Thru March 31, 2010, save up to 65% on The Foundry's Furnace Plug-in for Final Cut Pro, Autodesk or Nuke.
FurnaceCore is an Academy Award Winning set of tools for compositing. They are available for Final Cut Pro 6.0 and 7.0. The plug-ins include grain tools, automated dirt detection and removal, slow motion using our advanced motion estimation technology, motion blur, flicker reduction and a tool to match colour grades between shots.
Furnace is a collection of plug-in tools to help film compositors correct common problems. It is the culmination of two years' research into motion estimation and has been developed in close conjuction with film effects houses in London. The plug-ins include motion vector retiming, wire removal, clean plating, grain tools, texture tools and plug-ins to correct camera shake and non-uniform luma flickering.
The Foundry has also just put out a questionnaire for clients running After Effects, to help direct them in development of new high tech tools for After Effects. They'll do a prize draw where the winner will pick up a Flip Ultra HD camera, with the survey closing on the 12th of March.
Industry Leaders Collaborate to Enhance Nuke Market Growth
LONDON and CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - February 16, 2010 - GenArts Inc., the premier provider of specialized visual effects software for the film, television and video industries, and The Foundry, the world-leading visual effects software developer, today announced they have entered into a broad strategic alliance. Under the terms of the agreement, GenArts will acquire The Foundry's Tinder and Tinderbox plug-ins business and the two companies will enter into an arrangement to collaborate closely to expand the capabilities of the Nuke platform.
A well-established suite with a loyal customer following, Tinder and Tinderbox have been stalwarts in the visual effects plug-ins market for many years. GenArts will immediately assume all development, sales, marketing and customer support of Tinder and Tinderbox as they work to breathe new life into the venerable Tinder brand.
The strategic alliance allows the development teams from The Foundry and GenArts to work closely together to fully maximize the functionality of their future products. This collaboration opens the door to more effective delivery of new technology as the host platform and plug-in development can be more synchronized.
"Both GenArts and The Foundry deliver technologies that are essential to the compositing pipeline at Method," said Janelle Croshaw, of Method Studios. "Host platform development is often independent from the features and schedules of plug-in development. We're very pleased to see that GenArts and The Foundry understand that the way we use their products is extremely intertwined. This collaboration allows us to provide more seamless solutions to clients as we continue to deliver visual effects that push the limits of our audience's imagination."
As part of the alliance, GenArts will become the flagship partner in The Foundry's new third-party partner program for Nuke. GenArts will have an exclusive co-marketing relationship with The Foundry as a provider of visual effects plug-ins for Nuke and Nuke customers will have the option to install trial versions of GenArts plug-ins on Initial installation.
"The Foundry is very pleased to have come to this new arrangement with GenArts," said Bill Collis, CEO, The Foundry. "We believe that it's in the best interest of our customers for Tinder to be looked after by GenArts, while The Foundry concentrates on developing complex, problem-solving, image-processing plug-ins including further work on its award-winning Furnace and Ocula toolsets and new products based on our 3D scene technology. We hope our new third party program, launched today, with GenArts as our first provider, will bring a variety of plug-ins to the attention of Nuke users enabling them to do even more within the platform."
"GenArts' portfolio enjoys an unquestioned pedigree as the go-to tools in the arsenal of the world's best visual effects artists and editors," said Katherine Hays, CEO of GenArts. "Our alliance with The Foundry presents a unique opportunity to deliver value to Nuke users as the platform continues to gain momentum. Customers across the film, broadcast and commercial industries tell us that they highly value the benefits of standardizing their compositing pipeline on a common toolset from a trusted partner. The GenArts portfolio including Sapphire, Monsters, Raptors, wondertouch and now Tinder offers the most comprehensive suite of visual effects in the industry for our current and future customers. This strategic alliance with the Foundry further supports Nuke's growth into markets where GenArts software is a must-have."
For additional information, please refer to our FAQ
About GenArts
GenArts, Inc. is the premier provider of specialized digital visual effects for the film, broadcast and video industries. The GenArts Sapphire, Monsters and Raptors portfolio equips digital artists with a collection of state-of-the-art image processing and synthesis effects such as glows, light rays, lens flares, lightning, film damage, fire and fluid effects. The effects seamlessly integrate as software plug-ins into leading editing and compositing systems from Adobe, Apple, Avid, Autodesk, Assimilate, Eyeon, FilmLight, The Foundry, Quantel and SGO.
In November 2009 GenArts acquired wondertouch, an award-winning software developer specializing in particle effects. Their flagship product, particleIllusion, is considered one of the most popular solutions for particle effects creation, enabling artists to create natural effects such as smoke, fire, sparkles, fireworks and countless abstract effects. GenArts was founded in 1996 in Cambridge, Mass.
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. The Foundry has a well-established client base that includes leading visual effects facilities worldwide, such as Warner Bros., The Moving Picture Company, Weta Digital, Framestore, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Digital Domain. It is at the cutting edge of software development, marketing and sales for visual effects compositing. In June 2009, The Foundry announced a management buyout for an undisclosed sum led by Advent Venture Partners. Advent backed The Foundry's management team, led by CEO Dr Bill Collis and the original founders. The Foundry is highly profitable and has more than doubled in size in the past two years.
