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Simple Animation

In the Media & Entertainment industry, there is an ever-increasing need for remote deployment of people and infrastructure.

If you need a remote working studio environment and are looking for business continuity, you should take a look at the virtualised platform from Simple Animation. Designed specifically for the visual effects, games and design visualisation markets, their cloud-based platform lets you create and manage your digital content creation in a secure cloud environment. You can scale easily and reduce your overall long-term costs, maximising the flexibility of your budgets and only paying as you need to.

It fully supports all the typical software tools that you use including Adobe, Autodesk, Chaos and many more, check out this short video that explains how simple it is:

Powered by IBM Cloud, facilitating connectivity to remote teams located anywhere; you can be operational quickly and easily, all you need is a thin client and internet access to connect to powerful virtual workstations and it only takes about an hour the first time to set up your studio or project.

Business continuity is critical, SimpleCloud solutions provide you with a simple and flexible cloud-based platform, where you will instantly access powerful virtual machines and share secure projects and workflows with colleagues around the world.


Contact Us

To find out more about purchasing a Simple Animation subscription or to arrange a virtual demonstration contact a member of our sales team. Call us on 01483 410370 or email sales@bluegfx.com.

Substance by Adobe

The Substance suite of tools is the leading software solution for 3D materials. Discover how Substance apps can bring your creations to life—whether you work in games, film, architecture or design.

Take your designs beyond 2D by hand painting your 3D models. Substance Painter has smart materials that adjust to any model to show realistic wear and tear. Experiment with mask presets that adapt to any shape and paint with customisable brushes from Adobe Photoshop.

Paint and texture your 3D models in real-time.


Work with a premium library of 3D materials.

Select from thousands of fully customisable materials created by our specialists and with the help of some of the industry’s most influential artists. Generate infinite texture variations to fit all types of creative applications. The parametric materials can be used with the most popular content creation apps and game engines like Unity and Unreal.

Digitise and author 3D material collections.

Your definitive scan processing resource, powered by AI.  Modify existing materials or make new ones from photographs and high-res scans. Alchemist is an ideal go-to for workflows that require real-world references, as well as creative explorations. Do it all with a speedy and easy-to-use UI.

Create your own realistic 3D materials.

Craft customised materials with full authoring control. Start from scratch in a non-destructive, node-based environment and create tileable textures and patterns and edit complete texture sets. Substance Designer also features ever-expanding scripting capabilities. Design materials with precision and achieve your creative vision.

Your new favourite workflow.

Substance files play well with other Creative Cloud apps and 3rd party apps for modelling, rendering and game creation. Import, tweak and export Substance SBSAR files directly within Adobe Dimension, Cinema 4D, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, Unity, Autodesk’s Maya and 3ds Max and many more.


Contact Us

To find out more, call us on 01483 410370 or email sales@bluegfx.com. 

Forest Pack 8: The Ultimate Scattering Toolkit

iToo Software has announced the release of Forest Pack 8, the latest version of its advanced scattering and scene assembly plugin for 3ds Max. Version 8 cements Forest Pack’s reputation as the most robust and flexible scattering option with the addition of Forest Sets, linked areas, Effects improvements and much more, offering users completely new and efficient workflows to populate scenes.

Forest Sets is a brand new helper plugin used to create a multi-purpose container for scene objects. A Forest Set object can be added to a Forest object as a collection of geometry, surfaces, references or areas. Multiple Forest Objects can share a Forest Set, making it simple to add or remove areas, geometry or surfaces and update several scatters from one easy to edit location. Even better, the contents of a layer can be dynamically linked to a Forest Set, making it easy to update scatters using familiar scene organisation tools.

To further improve the options for creating interdependent scatters, Forest Pack 8 adds the ability to link to areas referenced in another Forest Pack object. Using this approach you could have a single parent Forest Object that controls all of the areas for several children. Combining Forest Sets and linked areas makes it easier than ever to create huge flexible interlinked ecosystems.

Forest Pack 8 also introduces some often-requested features to Surface UV mode – making it much more powerful. In previous versions, to use surface UV mode you’d have to sacrifice the ability to use any other types of areas. In version 8, you can now use Spline, Object, and other area types in combination with UV surfaces by projecting them along one of 3 axes using the new Area->Projection Axis parameter. Edge mode is even supported when using spline areas.

