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FXhome’s HitFilm has made good strides into film-editing suites on Windows, but has always been a windows-only application.  Lots of reasons (I don’t want to get into “PC Rules, Mac Drools” arguments) exist for this, but with modern equipment and Microsoft’s new “features” like Windows8, they acknowledge that it’s time for a Mac version.  They’ve been working on it internally and mostly completed the project, but have opened it to kickstarter for a quick community-infusion of excitement (and cash) to finish it off, to the tune of £25,000.

The vast majority of the Mac version will be funded by FXhome. We’ve already invested heavily in the initial R&D. The challenge is in the immediate cost to equip our developers with the essential hardware, development tools, software licenses and test machines needed to create the Mac version.

That’s where we need your help.

This Kickstarter gives us the boost we need right now to accelerate development. It allows us to keep the software affordable and speed up development so that HitFilm Mac comes out this year.

via HitFilm for Mac by FXhome — Kickstarter.

Graphics fxhome, hitfilm, kickstarter, mac, osx, software

There’s a new version of popular 3D Movie player “Stereoscopic Player” from 3dTv.at that brings a few new OLE automation commands and some bugfixes, but what makes this new version neat is the new support for the Oculus Rift.  Of course, head tracking plays no part in this, it’s just stereo movie playback, but if you’re lucky enough to have one of the units and don’t mind the low resolution display, now you can watch your 3D Movies “in your face” on your rift.

3dtv.at – Stereoscopic Player Version History.

Hardware 3dtv, oculus, software, stereoscopic

Shotgun Software today announced the release of their new Shotgun 5.0, boasting a totally rebuilt UI made to make it easier to use.

“For the 5.0 release, we turned our focus to artists and supervisors, designing simple and visual tools that connect them to important project details and to each other,” said Don Parker, Co-Founder and CEO, Shotgun Software. “This is an important step towards providing an off-the-shelf toolset that equally meets the needs of creative artists and data-centric facility managers around the single goal of doing great work while running a solid business.”

See the full release after the break.

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Graphics shotgun, software

fxguide’s Mike Seymor has a fantastic article online about the complexity of scene renderers.  Not only does he get into the mathematics behind physical lighting effects like global illumination, sub-surface scattering, BRDF’s, and more, he goes in depth with several of the biggest packages out today to see where they excel.

Renderers are easy to write in the abstract, as perhaps a university project, but to work in production environments is extremely difficult. Arnold, by Solid Angle, is some 200,000 lines of highly optimized C++ code, and it is considered a very direct implementation without a lot of hacks or tricks. Production requirements in terms of rendertime and scene complexity are staggering. And the problem is not just contained to final render time, as Arnold founder Marcos Fajardo pointed out at Siggraph 2010 – final render CPU time might cost $0.10 per hour, but artist time is closer to $40 an hour, so interactivity is also vital.

via The Art of Rendering (updated) | fxguide.

Graphics arnold, renderman, software

If you’re in need of some big crowd simulation support, check out the newest version of Golaem which brings in full mental ray support and geometry instancing.

Guillaume Parra, VFX artist adds “Depending on shots, we had to generate between 5 000 and 12 000 characters. I was amazed by how fast it is to render using procedural rendering, and how easy it is to set up a shot once assets are ready. I am thrilled to try next Golaem Crowd releases”.

via Golaem ships Golaem Crowd 1.4, including Mental Ray procedural rendering | Golaem.

Graphics crowd, golaem, software

If you’ve been on the fence about buying Lightroom for quickly editing and touching-up photos, wonder no more as you can go download and try out the new Adobe Lightroom 4 beta for free.  In addition to the usual enhancements and bugfixes, the new version offers DSLR video support for the first time.

One very interesting change to Lightroom 4 is much better support for video. DSLR video is now supported right in the application. You can playback video, trim the in-and-out points, easily export a still frame and—this is the biggie—do some actual color correction on video using some of Lightroom’s tools. It doesn’t look like it’s a full-blown color grading application (Adobe has Speedgrade for that now!) but it looks like a quick way to make a color correction and export that to a new video file or send it to a supported service like Facebook or Flickr.

Just head on over to the Adobe Lightroom site to download it and try it out.  Post your findings in the comments below!

via Studio Daily Blog » Lightroom 4 Beta Is Alive and Ready for You to Download.

Graphics adobe, beta, lightroom, software

The newest version of HDR Light Studio is out, adding in support for Collada and a fancy new light-blending system.  Lest you think they’re just adding features for the sake of feature bloat, check out this quote:

 “Usually, when you’re updating software, you’re disappointed by a lot of features that are totally useless. But with HDR Light Studio v3.0, the team is really listening to what the users are saying,” explains Piotr Kolus, Lead 3D artist at Ars Thanea. “All the new options are boosting your lighting process. From simple changes to advanced new features – all of them are more useful than I expected.”

One of the biggest features in this version is the new light-blending system that enables a dodge-and-burn type effect for HDR backgrounds, allowing seamless and fast editing of HDR backgrounds and custom falloff curves opening new worlds of possibilities.

Get the full press release after the break.

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Graphics hdr, software

EnSight users now have a new tool to try with their Mac Customers: EnLiten EXE’s for Windows can now be run on Mac’s without needing X thanks to a native Mac Application.  It’s available now for free from the Mac App Store.

EnLiten is a 3D viewer for scenes created by EnSight. EnSight visualizes data from scientific and engineering simulations such as fluid dynamics, structural analysis, and vehicle crashworthiness and occupant safety.

Mac App Store – EnLiten.

Science apple, cei, ensight, software

Indie software company Kickstand is trying to take their popular skin manipulation tools “Stretchmesh” and make it an open-source community project, hoping it will help with some of the delays in bringing it to new software packages.  However, before they’ll do it they want $15k to help maintain it and prove that people really want it.  They’ve started a project on IndieGoGo to raise the funds, which currently sits at only $450 donated.

So, if you’ve found Stretchmesh to be useful, maybe you should consider adding some into it so help bring it to the new 2012 products (and beyond).  If you’re not familiar with it, check out their demo videos below.

Kickstand Creatures: Volume 1 from kickstand.tv on Vimeo.

StretchMesh Foot Collision Demo from kickstand.tv on Vimeo.

Stretchmesh.

Graphics kickstand, software, stretchmesh

My Favorite visualization tool ParaView has just hit v3.12, adding in new client-server communication code, better plugin support, and (what I think is the neatest feature) Streaming Visuals.

ParaView 3.12.0 includes updates to the streaming framework at Los Alamos National Lab (LANL). The multi-resolution streaming view now automatically adjusts resolution to match the projected image size. Moreover, VTK filters can now modify meta-information, so they can modify the data while still allowing the streaming framework to cull and prioritize pieces.

I’ve been watching this feature steadily for the last 2 years or so, and I’m so excited that it’s finally come to the main distribution!  Go download it now!

via Kitware – News: ParaView 3.12.0 is Now Available!.

Science kitware, paraview, software