The Foundry's products support a wide range of award-winning host platforms including After Effects, Autodesk Media and Entertainment Systems, Avid DS, Nuke, Shake and Final Cut Pro. In 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 - and the company now holds two products with AMPAS Sci-Tech Award winning technology including high-end compositing system Nuke.
The Foundry is headquartered in London, and has offices in Los Angeles. For more information please visit: www.thefoundry.co.uk
GenArts/The Foundry Strategic Alliance FAQ
Announcement Date: Tuesday, 16 February 2010
What did GenArts and The Foundry announce?
GenArts and The Foundry today announced that they have entered into a broad strategic alliance. GenArts will acquire The Foundry's Tinder and Tinderbox plug-ins business and the two companies will enter into an arrangement to collaborate closely to expand the capabilities of the Nuke platform.
What are the components of this new strategic alliance?
There are three components to the alliance:
GenArts has acquired the Tinder and Tinderbox business from The Foundry. As such, GenArts will immediately assume all development, sales, marketing and customer support of Tinder and Tinderbox.
GenArts and The Foundry will collaborate to more closely synchronize the development of Nuke and GenArts plug-ins to fully maximize the functionality and customer value of their future products.
GenArts will become the flagship partner in The Foundry's new third-party partner program for Nuke. As such, GenArts will have an exclusive co-marketing relationship with The Foundry as a provider of visual effects plug-ins for Nuke and Nuke customers will have the option to install trial versions of GenArts plug-ins on Initial installation.
When does this alliance become effective?
The alliance is effective immediately.
Why did GenArts enter into this strategic alliance with The Foundry?
The alliance provides a means by which the development teams from GenArts and The Foundry can work closely together to fully maximize the functionality of their future products. This collaboration opens the door to more seamless technology delivery as the host platform and plug-in development can be more synchronized. In addition, we recognize that Tinder and Tinderbox are both well-established plug-in suites, with a loyal customer following, and have been stalwarts in the visual effects plug-ins market for many years. We are looking forward to revitalizing the Tinder brand and delivering new products that continue to provide great value to our customers.
How does the strategic alliance benefit customers?
Our customers have consistently told us that they are shifting their emphasis away from in-house visual effects tools development, and towards a greater reliance on standardized tools from trusted vendors. In addition, customers have said that they view their plug-ins and their host platform as two intertwined components of a single solution. GenArts' acquisition of The Foundry's Tinder and Tinderbox business allows both companies to focus on delivering best of breed product portfolios to customers. This is significant step toward facilitating our customer's ability to standardize on a more optimized portfolio of tools from their trusted vendors.
Meanwhile, the collaboration component of the alliance is designed to maximize the value of the Nuke platform by more closely aligning its development with that of GenArts' plug-ins. Customers will benefit from a more tightly integrated solution that more effectively exploits the strengths of each component. This collaboration is a natural extension of the work the two companies have done together as founding members of the Open Effects Association and creators of the OFX programming interface.
Does this mean that GenArts will be de-emphasizing support for other host platforms?
Absolutely not. GenArts has a long history of supporting all the host platforms that our customers consider important and we remain fully committed to this philosophy. This strategic alliance with The Foundry and the recent announcement of Sapphire 5 for Autodesk are both excellent examples of that commitment.
Why is selling the Tinder and Tinderbox business good for The Foundry?
The Foundry's plug-in strength has for many years been in complex research-based image-processing technology such as the award-winning Furnace and Ocula product lines. The Foundry intends to broaden its reach in this kind of plug-in technology.
But Tinder was where The Foundry started - how can you abandon it?
Yes, moving on from Tinder isn't something we do lightly. But we honestly believe it's in the best interest of our customers and an important step for future development at The Foundry.
What will The Foundry's plug-in team do now?
The Foundry's plug-in team has long been renowned for their innovation, winning an Academy Award for their Furnace product and multiple awards for their ground-breaking Ocula stereo-3D toolset. The team is hoping to continue their success in the hard science of images, expanding in size to support current products and develop entirely new ones. No staff will be moving from The Foundry to GenArts.
What will GenArts do with Tinder and Tinderbox in the future? We are very excited about the potential for innovation as a result of this alliance and our acquisition of the Tinder business and are evaluating feature and pricing options to provide customers maximum value and flexibility. Starting today, customers can go to genarts.com or Toolfarm.com to purchase Tinder or Tinderbox in their current form and at similar price points except for a few exceptions:
Tinderbox will now be sold as a full suite as opposed to individual boxes
The minimum period for all license rentals will now be 30 days
Only node locked licenses will be available for rent
Will Tinder or Tinderbox be folded into any current GenArts products such as Sapphire or Monsters?
Right now, there are no plans to combine Tinder or Tinderbox with Sapphire or Monsters to create a single product. For now, Tinder and Tinderbox will continue to be sold in their current form and at similar price points. We are continually evaluating feature as well as packaging and pricing options to provide our customers maximum value and flexibility.
Over the last few months The Foundry has enlisted the help of industry professional, Frank Rueter (Weta Digital, Digital Domain, www.ohufx.com), and renowned trainer, Steve Wright, (www.swdfx.com) to assist our in house demo team in producing a comprehensive set of Nuke tutorials.
