customers time and money by automating tedious frame-by-frame rotoscoping jobs with Optical Flow technology," comments Boris Yamnitsky, founder and president, Boris FX. "Many new effects and workflow suggestions came straight from our user forums as well as Autodesk's customer base."
Boris Continuum Complete is the only plug-in suite that allows users to swap filter presets with other BCC host applications regardless of the manufacturer or model. This streamlined workflow allows editors to copy effects from offline to finish and vice versa. Additionally, the new BCC Sparks release includes over 1,500 preset effects, further accelerating effects production workflow.
New BCC 5 Sparks Filters:
Motion Key - remove moving foreground objects based on the motion vector field automatically generated by the filter.
Extruded Image Shatter - break up an image into extruded shards flying in 3D space.
LED - transform a movie clip or text layer as if it was displayed on an array of blinking LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights.
Prism - simulate the photographic effect of chromatic aberration for artistic effects or auto-generated backgrounds.
Damaged TV - emulate the look of a badly-tuned or broken analog CRT television screen.
Scanline - create rolling RGB scanlines over the source image - for example, as if a computer monitor is shot by a video camera.
Optical Stabilizer - automatically lock a hand-held shot without having to set up tracking points.
Color Choker - Posterize and blur color channels to achieve creative and artistic looks.
BCC Cube - create a six-sided cube with your choice of media and transparency for each side.
BCC Turbulence - create gel-like distortion fields using noise map and turbulence controls.
Half-Tone - simulate the look of a newspaper print in grayscale or color.
Light Wrap - reflect the background layer in the foreground composite.
Pricing and Availability
BCC 5 Sparks is immediately available through the Boris FX worldwide reseller channel and direct from the Boris FX web site at www.borisfx.com for an MSRP of $2495.00 for new licenses and $695.00 for upgrades. Users can test-drive BCC 5 Sparks by downloading a 60-day Trial Version from the Boris FX web site.
SAN RAFAEL, Calif., May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of REALVIZ S.A., the privately held developer of image-based content creation software. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
REALVIZ was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Sophia Antipolis, France. REALVIZ's technology provides efficient ways to generate 3D content and visual effects from photo imaging and 2D environments. Its products are used for panoramic photography, image-based modeling, match moving and optical motion capture. REALVIZ's flagship products are Stitcher software for the creation of panoramas and 360 degree virtual tours, and ImageModeler software to produce 3D models from photographs.
"REALVIZ's technology bridges 2D and 3D, linking the virtual and real worlds. 3D models can be created from simple 2D images, and virtual environments can be built from conventional photographs," said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president, Autodesk Platform Solutions and Emerging Business. "REALVIZ's technology is complementary to Autodesk's modeling, visual effects and animation products. It will enable us to increase the use of 3D technology across many industries, including architecture, film, broadcast and game development."
REALVIZ's clients include Boeing, NASA, Daimler Chrysler, Cinesite, Framestore CFC, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Warner Brothers Animation, Electronic Arts and Activision. REALVIZ technology has been used to create visual effects for Zodiac, The Host, Children of Men, Superman Returns, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and many other blockbuster films.
REALVIZ Product Integration
Autodesk intends to develop and sell REALVIZ's Stitcher Unlimited, Stitcher Express, ImageModeler and Movimento software as standalone products. Matchmover, Retimer and VTour will no longer be available as standalone products; core technology from these REALVIZ products will be integrated into future versions of Autodesk's existing products, enabling customers to bring the real world into design environments.
The following REALVIZ offerings have been discontinued: Stitcher Pro, Stitcher Unlimited DS, StoryViz, and hardware and software product bundles. Education versions of ImageModeler and Stitcher continue to be available. Student versions of ImageModeler and Stitcher are no longer available. For more information please visit http://www.autodesk.com/REALVIZ.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding the impact of the acquisition on Autodesk's earnings per share, product offerings and the performance of its business. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include the following: difficulties encountered in integrating merged businesses; whether certain market segments grow as anticipated; the competitive environment in the software industry and competitive responses to the acquisition; and whether the companies can successfully develop new products or modify existing products and the degree to which these gain market acceptance.
Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of Autodesk are included in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2008, which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
About REALVIZ
REALVIZ is a leading developer of image-based creation software, headquartered in Sophia Antipolis, France, with satellite sales offices in Los Angeles, U.S.A., London, England and Paris, France. REALVIZ develops a suite of image-based content creation solutions for the film, broadcast, gaming, digital imaging, architecture and Internet communities. Derived from years of research efforts at the renowned INRIA Lab in France, the Company's applications enable 2D and 3D artists to easily tackle complex digital imaging projects.
About Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is the world leader in 2D and 3D design software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk has developed the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art digital prototyping solutions to help customers experience their ideas before they are real. Fortune 1000 companies rely on Autodesk for the tools to visualize, simulate and analyze real-world performance early in the design process to save time and money, enhance quality and foster innovation. For additional information about Autodesk, visit http://www.autodesk.com/.
Autodesk, AutoCAD, ImageModeler, and Stitcher, are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.
What's New Colour Warper primary and selective color correction tool made famous in Autodesk Flame software for precise fine-tuning with multiple levels of adjustment in a single pass.
Interactive adjustment of gamma, gain, offset, hue, saturation, and contrast. Apply animatable settings to all channels or independently to R, G, and B.
Intuitive hue shift and tint color wheel for fast, accurate color balancing. Visual color sampling palette for precise color matching.
Interactive Histogram and curves editing modes for subtle, precision tweaking of color components.
Independent controls for color correcting the image's shadow, midtone, and highlight regions-features user-definable luminance ranges.
Match feature for fast scene-to-scene color correction.
Selective feature for sampling up to three different color regions for isolated correction.
UI features a high-quality RGB vector scope and a 3D histogram for precise color monitoring.
Boris Continuum Complete Sparks is a massive filter set for Inferno, Fire, Flame, Flint, and Smoke systems. BCC now combines volumes I and II to give Autodesk users access to 130+ filters and 1,500 presets including blurs, tints, glints, glares, lens flares, glows, time warps, and much more. Sparks is an advanced Application Programming Interface (API) for developing custom plug-ins.
Available immediately, new version features over 45 new effects and many enhancements
Cambridge, MA. June 19, 2007 - GenArts, Inc., a leading provider of visual effects plug-ins for the film, broadcast and video industries, today announced the immediate availability of Sapphire Plug-ins version 4 for Autodesk compositing and editing systems. The new version features over 45 new effects, plus many enhancements and new parameters to existing effects in the package.
Version 4 contains all of the visual effects and features that have established Sapphire Plug-ins as an indispensable part of the digital artist's toolkit - and introduces over 45 innovative new effects including: FilmDamage, FilmEffect, DeinterlaceAuto, ZDefocus, Cartoon, Light3D and TextureFlux. Many of the new plug-ins were designed to enhance the user's workflow. "GenArts continues to set the high bar on clever, useful tools for our Autodesk systems. They've got some fun new sparks in v4 that make for interesting visual trickery, but my personal favorites are the utilities that make my compositing jobs easier and put order back in my life," says Dave Waller of Brickyard VFX, a long-standing Sapphire user.
Sapphire Plug-ins 4 also features stunning new LensFlares and Glares, totally revamped RackDefocus, and enhanced performance. The user interface has been improved across the board including a new automatic down-sampling option for real-time interactivity. "GenArts has once again proven that Sapphire is the most versatile and robust set of plug-ins available for the Autodesk platform today," says Jeroen Schulte of Condor Post Production in Amsterdam. "Unparalleled options and speed optimization - with a healthy mix of new plug-ins and updated favourites - will continue to keep Sapphire ahead of the pack. For us, it's the only plug-in suite we use when we're faced with the toughest creative challenges."
Anish Dhanda, Managing Director of GenArts adds, "Because our Autodesk customers continue to define the cutting edge in visual effects creation, we listened carefully to their feedback in the design and development stages of this new release. The input we received contributed greatly to version 4." Key new effects and features of Sapphire Plug-ins v4 for Autodesk Systems:
FilmDamage simulates aged film by adding scratches, dust, stains, grain, shake, flicker, etc.
FilmEffect models film exposure and processing to make your video footage look like it was shot on film.
DeinterlaceAuto detects the pulldown pattern in a clip and automatically deinterlaces or reinterlaces it.
ZDefocus defocuses areas of the source clip by different amounts using depth values from a z-buffer input.
Cartoon gives cartoon-like looks with exaggerated edges and flat areas of color.
Light3D performs 3D relighting of a clip using an input clip describing the surface normals.
LensFlare has 14 new flare types and new parameters.
RackDefocus has new shape options and improved performance.
New redraw option auto-adjusts resolution for real time interactivity.
All effects have Add Noise, Use Gamma and lookup table options.
Glare includes 4 new glare types and improved performance.
Availability and Pricing
Sapphire Plug-ins version 4 for Autodesk compositing and editing systems can be purchased from Toolfarm. Pricing for Sapphire 4 is: $6000 for Autodesk Flint SD and Smoke SD; $10,000 for Flame, Flint HD and Smoke HD; $14,000 for Inferno; and $900 for Burn. Existing version 3 customers qualify for special upgrade pricing of $1800, $2800, $3800 and $250, respectively. For IRIX users, there is no additional charge to transfer version 4 to Linux. A free trial of the software is available online at www.genarts.com.