Other features in Forest Pack 8 include:

Availability:

  • Autumn Leaves – A new preset library of high quality photo-scanned leaves for those chilly autumnal renders. The presets are logically organised by colour and supplied as both individual leaves for detail work and patches for filling large areas.
  • Forest Effects improvements – Updates include the ability to use splines that are independent from distribution areas, opening up to a whole new way to work. Using these features it is possible to modify just the parts of a larger scatter by enclosing them inside a path that has no impact on distribution areas. It is also now possible to read the material ID from the surface and splines.
  • New Forest Effect presets – To illustrate the benefits of the new Effects improvements, several new sample presets are available, including: the ability to rotate objects to follow splines, tilt objects to follow splines, scale by proximity to splines or within an area, limit by spline material ID and much more.
  • Filter Forest Effects – Forest Effects can now be filtered so that they only apply to a subset of the geometry list, allowing you to refine individual types of plants using the powerful effects system.
  • Scatter linked hierarchies – An alternative to groups, this new option means it is now possible to scatter child objects of source geometry, maintaining their hierarchy. Hierarchical objects can be animated, and Forest Pack can even control or randomise their playback just like a normal mesh!
  • Randomise Position – When using path mode, it’s now possible to shuffle the position of objects while still following the spline – great for breaking up regular patterns for a more believable distribution of plants or other objects.
  • Easier Error Identification – Save precious time by identifying issues at a glance. Forest Pack’s icon now changes colour depending on three different error states.
  • Paint Areas UI – The brush size parameter is now available in the main interface for easier access.
  • User Properties – V-Ray CPU users will be pleased to know user properties are now retained making it possible to use advanced texturing workflows.
  • Vertex Colour – Arnold users can now take advantage of vertex colour in their materials and be confident that Forest Pack will retain the final look.

For a detailed overview, visit the Forest Pack 8 page on the iToo Software website. A full changelog of all the features, fixes and improvements can be found in the documentation.

Forest Pack 8 is available to download now for users with an active maintenance plan.

Forest Pack 8 Lite is also now available which includes all of the new features mentioned above.


Buy Forest Pack

To purchase Forest Pack, visit their product page here.


Get in touch

Contact us on 01483 410370 or email sales@bluegfx.com.

V-Ray 6 for SketchUp

When you’re ready to create photorealistic renderings and animations, V-Ray does it all. And now, V-Ray 6 for SketchUp lets you do even more.

Powerful new tools let you create detailed geometric patterns and beautiful custom skies. New and improved materials boost rendering speeds and realism, and cloud collaboration and Enscape compatibility bring teams together like never before.

Next level collaboration

V-Ray and Enscape compatibility – Introducing the most powerful visualization workflow in the AEC industry. With V-Ray 6, you can transfer your real-time scenes from Enscape and continue building on your work to take it to the highest possible level of photorealism. With support for Enscape materials, lights and compatible 3D models, V-Ray ensures that all design decisions are kept throughout the project. No dead ends. No starting over. A fast and easy design process.

Chaos Cloud collaboration – Share your work and collaborate with internal and external stakeholders on the cloud. With Chaos Cloud Collaboration you can upload your images and image panoramas straight from the V-Ray Frame Buffer and significantly speed up the approval process. 

For the full list of V-Ray 6 for SketchUp improvements, check out Chaos’ documentation page > .

V-Ray 6 for Rhino

V-Ray 6 enables you to take advantage of powerful new ways to collaborate with colleagues and clients. Now, bring an Enscape scene inside V-Ray and take it to photorealism. Share your work and get feedback with Chaos Cloud Collaboration. Add custom clouds and create breathtaking time-lapses with the new procedural cloud system. Create more complex and more realistic materials with just a few clicks. And more. 

 Next level collaboration

  • V-Ray and Enscape compatibility – Now, you can take your real-time Enscape scenes into V-Ray’s photorealistic rendering engine and unlock AEC’s most powerful visualization pipeline. We’ve worked together to ensure Enscape 3D models, lights and materials are fully supported by V-Ray, so your projects develop smoothly with effortless collaboration between designers and visualization specialists.
  • Chaos Cloud collaboration – Get feedback the easy way with Chaos Cloud Collaboration. Share your images and panoramas directly from the V-Ray Frame Buffer to colleagues and clients anywhere in the world.

For the full list of V-Ray 6 for Rhino improvements, check out Chaos’ documentation page > 


Buy V-Ray 6 for Sketchup

To purchase visit the product page here.

Buy V-Ray 6 for Rhino

To purchase visit the product page here.


Contact Us

Contact us on 01483 410370 or email sales@bluegfx.com.

Adobe Substance 3D

Empower your creative team to take their ideas further. 