The Foundry RollingShutter is a brand new plug-in tool for After Effects and Nuke, which tackles image-distortion problems often experienced by users of CMOS cameras.
Rolling shutter effects are commonly found with video cameras employing CMOS image sensors, which record every frame line-by-line from top to bottom of the image, rather than as a single snapshot of a point in time.
Buy a license of RollingShutter in August and we'll give you a second copy absolutely free. You could run RollingShutter on both your After Effects and Nuke systems or workstation and laptop at the same time... or give the 2nd copy to a colleague or friend?
Free Imagineer mocha shape Plugins with Purchase of motor or mocha
Purchase a full version of Imagineer mocha or motor and receive mocha shape for Final Cut Pro and mocha shape for After Effects FREE! Includes cross-platform floating or node-locked versions of the standalone software.
Download a Free Trial of mocha or motor, or mocha shapes here, and see how these incredibly useful products can speed up your tracking and roto workflow!
The Foundry RollingShutter is a brand new plug-in tool for After Effects and Nuke, which tackles image-distortion problems often experienced by users of CMOS cameras.
Rolling shutter effects are commonly found with video cameras employing CMOS image sensors, which record every frame line-by-line from top to bottom of the image, rather than as a single snapshot of a point in time.
As parts of the image are recorded at different times, moving objects can become distorted and appear skewed. Problems can also arise with flashing or strobing lights.
Aside from not looking great, 3D tracking during VFX post production can become a very difficult task as the tracking points themselves are unstable.
The Foundry's RollingShutter plug-in tackles skew and perceived 'wobble' problems from the VFX artist's perspective. The plug-in will often vastly improve the look of distorted footage, by either minimizing or eradicating image distortions.
Unlike solutions tied to camera stabilization, that stretch the image as a whole, the RollingShutter plug-in compensates for local skewing and distortion in the scene, by correcting each object individually. This approach even allows you to correct objects moving in different directions in locked-off shots.
RollingShutter is therefore particularly good at enabling software camera trackers to work effectively on a wide range of problematic footage.
“As one of the beta testers for The Foundry's RollingShutter, I have been very impressed with its assistance in making skewed footage trackable. So much so that I’ve decided to teach it as part of my FX PHD camera tracking curriculum.”
- Victor Wolansky, fxphd.com Professor
RollingShutter is available for After Effects CS3 & CS4 and Nuke 5.1 or later.
AUGUST PROMOTION Buy one get one free! Buy a license of RollingShutter in August and we'll give you a second copy absolutely free. You could run RollingShutter on both your After Effects and Nuke systems or workstation and laptop at the same time… or give the 2nd copy to a colleague or friend?
Tom Cowland, who I met at NAB this year, shows an upcoming plug-in for After Effects and Nuke called RollingShutter, designed to correct the roll and distortion created by some cameras. Seems very useful, especially if you need to track that footage.
Pricing on Tinderbox for After Effects has been drastically reduced! Tinderbox is an impressive collection of 2D visual effects plug-ins, delivering unlimited creative possibilities for artists involved in producing digital images for film and video.
These Sales are ending tonight at midnight EDT! Don't miss out on these great deals.
Tiffen Dfx for After Effects and Final Cut Pro- Save 30%, Ends Today!
Now with over 2000 Filters & Special Effects
Professionals and enthusiasts alike can now choose from a palette of more than 2,000 standard, exclusive and special effect filters that simulate Tiffen's award-winning optical equivalents. These can all be quickly and easily customized, then saved to a filter library for later use.
Tinderbox Bundle and Full Suite Sale. Save $500, Ends Today!
We have three options in the Tinderbox deal:
For new customers, purchase the entire Tinderbox 1,2,3,4 suite for just $1,500 ($500 savings!) More info on that offer here
For single v1 Tinderbox owners (either Box 1 v1, Box 2 v1, or Box 3 v1), upgrade your old version to the entire Tinderbox v2 package (all 4 boxes) for just $1,250 ($500 savings!). More on that deal here
For single v2 Tinderbox owners (either Box 1 v2, Box 2 v2, Box 3 v2, or Box 4 v2), upgrade to the entire suite to obtain the other 3 Tinderbox v2 packages for just $1,000 ($500 savings!) Learn more here
This is a tutorial by Tom Cowland, The Foundry's Plug-In Product manager, demonstrating T_Caustics from Tinderbox 1 for After Effects to create some ghostly text effects.
For new customers, purchase the entire Tinderbox 1,2,3,4 suite for just $1,500 ($500 savings!) More info on that offer here
For single v1 Tinderbox owners (either Box 1 v1, Box 2 v1, or Box 3 v1), upgrade your old version to the entire Tinderbox v2 package (all 4 boxes) for just $1,250 ($500 savings!). More on that deal here
For single v2 Tinderbox owners (either Box 1 v2, Box 2 v2, Box 3 v2, or Box 4 v2), upgrade to the entire suite to obtain the other 3 Tinderbox v2 packages for just $1,000 ($500 savings!) Learn more here
These offers expire on Monday, June 29.
