VizWorld.com

The Foundry has just begun shipping the new MARI 1.3 with lots of new features like a fancy Displacement Preview, support for Tiled Textures, and even full support for Disney’s ‘Ptex’ tool.

Walt Disney Feature Animation introduced the Ptex per-face texture format last year. This technology allows users to paint and render models without having to define a UV map by allocated individual textures to geometry faces. Creating UVs to explicitly map texture coordinates is a frustrating experience. MARI now fully supports a Ptex workflow. Users can load models without UVs, paint using the full set of MARI tools, and export to .ptx files. Our Ptex integration is built on MARI’s world-class data and rendering engine and draws directly from Walt Disney Animation Studios paint technology following a ground-breaking agreement with The Foundry in 2010.

It’s available right now for Linux & Windows for $1,980USD, but there is a 15-day demo you can get from their website.

via CGSociety – MARI 1.3.

Graphics foundry, mari, software

The Foundry dropped news today of a new tool in their collection called ‘Katana’, a 3d scene preparation tool that operates non-destructively and interactively on even very large datasets.  Originally developed by Sony Imageworks for use in films like Beowulf, it’s now in use by several studios.

“Many brilliant technical innovations come out of production, but historically those breakthroughs remain only within the production company.  The Foundry works with digital studios to make those innovations widespread, which benefits the entire industry.  I look for KATANA to have a similar impact on the industry that Nuke has achieved.” – Cliff Plumer, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Domain.

Expect commercial release in 2011.

via CGSociety – KATANA.

Graphics foundry, katana, software, thefoundry

The Foundry has just released a new version of their digital painting system Mari, version 1.1, that adds a few new features like Ambient Occlusion rendering and support for FBX camera imports.  The biggest feature however, is the support for Windows 7.

You can hit their website right now and download a free trial, or upgrade your registered version.  Full release notes are also online for download and includes new features, a lengthy list of bug fixes, and a few issues to be aware of if you use the newest Quadro features.

MARI | Downloads | The Foundry.

Graphics foundry, mari, software

Haven’t heard much of PTex in a while since the original announcement, but it was a hot topic at SIGGRAPH this year.  If you’re note familiar with it, then read the original paper which discussed a new UV Texture Mapping technique which is fully automatic on arbitrary complexity and size models.

At SIGGRAPH, products like 3D-Coat and Houdini were showcasing PTex integration, and eventually Autodesk demoed a version of MudBox with PTex support.   The Foundry’s Mari 1.0 has some limited PTex integration, and with the open-source nature of the algorithm it’s guaranteed to be coming to other systems as well.

Hopefully, PTex will come to MudBox soon and then to 3dsMax and Maya shortly afterward.

PTex 3D texturing becomes a reality at SIGGRAPH.

Graphics, Science autodesk, foundry, ptex

Another big win for The Foundry as Walt Disney Animation Studios announces their choice to begin doing all of their workflows in Nuke.

“Nuke is a powerful and flexible program that has become the industry standard in compositing for films involving complex visual effects, and state-of-the-art computer animation,” said Dan Candela, director of technology for Walt Disney Animation Studios. “It provides the best available foundational toolset for making stereoscopic animated films. We’re thrilled to be able to adopt this advanced toolset.”

via WALT DISNEY ANIMATION CHOOSE NUKE | The Foundry.

Graphics disney, foundry, nuke

FXGuide has another great article about an up-and-coming product from The Foundry, a workflow management tool targeted at RED users called ‘Storm’.

Storm is a workflow tool that is aimed at any facility who wants to go beyond the free tools provided by RED and is designed to be used on set and in most post-production houses. The product is scheduled for an IBC launch but fxguide got to spend time on it with the developers before the NAB opened this week. Since the product is still some way off the Foundry will only be showing it in limited showings, and for a brief period during the RED day, Wednesday at the Tropicana.

Eventually, the product will be applicable to more than just RED users, but that’s the first nut they’ve decided to crack. Leveraging heavily against their Blink and Nuke technology, they’ve brought the product a long way in a very short time.

via fxguide – vfx blog – Exclusive: Foundry Storm Revealed.

Graphics foundry, nab, storm

The Foundry will be demonstrating some new software products at the upcoming NAB2010, and fxguide has an inside scoop on one product in particular: Mari.  Meant as a dedicated 3D Painting & Texturing tool, the sentence below is really all you need to know about it:

In all, this means Mari is happy managing over 100 gigabyte geometry and texture data sets on a single model without slowing down artist interaction and workflow. High performance is achieved with modest hardware requirements (2-4 gigabyte system memory, .5-1 gigabyte graphics memory), with Mari automatically making efficient use of available resources and background task processes.

Once you’ve picked your jaw up off the floor, head on over to fxGuide to read the details.

via fxguide – visual effects news – Exclusive: Foundry NAB Preview.

Graphics foundry, mari, nab, software

The Foundry has just announced the availability of Nuke 6.0.  The list of new features is huge, but a quick cliff-notes:

• RotoPaint – non-destructive layer-based drawing tool that supports shapes & bezier curves
• KeyLight – new Blue/Green screen keyer
• NukeX – A whole new Nuke with several new features
• New Python Bindings
• and several bugfixes

You can read the entire release notes here.

The Foundry – Downloads.

Graphics foundry, nuke, software

Keep hearing about Nuke and Nuke Site Licenses, but don’t really understand what’s so great about just another compositing product?  Well now’s your chance to find out, as the Center for New Media Studios will be hosting a 90-minute webinar, FREE, with one of the big names in visual effects to discuss everything awesome about Nuke.

You’ve heard about Nuke and how it is taking the visual effects industry by storm. You’ve heard that Nuke site licenses have been purchased by such VFX power hitters as ILM and Weta Digital. But what is it exactly that makes Nuke so much more powerful than any other compositing programs?

In this webinar Steve Wright will lift the hood of Nuke and reveal those unique features that make it the power-on winner in the VFX community. This is NOT a sales presentation designed to get you to buy Nuke, but a hands-on revelation of the production power of Nuke by a senior production artist. Attend this free one-hour webinar and you will find out exactly What’s so Hot About Nuke!

In addition to the webinar, there are several prizes and giveaways, including one lucky attendee will receive one free Nuke license with free support for a year!  The actual webinar is 1/26/2010 @ 10:00 AM PST to 11:30 AM PST .

via What’s so Hot About Nuke? – Center For New Media Studies.

Graphics foundry, nuke, webinar

Framestore joins the ranks of ILM, Weta Digital, and Sony Pictures Imageworks as a Foundry Nuke Site License Holder, and will be using it in their upcoming 2010 productions.  Claiming that it’s somewhat due to the death of Shake, they also really seem to love the product:

Christian Kaestner, Head of Nuke Compositing at Framestore, said “The decision to invest in Nuke came down to speed and flexibility. Nuke is simply incredibly fast, interactive, and flexible, even in quite complex comps with several hundred nodes. The interactivity the artist gets from Nuke out of the box is quite impressive – it even allows the supervisor to sit down with the artist to do an ‘interactive’ session if needed. And when building Nuke into the pipeline, we were able to access existing Python scripts and modules that weren't even designed for use with Nuke.

Our artists adapted quickly to the Nuke workflow. The first full Nuke project was Quantum of Solace, which was one of the smoothest projects I have ever worked on and won us a VES nomination for 'outstanding compositing'. Most recently, Avatar, required us to push technology to the limits – not just at the 3D or TD level but also at a compositing level – Nuke surpassed all of our expectations.”

via CGSociety – Framestore gets Nuke.

Graphics foundry, framestore, nuke, software