From designing to 3D prototyping to sharing creations across multiple formats and platforms, the Adobe Substance 3D Collection offers a state-of-the-art, end-to-end* workflow for Creative Professionals. The intuitive features enable designers to easily model, texture, stage and publish 3D content. You can also bolster your team’s 3D expertise by leveraging our brand-new Adobe Substance 3D Learn online videos and strengthen your in-house capabilities.* Modeler currently in Private Beta

Get started with ready-to-use parametric assets.
Experiment with ready-to-use parametric models, lights, materials, and environments. Explore and use thousands of high-end assets made by 3D specialists and world-class guest artists – all of which are included within the Substance 3D Collection plan. Plus, with modifiable parameters, there are infinite variations.

Integrate Substance effortlessly.
Substance allows you to have one unified parametric material library across all your apps. The non-destructive workflow seamlessly integrates not just with Creative Cloud apps but also with all major third-party 3D software in the market.


Contact Us

Contact us on 01 483 410370 or email sales@bluegfx.com.

Autodesk Announce Maya Creative

Maya Creative offers modelling, animation, and rendering tools for artists and teams looking to scale up their workflows or access professional tools.

Unlike Maya, Maya Creative comes without API access and the extensibility needed for larger production workflows and will only be supported on Windows and Mac.

The Bifrost plug-in will be available on Maya Creative as read-only.

Customers can only access Maya Creative with Flex, a pay-as-you-go option for daily product use. 


Compare

Compare the features of Maya v Maya Creative.


Contact Us

Contact us on 01483 410370 or email sales@bluegfx.com.

V-Ray for Maya 6 has been released

V-Ray 6 for Maya packs in a number of powerful, new tools that enable users to create without limits. They can now generate complex surfaces for stunning close-up shots at no extra memory cost. Craft just the right sky for their environment in just a few clicks.

Take their product design and HDRI renders to the next level, and more. With V-Ray 6, users can also make use of Chaos Cloud Collaboration to fast-forward their projects’ reviews and approvals, as well as easily monitor and manage rendering performance with V-Ray Profiler. Plus, they can experience a number of other workflow enhancements including identical results from IPR and the production renderer, enhanced USD support, faster and more efficient rendering, background Chaos Cloud Rendering submissions and much more.

Key features in V-Ray 6 for Maya

Create without limits.  Powerful, new tools allow you to build anything imaginable.

V-Ray Enmesh. Create complex surfaces with lots of detail for stunning close-up shots. With Enmesh, you can repeat geometry across the surface of an object at no extra memory cost. Start treating geometry like a texture, creating intricate chain mails, car grilles, metal grids, panels, fences, fabrics, and so much more.

Finite Dome light mode. Elevate your product design and HDRI environment renders with the new, more flexible ground projection capabilities of the V-Ray Dome Light. Set the scale of your light, and have full control over blend settings with the new Finite Dome mode.

Procedural clouds. Craft just the right cloudy sky for your environment in just a few clicks with V-Ray Sun and Sky’s new procedural clouds system. No need to settle for a static HDR or a cloudless sky. Now you can easily simulate a variety of cloud types and weather conditions, from partly cloudy to overcast. Render realistic stills or dynamic time-lapses.

V-Ray Decal with Displacement. You can now use V-Ray Decal to add displacement to any surface for even more realistic cracked walls, rocks, scratched and rusty surfaces, embossed lettering, and more.

Streamline your workflow. Fast-forward your project’s reviews and approvals.

Chaos Cloud Collaboration. Get rapid, consolidated feedback on your work’s progress. Upload your renders to Chaos Cloud Collaboration right from V-Ray’s Frame Buffer, and share your work with colleagues and clients to add comments and annotations, see panorama views and more — from anywhere in the world.

Easily monitor and manage rendering performance, and so much more.

V-Ray Profiler.  Get reports on the time spent calculating shaders and volumes in your scenes. Locate all hot spots in your scene and optimize pipelines for even faster rendering. Pair V-Ray Profiler with the Memory Tracker, and you now have everything you need to monitor and optimize your projects.

Light Cache in IPR. Make better decisions while iterating on your designs with V-Ray’s Interactive Production Renderer (IPR) output now being identical to the production renderer.

Background Cloud Cloud submissions.  You now have uninterrupted access to Maya when submitting to Chaos Cloud Rendering, so you can continue working.

Enhanced USD support. Experience a USD workflow that’s smoother than ever. We’ve added support for the latest MayaUSD version as well as included new enhancements for OpenVDB volumes and V-Ray material exports, promoting an easy exchange with Solaris and USD-powered pipelines.

Faster rendering.  V-Ray Environment Fog now renders up to 30% faster. Translucent material rendering is also up to 2x faster thanks to V-Ray Material’s brand-new Illumination mode. Plus, scenes featuring thousands of instances now render more efficiently.