This is a tutorial by Tom Cowland, The Foundry's Plug-In Product manager, demonstrating T_Caustics from Tinderbox 1 for After Effects to create some ghostly text effects.
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.
London, May 12th 2009 - CVMP, the European Conference on Visual Media Production, is now announcing its call for submissions. The conference takes place on 12th and 13th November 2009 at the BFI Southbank, London. Now in the sixth year of CVMP, a new management team is injecting fresh momentum to this unique event, which brings together practitioners in media production from the film, broadcast and games industries with leading academics and researchers in imaging and graphics. The two-day conference will provide a dynamic forum for the exchange of knowledge between researchers and media industry specialists working at the cutting-edge of visual media production and delivery.
CVMP has traditionally been held at the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology), but has a new, larger venue for 2009, and a dedicated team that will develop and expand the event and associated activities. The conference chairman is Dr Oliver Grau, lead technologist at BBC Research & Development, with Adrian Hilton, from University of Surrey, the programme chair. The CVMP organising committee is comprised of Bill Collis, CEO at The Foundry, Simon Robinson chief scientist at The Foundry, Anil Kokaram of Trinity College, Ireland, Tom Evans of Wavecrest Systems Ltd, and Dr Graham Thomas, principal research engineer at BBC Research & Development. Conference secretary is Abi Bowman, project manager at The Foundry.
This year, the latest research developments will be presented together with real-world, industry applications, combining to deliver a unique melting pot of ideas and experience. The event promises to be fascinating and informative, with a line up that already includes Matt Welford, head of compositing at Weta Digital (The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, King Kong, The Lord of the Rings trilogy), Professor Marc Pollefeys from ETHZ and Dr Toni Mateos of Barcelona Media. Special sessions this year are 'Advanced Technology in Post Production', and 'Capturing 3D Worlds'.
CVMP will also address the increasing demand for 3D stereoscopic content and delivery for emerging platforms such as e-cinema, high-resolution home displays and interactive media, which are all fuelling the development of new technology and approaches.
The 'Call for Papers' is now live at www.cvmp-conference.org for those who would like to submit papers on innovative research and practical applications related to media production, along with a comprehensive list of suggested topics. Registration for CVMP 2009, (Full rate: £300 / Retired/Student rate £150) is also live on the CVMP website.
The Best papers from CVMP 2008 will be published in a special issue of JVRB (Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting) and the conference proceedings will be published by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
Further information and enquiries: For further information, please visit www.cvmp-conference.org.
For media or any other enquiries, please contact: Abi Bowman T: +44 207 434 0449 E: contact@cvmp-conference.org
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.
So you just bought a fast new computer and dread the process of having to transfer your licenses to your new computer. It can be a hassle, but here is a guide for a few products you may own, to help things go a bit more smoothly. If you have questions, please post a comment below.
Adobe:
If you want to uninstall your product and reinstall it on a different computer, then you must first deactivate it. In the program, click Help > Deactivate, and then follow the instructions in the wizard to deactivate the program. If you have installed a suite product, you can deactivate the entire suite by deactivating any one of the point products included in that suite.
Automatic Duck:
After installing again on the new system, you will get a new Product ID to use for a new Activation Key. DO NOT try to activate the old Product ID on the new system.
Reset your serial number on the registration server so that you will be permitted to activate again. Please reset your serial number at this web page.
Register using your email address that you used to activate and you'll be able to log in and reset your serial number.
Quit After Effects, trash your plug-in's key file, click here to find it. Now you'll need to go through the activation process again.
BorisFX:
Requires a license transfer. Send license transfer request to us with your new Unique Product ID to obtain a new permanent code. Follow your original install instructions to obtain your Unique ID.
Digieffects:
Just reinstall on the new machine. Your serial number will work on either Mac or Windows, and does not require uninstalling your previous system's version.
The Foundry:
To obtain a new license, first fill out the license transfer form. You cannot transfer any of The Foundry products to a different host system.
GenArts Sapphire:
First uninstall the plugin: On Windows: go to Start->Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs. Find 'GenArts Sapphire Plug-ins' in the list, and press the Change/Remove button. On Mac: go to the /Applications/GenArtsSapphireAE folder and double click on Uninstall Sapphire.
During the uninstall, select the option to register that uninstall via the web. As long as the uninstall is successfully registered, you should then be able to install your serial number on the new machine. The license is cross-platform so you can transfer a serial number between Windows and Mac systems in this way.
GridIron:
Requires a license deactivation. Send your old serial number and the MAC Address of the new machine to us.
First uninstall from the old machine by launching the FxFactory application and choose the "Uninstall FxFactory..." command under the Actions menu: Then install as normal on the new machine.
If you uninstall FxFactory, it will uninstall everything, including all the FxPacks.
Furthermore you can also deactivate and remove individual FxPacks. This can be done by launching the FxFactory application.
To turn FxPacks on/off simply click the checkbox to the left of each FxPack in the FxFactory Application interface.
To completely remove an FxPack simply drag it out of the FxFactory application and into the trash.
Red Giant Software:
Just reinstall on the new machine. Your serial number will work on either Mac or Windows, and does not require uninstalling your previous system's version.