We've put together a list of plug-ins that support 32-Bit Floating Point Color Space. All of the major apps are now supporting it, so if you're using After Effects 7 and above, Premiere Pro 2 and above and other apps of the last few years, you're probably okay. If both the app and the plug-in support 32-bit, you can definitely work in 32 bit.
What is 32-bit color? A quick explanation is that you usually work in a color space of 0-255 - 0 is pure black and 255 is pure white. With 32-bit color, you're working on a scale of 0-1... 0 is pure black and 1 is pure white. The trick here is that you can go higher than 1 and lower than 0 so you have a much higher dynamic range in your images and video. If you shoot RAW, this is really useful because you can pick up subtleties that are lost when you're trapped in a smaller range of luminance.
Learn more about 32-bit floating point color, link to some resources, and learn which third-party plug-ins support 32-bit color. We've included After Effects (of course!), Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Shake, Combustion, Digital Fusion, Softimage XSI and even codecs.
If you're an expert in this area, we'd love your help to expand this resource.
RE:Vision Effects announces the immediate availability of new Effections, a specially-priced bundle collection, for Autodesk's Sparks systems: Flint, Flame, Fire, Inferno, Smoke and Burn. The bundle includes ReelSmart Motion Blur Pro, which automatically tracks every pixel in a sequence and blurs based on calculated motion; Twixtor Pro, which intelligently slows down, speeds up and frame rate converts image sequences; and RE:Flex, which allows users to create visually stunning morphs and warps with an easy-to-use interface.
Big players AJA and Blackmagic Designs were met by Matrox with cool news. AJA showed the 2-pound Io Express for $1000. Using a PCIe interface (ExpressCard 34 or optional desktop PCI card) It's the first portable Io for Windows and Mac, with HD-SDI and HDMI in/out, and Component analog out. It's AC or battery-powerable and works with FCS, Premiere Pro and "unnamed" others.
It's hard to justify buying a KONA 3 card now that there's the KONA LHi for $1500, offering 3G/HD/SD-SDI in/out, Component analog in/out, all the up/down/cross conversion capabilities of it's big brother, the same HDV and DVCPro HD hardware acceleration, and adding HDMI in/out instead of a 2nd HD-SDI output. The only thing I can see missing is 4:4:4 dual link and 2K support. The older KONA LHe is discounted to $1300 for a limited time.'
AJA's Ki Pro box ($4000) is a ProRes field-capture/recorder box with much of the Io HD's connectivity. It will mount as a hard drive over FireWire 800 to your Mac. You record to removable 250gig, FireWire 800 field packs (with optional solid-state media) or to two ExpressCard 34 slots (a la Sony's SxS flash storage). All the up/down/cross conversion you can eat during capture, and control it over WiFi with Safari or your iPhone/Touch. It's designed to mount below your camera, on top of your tripod head. A protective cage option gives you rail bars for adding follow focus or matte box to your camera.
Wow. Cheapest 35mm lens adapters for super cheap Canon palmcorders (or prosumer), with spinning ground glass elements, battery powered, giving you 35mm depth of field. A 43mm thread size, Canon FD mount is $375. Go to www.jag35.com to see a large line of adapters.
Matrox MXO2 Mini ($450) uses PCI Express or ExpressCard 34 to a MacBook Pro (you get one or the other with your purchase). It will output HDMI and Analog Component HD at the same time, as well as hardware up/down/cross conversion, HD to SD, SD to HD, 720 to 1080i or reverse . HDMI output is 10-bit 4:2:2 and can be color calibrated for inexpensive grading. HDMI 8-channel audio output gives you 5.1 or 7.1 surround mix monitoring. You can get Matrox MAX hardware included inside the unit for $850. What's MAX?
Earlier this year Blackmagic Designs updated the DeckLink HD Extreme PCI capture card, offering dual-link 3Gb/s HD-SDI in/out at 4:4:4 uncompressed color space, as well as a hardware downconverter, 2K support, and HDMI. You also have all analog HD/SD in/out connections for $995.
The Foundry announced today that effective immediately, the company is significantly reducing prices on plug-ins for Autodesk® advanced systems, as it is no longer part of the Autodesk Authorized Developer Network programme and can no longer guarantee continued development or support. The decision follows notification by Autodesk that they will not renew their development license with The Foundry, citing competitive issues. The decision ends Autodesk's twelve-year development relationship with The Foundry and its users.