Shade faster and better. Speed up shading and create even more physically accurate materials.

Thin Film layer.  Create realistic soap bubbles, oil spills and more with the new Thin Film option available in the V-Ray Material.

Enhanced V-Ray Material energy preservation. Render even more physically accurate rough metals and other reflective surfaces with enhanced V-Ray Material energy preservation.

Composition Guides Layer in VFB. Fine-tune your scenes’ compositions without going to a separate application. With customizable overlays, the new composition guides layer in the VFB allows you to easily experiment and enhance your image compositions.

VFB Panorama Viewer.  Now you can preview your spherical panorama renders while rendering, right from your V-Ray Frame Buffer.

What’s new

 V-Ray is the renderer that does it all, allowing users to create without limits. No need to switch applications and interrupt your creative process. Users can easily create complex surfaces with lots of detail for realistic close-up shots at no extra memory cost.

V-Ray 6 speeds up shading and allows users to create even more physically accurate reflective materials.

V-Ray 6 for Maya also enables users to easily monitor your scene’s shaders and volumes rendering performance and locate hot spots for optimization.

You now have a fast and efficient way to share your renders, collect feedback and collaborate with your team or customers. You can also create custom skies for their environments in just a few clicks and render powerful timelapse videos.

V-Ray 6 introduces a number of enhancements that streamline users’ workflows, including consistent results between IPR and the production renderer, enhanced USD support, faster and more efficient rendering, and more.

V-Ray 6 adds even more functionality to the V-Ray Frame Buffer and enables you to further streamline your workflow and make better decisions as you review your work.

Users can now render with V-Ray in any host application and benefit from the powerful suite of Chaos products and services with just a single license.


Buy V-Ray for Maya

To purchase visit the product page here.


Get in touch

Contact us on 01483 410370 or email sales@bluegfx.com.

Bluegfx Summer Social 2022

A big thank you to everyone who attended our Summer Social at Swingers Mini Golf last week.

It was so lovely to see you all after such a long time, and we hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as we did!

Congratulations to our winners:

Introducing V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max

Go anywhere your creative instincts take you and build anything imaginable — faster than ever before. 

Create faster and render better than ever before. Populate your scenes with millions of 3D objects to create natural-looking landscapes and realistic environments quickly and easily. Generate detailed surfaces using repeating geometric patterns at no extra memory cost. Create beautiful custom skies with procedural clouds, collaborate in the Cloud, and much more.

Pricing and Licensing 

To simplify the V-Ray product line and to offer customers more value and flexibility, Chaos will no longer sell V-Ray for specific host applications. Instead, customers will only need to purchase a single V-Ray license to access all V-Ray integrations, including 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Maya, Nuke, Revit, Rhino, SketchUp, and Unreal.

V-Ray will also be offered in three tiers:  Solo, Premium, and Enterprise.

Chaos V-Ray Solo


For customers looking for the most cost-effective way to use V-Ray on a single computer, Solo is a great option. This node-locked V-Ray license can be used to set up and render on a single machine using any supported host integration. Access to 3D content on Chaos Cosmos is also included. V-Ray Solo is an excellent choice for those looking to save money without compromising on quality or features. Solo node-locked licenses will be available as monthly, annual, and 3-year subscriptions.

Chaos V-Ray Premium


The Premium tier is the best option for most customers and is comparable to the previous V-Ray Collection offering. With this tier, customers can install V-Ray on any machine and use it with any supported host application. Premium also includes a floating license for Chaos companion products, such as Phoenix, Player, Scans, and Vantage. In addition, it includes a starting pack of 20 free credits for Chaos Cloud rendering and access to the growing Chaos Cosmos content library. Premium floating licenses will be available as monthly, annual, and 3-year subscriptions.

Chaos V-Ray Enterprise


Enterprise is the most cost-effective option for studios and firms that need 5 or more licenses of V-Ray. Customers get all of the benefits of the Premium tier, but priced at a discount for multiple seats. Enterprise floating licenses will be available as annual and 3-year subscriptions. New license sales will be subscription only Subscriptions are an easy and flexible way for customers to stay current with all updates and new features of V-Ray. Monthly, annual, and 3-year subscription options are available for Solo and Premium tiers, providing an affordable option to start using V-Ray right away while benefiting from further discounted pricing for longer subscription plans. Enterprise plans do not include a monthly option and are priced for annual and 3-year terms.

There will be no perpetual license options for new customers.