Re:Vision Effects:
Request a License Transfer. Delete plug-ins from the old machine, and send an email with serial number requesting a transfer. Note: License transfer fees may apply for certain hosts.
Tiffen Dfx:
First deactvate your license on the old computer by opening the licensing Menu and clicking "Internet Deactivate". On the new computer, select "Activate Dfx" and follow the instructions.
Trapcode:
Just reinstall on the new machine. Your serial number will work on either Mac or Windows, and does not require uninstalling your previous system's version.
Posted to LinkedIn by Andy Black, Chief Marketing Officer at The Foundry:
You are invited to The Foundry mini-theatre at NAB (stand SL326) to see demonstrations from leading visual effects professionals :
MONDAY 20th APRIL - Exhibition Hours 9am - 6 pm
09.00 Jack Binks - The Foundry - Plug-ins 10.00 Greg Astles - Intelligent Creatures - Watchmen 11.00 Nathalie Bergeron - The Foundry - Ocula 12:00 Dav Rauch - The Orphanage - Iron Man 13.00 Nathalie Bergeron - The Foundry - Nuke/Ocula 14.00 Greg Astles - Intelligent Creatures - Watchmen 15.00 Nathalie Bergeron - The Foundry - Nuke 16.00 Dav Rauch - The Orphanage - Iron Man 17.00 Jack Binks - The Foundry - Plug-ins
TUESDAY 21ST APRIL - Exhibition Hours 9am - 6pm
09.00 Dav Rauch - The Orphanage - Iron Man 10.00 Jack Binks - The Foundry - Plug-ins 11.00 Greg Astles - Intelligent Creatures - Watchmen 12:00 Dav Rauch - The Orphanage - Iron Man 13.00 Nathalie Bergeron - The Foundry - Nuke/Ocula 14.00 Greg Astles - Intelligent Creatures - Watchmen 15.00 Jack Binks - The Foundry - Plug-ins 16.00 Matt Plec - The Foundry - Nuke 17.00 Nathalie Bergeron - The Foundry - Ocula
WEDNESDAY 22ND APRIL - Exhibition Hours 9am - 6pm
09.00 Nathalie Bergeron - The Foundry - Plug-ins 10.00 Michael Garrett - Freelance VFX Artist - Nuke 11.00 Pete O'Connell - Mr X - Nuke 12:00 Barry Berman & Jason Hill - Blizzard - World of Warcraft 13.00 Ted Schilowitz - RED & The Foundry - RED & Nuke 14.00 Michael Garrett - Freelance - Nuke 15.00 Pete O'Connell - Mr X - Nuke 16.00 Barry Berman & Jason Hill - Blizzard - World of Warcraft 17.00 Nathalie Bergeron - The Foundry - Nuke/Ocula
THURSDAY 23RD APRIL - Exhibition Hours 9am - 2pm
09.00 Barry Berman & Jason Hill - Blizzard - World of Warcraft 10.00 Michael Garrett - Freelance VFX Artist - Nuke 11.00 Nathalie Bergeron - The Foundry - Nuke/Ocula 12.00 Pete O'Connell - Mr X - Nuke 13.00 Jack Binks - The Foundry - Plug-ins
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.
The long-awaited Professional Keying with Keylight training is now available for download in Toolfarm's store. This is the latest release from Toolfarm's Expert Series. In this training, Angie Mistretta takes you through pulling tight and clean keys with Keylight from the Foundry. She shows you how to overcome problem areas such as wispy hair and areas of different texture on the edges. She also shows some great tricks of the trade for making a believable composite. The training is for all user levels. A greenscreen shot and background plate are included so you can play along.
About the instructor: Angie Mistretta has her Master from Academy of Art in San Francisco where she learned from instructors who had worked on blockbuster films such as Star Wars. She is now working at Pixar, a company which needs no introduction.
Here's a trailer for the training:
We have 2 more series that will be out by summer. Stay tuned!
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.
Thousands of leading digital artists worldwide already take advantage of Furnace and Keylight to enhance workflow and boost productivity in digital visual effects post production.
With Furnace 4, Final Cut Pro 6 artists will - for the first time - be able to access The Foundry's sophisticated motion estimation technology.
Ben Kent, Senior Software Engineer, comments: "With Furnace on Final Cut Pro editors and artists will be able to use advanced motion estimation technology to repair and retime troublesome shots without the hassle, delay and generation loss involved in exporting to a separate compositing package. Improved results and quicker workflow all in one!"
Based on Apple's FxPlug standard, The Foundry Furnace 4 for Final Cut Pro 6 includes:
DeFlicker is a fully automated plug-in designed to remove luminance flicker in a sequence. It can remove multiple over-lapping phase different flickers, while adapting to cope with motion in the sequence.
DeNoise is a noise and grain removal plug-in that uses advanced motion estimation technology along the direction of motion, thus reducing the noise without introducing any of the artefacts typically associated with noise reduction.
Kronos also uses The Foundry's advanced motion estimation technology to build in-between frames in a sequence. Kronos can be used to speed up (with motion blur) or slow down an image sequence. Artists have the option of supplying foreground mattes, to give retimed objects tight crisp edges and the latest version will detect and account for occluded regions of the image.
ReGrain is an advanced grain management tool, which duplicates grain either from a sample image or stock footage and applies it to a new sequence.
DirtRemoval automatically detects and cleans dirt, dust and hairs from a film scan.
MatchGrade copies the colour look from a reference sequence and applies this to the source image. This technique involves a non-linear transformation of the colour histogram and is useful for balancing and colour matching plates to the master grade.
MotionBlur utilizes advanced image processing to add organic looking motion blur to a sequence. Blur can be added automatically based on the amount of motion in the sequence of the shutter time can e set manually.
"Getting our hardcore tech into the hands of FCP users should be a real boost to what they can do," said Bruno Nicoletti, Chief Technology Officer. “Our engineers have worked brilliantly to build a superb range of effects and bring them to the wider market."
Keylight has an unparalleled pedigree, having been used on scores of feature films including: Speed Racer, King Kong, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Harry Potter series, Mission Impossible, Resident Evil, Sleepy Hollow, Chicken Run, The Truman Show, Armageddon and many, many more.
Its ease of use, and ability to tackle difficult footage via an array of built-in tools, has earned Keylight an enviable reputation, and established it as a favourite with visual effects facilities and artists across the world.
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 a trio of Academy Award® winning products including the high-end compositing system Nuke, and keying application Keylight.
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 FCP. 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 have found and fixed some DirtRemoval and WireRemoval bugs in Furnace 4 for Shake and a free maintenance release is available for all of Furnace 4 customers.
In addition to the bug fixes they have made an improvement to WireRemoval; you can now pick up and move the WireRemoval widget using one click and drag instead of moving each of the points on the line separately.
This update is provided free of charge for all customers running Furnace 4 for Shake.
This is an excerpt from a book I'm working on called Greensreening & Keying for Low-Budget Indie Filmmakers that will be out next spring. This has not been through the editor yet, so consider it a super early sneak peek! I had actually started this article a couple of months ago for Toolfarm and thought it would be great to put in the book. The book is about keying, obviously, so the article below is geared toward that glorious task. Reducing grain is something that can be used with any footage though, even if you're not keying. I know you knew that already.
------
You will get much cleaner keys if you first reduce artifacting, noise and grain in your footage. This step may not be necessary if you have awesome footage, but if you're shooting DV, a quick clean up will help your key and your video look immeasurably cleaner.
Noise can come from bad lighting, JPEG and other compression induced artifacting, film grain, and half-tone patterns. In DV footage, blue will almost always be the noisiest channel and green is the cleanest channel.
There are several methods of reducing noise. A median filter set to a very low value will often do the trick. After Effects ships with a very nice Remove Grain filter, which I highly recommend using. It will soften your footage if you use it to high but in small doses, it can do wonders.
Angie Mistretta, visual effects artist and Apple Shake user, has this advice, which applies to pretty much any host application. "Be sure to degrain your footage via each channel." Sometimes a soft blur on the blue channel will do the trick, but do so very carefully. Most of the time, that won't be enough.
Angie adds, "If you need to Shift Channels, degrain each one and then reunite the channels then that is what you would do. Shake has a node that will allow you to tune for each individual channel."
In After Effects, to degrain per channel, try the Remove Grain plug-in, which ships with After Effects. Apply Effect > Noise & Grain > Remove Grain. Remove Grain does a great job of figuring out the algorithm behind the noise and getting rid of it.
Remove Grain and several third party plug-ins have a Preview Region, which is a white box that shows you a preview of the plug-in. Inside the box, you'll see the effect working and outside the box is just the regular footage. This helps speed up render and screen redraw time. By clicking and dragging the center point of the preview region, you can drag it to the area that you want to use as reference.
Under the Noise Reduction Settings > Mode, you can specify whether you want to reduce noise in all channels (multichannel) or in one channel at a time (single channel). Because noise in video is mainly in the blue channel, the noise reduction can be set higher than the other channels.
When reducing noise is useful to see both the combined RGB and a single channel, so you don't have to switch back and forth between channels. This feature is useful for a number of other purposes too.
To open a second comp viewer:
At the top of your comp viewer, click on the title of your composition. A pulldown menu will appear. Select 'New Comp Viewer'.
Drag the new composition tab to the right side of the comp viewer window, until it highlights purple and let go.
To change the channel being viewed for the new comp viewer, use Show Channel at the bottom of the comp window.
Remove Grain doesn't work well with dirt or dust on video, because it works with the full frame of video. You can adjust the Sampling points under the sampling menu. The sample points should be placed in an area of mid-tonal ranges and with no natural texture, such as over trees, water or a stucco wall. It will calculate the noise based on the texture and will not help your cause. Mark Christiansen's book, After Effects CS3 Professional Studio Techniques, talks about the Remove Grain plug-in used to give an aging actress a tighter face, so occasionally using this plug-in for a digital Botox on a skin texture can be very useful! By default, the sampling points are taken from the first frame. You can adjust and keyframe the source frame also.
You will also want to adjust the Noise Reduction Settings and the Fine Tuning in Remove Grain. Be careful not to be too heavy handed with the effect because it will flatten your textures. Before rendering, switch the Viewing Mode to Final Output.