 SoloPremiumEnterprise
License TypeNode-locked licenseFloating licenseFloating license
Min. # of licenses115
Support includedYesYesYes
    
Included products:   
Chaos V-Ray all*
Chaos Cosmos
Chaos Cloud** 
Chaos Phoenix 
Chaos Vantage 
Chaos Player 
Chaos Scans 
*Supported V-Ray integrations include 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Houdini, Maya, Nuke, Revit, Rhino, SketchUp, and Unreal.
**Free starting pack of 20-credits.

Buy V-Ray 6 for 3ds Max

To purchase visit the product page here.


Get in touch

Contact us on 01483 410370 or email sales@bluegfx.com.

Volumetric video – A Bootcamp

So, what is volumetric video?

It’s a technique to record a live video performance and play it back from any angle. Cameras capture multiple vantage points simultaneously, and post-processing converts all the video captures into an animated volumetric dataset and 3d model. This 3d representation can be imported into any 3d environment extending the creative potential to playback and manipulate this animated data. It brings a new dimension to working with video over a flat 2d video taken from a single camera’s perspective

But why? We can only see from one point of view.

Volumetric video data offers another level of control and flexibility. Data can be embedded into immersive real-time virtual or augmented reality applications or used as part of video productions. Volumetric video adds an engaging advantage to creative processes. Viewing 3d video on the fly while it’s playing back from any angle is a powerful proposition for creative users. You can manipulate the lighting and colour, and, with a little interpolation, AI can help clean or smooth volumetric data and enhance the overall result.

Why would I need to do that?

Although volumetric video is in its infancy, volumetric data is not a new concept. Many consumer devices have been able to record and track video playback via cameras and infrared devices in applications to interpret gesture control or scan objects and faces for pseudo-3d or, when done professionally, highly detailed 3d models and complete environmental renditions. For example, the consumer photogrammetry approach typically uses a camera or video to capture an object placed centrally, and pictures are taken from multiple angles. Take enough photographs of the subject a detailed 3d model will materialise. It is a common technique that has been available for decades. Volumetric video capture records a complete performance, and there are many use cases.

Imagine being at a sports game or a music festival as a spectator. You can replay the event and watch it from any position. It’s possible to feel like you are standing on stage or viewing a replay of a memorable sporting victory from any angle. You control where you are standing by not having physical limitations, which you can’t get to see watching television. It takes you closer to the feeling of being there.

In creative industries, you can manipulate an actor’s performance even after a recording has finished or use the data to drive other CG characters.

Volumetric video and the extrapolated 3d data enhance the degree of control over precisely what you want to achieve. It opens up many creative benefits.

The concepts are similar to other virtual production tools but where volumetric video differs is that it captures physical movements and environments, not just stationary-based objects. But both have their uses and complement each other.

When you say perspective…

I mean exactly that. The great thing about volumetric video is that it records the scene in full 3d, so you aren’t even limited to the perspectives of the capturing devices. You can move, using a 3d camera, anywhere in the scene and view it from any angle. Think of a football game, where you want to view the action from a freely movable camera. Clearly, you can have thousands of cameras, covering every available angle and distance. Well, volumetric video builds that scene in 3d, so if you want to watch a glorious goal you can do so from any point of view, up close or taking in the whole pitch (or anything in between).

One more trick of this technology is that you can put yourself in the position of any of the performers, or even a static object in the scene, for an immersive experience.

There are also clear benefits beyond the entertainment field. Imagine a medical setting where a tricky situation can be observed from different perspectives or natural world events that can be preserved digitally. The opportunities are still growing.

Right, so what else?

Think about a trip to your favourite online shop. Imagine being able to choose an outfit and see it from any angle, at your pace and your direction. Some tools already exist that simulate this, as well as placing objects virtually in a space, but volume video takes this to a whole new level. Pick a wardrobe and decorate a space, then share that with whoever you so wish, for feedback or just to show off your style.

Ok, I’m sold. How do I get started?

To start the process, you’ll want a set of cameras, positioned similarly to how motion capture works, with a mesh of cameras surrounding a volume. The difference here is that shape, light, and colour are captured, not just the motion. Because of this, an evenly lit volume might be best but that will depend on the situation.

Next up, the captured footage will need to be processed ready for the consumer, or further edited or integrated into a 3d scene. Tools like Depthkit, HoloCap and Holosuite by Arcturus are ideal for this. The latter also offers non-linear editing tools to ease your projects along.

Once processed and edited, you can begin integrating the volumetric files into augmented or virtual reality projects, deliver online with real-time navigation of your scenes and much more.


Contact Us

To find out more, call us on 01 483 410370 or email sales@bluegfx.com.

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