When you're removing noise specifically for keying, many keyers have built-in noise suppression. The Foundry Keylight has a Screen Pre-blur and Screen Softness Options.
Sometimes Remove Grain just isn't enough and you need a third party solution for reducing noise. Check out Reduce Noise, Grain and Artifacting in our Plug-in Finder for a long list of plug-ins for several host applications. There really are a lot of great choices. Here are a couple that I use.
RE:Vision Effects DE:Noise - Peter Litwinowicz, Co-Founder of RE:Vision Effects said, "Noise in the green screen areas can hamper your ability to pull a great key. DE:Noise is a great plug-in to help pull a better key, because it helps eliminates noise while keeping sharp the details and edges of your objects of interest." De:Noise works with After Effects, Premiere Pro, Boris Red, Combustion, Final Cut Pro, Motion and Fusion.
Digital Film Tools Composite Suite - Deartifact is handy for cleaning up artifacts caused by DV and HD video footage. In fact, it is useful for cleaning up images that have aliased or jaggy edges.
Boris FX, Inc. Continuum Complete has two noise removal filters, BCC DeGrain Filter and DeNoise Filter. BCC DeGrain removes grain-sized noise from an image by analyzing a sample of the grain, then filtering out image noise that has similar frequency (spectrum) and amplitude. The BCC DeNoise filter removes unwanted pixel noise from an image. DeNoise is especially useful when working with archival materials, as it lets you correct dark areas that show artifacts from film emulsion or video compression. You may also want to use the BCC DeNoise filter when resizing 4:3 images to 16:9 aspect ratio. BCC is available for pretty much every host app you might use.
Red Giant Software Key Correct Pro is made specifically for keying and quickly clean up noisy images and mattes. Use the simple Denoiser and Alpha Cleaner tools to fix low-light noise problems in poorly lit footage
New toolsets provide pixel-level control over left and right eyes
DMN Newswire--2008-5-7--Leading visual effects software developer The Foundry (www.thefoundry.co.uk) has announced the development of Ocula, a unique collection of plug-ins providing a powerful armoury of tools that solve common problems with 3D stereoscopic imagery, boost productivity in post production, and ultimately help to deliver a more rewarding 3D-stereo viewing experience.
The new plug-ins, previewed at NAB 2008, are designed to take the headache out of 3D stereo post production by automatically replicating key processes on left and right channels, and to remove headaches from the final viewing experience by providing tools that help artists to polish and refine 3D-stereo material.
The Ocula tools are based on brand new disparity-mapping algorithms, created by The Foundry s Academy Award-winning R&D team. Disparity maps track and correlate the differences in positional space and movement between corresponding pixels in the left and right cameras, and then deliver pixel-level control over images. Knowing where disparities occur, Ocula tools apply corrections by warping, stretching and squeezing only those areas of an image that require treatment. Image manipulation using disparity maps is different to the X, Y or Z-axis shifting of images, where only whole image planes are being shifted.
Ocula plug-ins allow artists to apply a multitude of adjustments to stereo image pairs. All corrections can be made to the left and right eye channels either together or separately, and the results of these corrections ultimately help to minimise or eliminate discomfort from the 3D viewing experience.
Users can correct horizontal alignment issues with Ocula s Interocular Distance Shifter. Using disparity map data, a new "virtual view" is created between the original left and right eye positions, with the result being that objects of different fore, mid and background depths are resolved more accurately for the viewer. This is different to an X-axis shift where only the image plane is moved.
Ocula s Vertical Aligner will automatically attempt to vertically align corresponding image features in each view, to minimize or eliminate the effect known as key-stoning . This is not a single Y-shift for the whole image " with disparity mapping the correction varies across the entire image.
A key feature of Ocula plug-ins is the dramatic reduction in the amount of manual labour required when artists undertake rotoscoping work, paint effects or other operations dependent on image locality. Many position-dependent image manipulations can now be applied to just one eye with paint strokes, keyframed roto masks, and the like being automatically generated for the other eye, substantially improving productivity.
"Our new Ocula tools are designed to make the post production of 3D-steroscopic imagery easier and much more efficient than before, "said Dr Bill Collis, CEO, The Foundry. "Along with boosting productivity, and enabling precise manipulation of 3D stereoscopic imagery, Ocula plug-ins will ultimately help artists to refine footage to new levels. This means fewer headaches in post, and fewer headaches at the cinema. "
Nuke 5 is currently the only visual effects compositing system with an embedded 3D stereoscopic workflow, where left and right eye channels can be manipulated separately or together. Ocula plug-ins will be available for the next point release of Nuke, version 5.1, expected to be July 2008.
Nuke is available on Linux, Windows, and Mac platforms, and Nuke delivers unparalleled speed, an efficient multi-channel scanline rendering engine, and powerful feature set unrivalled in the desktop market. Nuke 5 is available for existing customers with valid maintenance at no extra cost, and can be downloaded now from The Foundry website www.thefoundry.co.uk.
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 a trio of Academy Award® winning products including the high-end compositing system Nuke, and keying application Keylight.
The Foundry s products support a wide range of host platforms including After Effects, Autodesk® Media and Entertainment Systems, Avid DS, Baselight, Film Master, Fusion, 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 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.
Highly Anticipated mogul Debuts at NAB Press Conference; mocha-AE Debuts in Adobe's Booth; mocha Now Exports to Nuke 5
LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwire - April 7, 2008) - Imagineer Systems (www.imagineersystems.com), creators of next-generation VFX tools, will leverage its presence at NAB 2008 in Las Vegas (April 14 - 17, 2008) to showcase the culmination of a number of strategic initiatives aimed at the visual effects software industry, including the launch of major new collaborative VFX architecture. Imagineer Systems will also highlight a number of initiatives designed to support its customers and partners, including a strategic relationship with The Foundry, and demonstrations of mocha-AE in the Adobe booth #SL3220, signalling a new level of collaboration with the creators of Adobe After Effects.
The following summarizes Imagineer Systems' activities throughout NAB 2008:
mogul Press Conference When: Monday, April 14 2008 at 12:30 p.m. Where: Imagineer Systems Booth #SL12405 Who: Imagineer Systems' CEO, Allan Jaenicke Why: The press, analyst and influencer community are invited to join Imagineer Systems as Mr. Jaenicke unveils the Company's newest initiative in the VFX industry; mogul, an entirely new and open, collaborative VFX architecture. Following a brief presentation from management, a mogul demonstration and Q&A session will follow.
Private briefings for customers and partners are also available and can be arranged in advance by visiting www.mogulvfx.com.
mocha-AE in the Adobe Booth
mocha-AE, Imagineer's powerful planar tracking tool designed for Adobe After Effects artists, will be available for demonstration in Adobe's booth #SL3220. mocha-AE is a stand alone 2D tracking tool for the After Effects community based on Imagineer Systems' unique 2.5D Planar Tracking technology.
The Foundry
Imagineer Systems is also announcing it has teamed up with another leader in the VFX software development marketplace, The Foundry UK (www.thefoundry.co.uk), to provide visual effects artists with a streamlined, efficient solution to move planar tracking data between two of the industry's most powerful tools -- Imagineer Systems' mocha and recently-announced Nuke 5 from The Foundry. The two companies have also entered into a marketing partnership agreement, in which The Foundry will offer a specially priced bundled version of Nuke 5 with mocha. Executives from Imagineer Systems will be on hand at NAB to demonstrate the benefits of this new agreement.
About Imagineer Systems
Imagineer Systems Ltd innovates and markets next-generation visual effects solutions for film, video and broadcast post production and have made their mark on such marquis Hollywood blockbuster productions as Casino Royale, Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter. Imagineer's product line consists of monetTM -- placement station, mokeyTM -- removal station, motorTM -- roto station, mochaTM -- tracking station and mofexTM -- plug-in for Shake. Imagineer Systems was founded in 2000 and its headquarters is located in Guildford, United Kingdom. For more information visit www.imagineersystems.com
The Foundry announced that the much-anticipated Nuke 5.0 was released today. The version is a major release featuring a new user interface, 3D stereoscopic workflow, Python scripting, and a number of additional features and enhancements. Nuke 5.0v1 is available to all customers with current support contracts and anyone with a valid evaluation license. You will not need a new license key to run Nuke 5.0v1.
Some key features in 5.0v1 include:
UI overhaul: The independent floating windows have been replaced with dockable panels within one main application window. The main window is divided into three panes, which you can customize or float in various ways to suit your preferences.
Added support for working with stereoscopic and multi-view projects. Set up multiple views in the project settings, compare the different views in the viewer, and manipulate the views using the nodes in the Stereo menu of the Toolbar
Added support for Python scripting language in addition to TCL.
Some of the colour, filter, channel, and merge nodes have a mask input connector you can attach your matte image to.
Nuke’s proxy scale system allows you to define a proxy format or scale in order to work with your comp at some fraction of the input elements’ resolution. There are three interconnected parts of the proxy system: the project settings, the input/output nodes, and the Viewer.
Some of the Transform nodes have three new motion blur controls: motionblur, shutter, and shutteroffset.
Exposure and gamma on the viewer are now applied in the GPU when possible for faster feedback.
Added support for 1023 channels instead of 64. Like before, channels that are not used have no effect on speed
Unlimited number of new user definable global lookup tables (LUTs).
Added interactive lighting tools in the 3D compositing workspace, with support for four types of lights: direct, point, spotlight, and environment light. Direct, point, and spotlight are standard 3D lighting objects.
Added a combined 3D BasicMaterial node for diffuse, specular, and emission materials.
For a full list of features, improvements, and fixed bugs in this version please download the Nuke 5.0v1 Release Notes.
Nuke 5.0v1 is available to all customers with current support contracts and anyone with a valid evaluation license. You will not need a new license key to run Nuke 5.0v1. If your support contract has run out and you would like to renew to take advantage of this upgrade please contact our sales team at sales@thefoundry.co.uk.
Nuke users of Furnace, Tinder, or Keylight plug-ins will also need to upgrade their plug-ins to be compatible with Nuke 5.0v1. Furnace, Tinder, or Keylight are currently in beta and can be found at:
Over the last few months The Foundry has enlisted the help of industry professional, Frank Rueter (Weta Digital, Digital Domain, 
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.
