Autodesk Maya 2012 Hotfix 4

Autodesk Maya 2012 Hotfix 4 includes several important fixes, refer to the readme for more information.

Readme: English

Important notes:

• Hotfix #4 includes an update to Maya Composite. You must uninstall your existing Maya Composite before installing this update. Mac and Linux users: the update is included in the Hotfix 4 installer. Windows users: use the separate download below.


• For installation on Mac OS X, if you have newer components on your machine (such as QuickTime or DMM), a warning message may appear at the end of installation indicating a failure. This message indicates a component failure, not a failure of the Maya installation.


• Every hotfix is cumulative; it contains the fixes from the hotfix(es) that preceded it. For example, Hotfix #2 includes the fixes released in Hotfix #1, therefore you do not need to download and install both hotfixes.

Luxology Modo Summer training special

Until August 30th Luxology are offering all of the Modo downloadable training videos at 50% off.

modo Training Videos

 

Learn modo with innovative projects

 

Learning modo with the included on-line documentation is really just a starting point. Luxology has brought together a diverse collection of learning materials in video form that modo users can work with individually or in a classroom setting. These videos are step-by-step screen capture movies of carefully designed projects to help you learn to use modo for a specific industry or for specific result. Relevant content is included. It’s like having a modo instructor helping you achieve the results you want. Save 50% on selected Training Videos between now and August 30th.

 

Get started with modo 501 and the training videos at the Motion Media online Shop.

Pixologic Sneakpeak of ZBrush 4R2

In this thread I will share with you some information regarding the exciting features that are planned to be included in the next ZBrush update.

The next update will be ZBrush 4R2 (ZBrush 4 Release 2) - it will be a free upgrade to all registered users.

ZBrush 4R2 is currently in development, when we reach beta-testing phases I will be able to post information regarding its release date.

To get the Z4R2 preview rolling, I'll start with a sneak-peak of the next update to the BPR renderer.

Best Preview Render

The BPR renderer in the next version has been updated to a full 32-bits floating-points HDR pipeline.

BPR in Z4R2 is capable of rendering high quality images while utilizing improved materials, lights, and environment mapping. - Pixolator

Read the full thread of the sneak peak here

Get  Zbrush at the Motion Media Online shop!

Cebas Free Trials of finalRender 3.5 SE and finalToon 3.5 for 3ds Max 2012

 

 

 

cebas Visual Technology Inc. is making the latest version of its industry leading 3D rendering software, finalRender 3.5 SE, available in a free, unlimited-use trial version for the newest release of 3ds Max for immediate download from the cebas website.

The trial version of finalRender™ SE for 3ds Max (2010 - 2012, both 32- and 64-bit) is fully featured and includes all modules of its highest end version, as well as the industry leading non-photo-realistic rendering system finalToon™ 3.5.

Except for the watermarked render output, all aspects of the trial version are identical to the full license, including its complete feature set, as well as the software's blazing rendering speed.

Get finalRender for 3ds Max at the Motion Media online shop!

Chaos Group Phoenix FD in Action! New Videos by Michael McCarthy

A series of short videos show simulation of water, smoke and more using the Phoenix FD plug-in.

Phoenix Fluid Dynamics combines a grid based simulator with outstanding rendering capabilities that accurately reproduce fluid behavior. It’s the solution to rendering waves breaking along a shore, a lit candle, or an explosive cloud of smoke – just to name a few. The plug-in’s many features, which can imitate processes like pressure decay, thermal radiation cooling and mass-temperature dependence, have been captured in a series of videos created by VFX Technical Director and Autodesk Certified Instructor Michael McCarthy.

 

McCarthy, whose background includes work in the broadcast, feature film and gaming industry, introduces Phoenix FD with a set of tutorials that walk you through the basics of flames, fluid maps and liquids. He then demonstrates examples of possible simulations in sixteen short video clips. Such simulations include the liquid simulation of a fountain, liquid fuel to flames, and particle flow from an explosion.

To watch all McCarthy’s videos and receive updates on Phoenix FD, please register here

Get Phoenix FD for 3ds Max at the Motion Media online shop!

Chaos Group Customer Success Story :: Method - Halo: Reach "Deliver Hope"

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Chaos Group gives us another customer spotlight. This time its Method Studios and their work on Halo:Reach"Deliver Hope" .

click the link above to read the full interview.

"Here at Method we have been using V-Ray for Maya since the beginning of its development. It has had huge success in house for feature and commercial work large and small. Having multiple renderer support inhouse it's a head to head vs match to final only the best images."

Scott Metzger, VFX Artist at Method Studios

Based in Los Angeles, with locations in New York and London, Method Studios is a leading post production facility providing a full range of visual effects services including conceptual design, look development, on-set supervision, 3D animation/CGI, matte painting, compositing and finishing.

Get V-Ray for 3ds Max or Maya at the Motion Media online shop!

V-Ray 2.0 for Maya Beta now available!

Chaos Group Releases V-Ray 2.0 for Maya Beta Version.

V-Ray, hailed by many as the most robust and versatile rendering engine on the market, is about to see a significant upgrade for all Maya users. The 2.0 upgrade for V-Ray began its much-anticipated Beta test on March 30th, 2011.

V-Ray 2.0 for Maya is a complete rendering solution developed by Chaos Group, now with interactive rendering on GPU and CPU. This robust and highly trusted engine is the perfect tool for the 3D professionals, working in the film and VFX industry. With this new version users can expect many new improvements and updates to the existing one.

Exciting new features are now available in V-Ray 2.0 for Maya like: V-Ray RT and V-Ray RT GPU, Faster rendering of dynamic geometry (displacement, fur, proxies, hair etc), Faster rendering of render-time subdivision surfaces, VRayFur and Maya hair, VRayCarPaint material, VRayToon shader and a lot more. Detailed information and a full feature list for V-Ray 2.0 for Maya can be found here >>



The beta program will be open to all customers who already own a license of V-Ray for Maya (purchased V-Ray 1.5 for Maya) or pre-ordered V-Ray 2.0 for Maya.



Join the V-Ray 2.0 for Maya Beta Program and be among the first to test this advanced rendering technology for all Maya users. It's your help and feedback that will make this product much better.

Release plans have been set for the end of April. Get ready for the official start and share the V-Ray experience with us!

 

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Order your V-Ray Maya 2.0 pre-release, or Upgrade at our online shop!

Chaos Group Customer Success Story :: Blur Studio

Chaos Group gave us a spotlight on BLUR STUDIO and their use of V-Ray.

If you missed it click the link above.

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With the coming of the E3 Expo in June, we  went back in awe of the visually stunning work from BLUR and interview with Kevin Margo CG Supervisor at Blur Studio.

"V-Ray is a supremely brilliant rendering engine with mind bending approaches to visualizing 3 dimensional form that encourages philosophic ontological discussions about the nature and observation of reality itself."

We at Motion Media can't wait to see what  BLUR is working on for this year's E3 Expo!

BLUR STUDIO has been creating award-winning visual effects, animation and design, applying its creative skills across various mediums. We produce 3D character animation, motion design and visual effects for feature films and television, game cinematics & trailers, large format films, location-based entertainment, commercials and integrated media. Located in Venice, California, we combine the passion and excitement from our directors, animators, designers, concept artists, and writers with our clients into a collaborative creative approach that results in compelling visuals and storytelling.

Order your V-Ray for 3ds Max or Maya at our online shop!

Package Design and Construction Kit for modo 501

 

 

Luxology releases a  new PACK Kit for modo, you can quickly create bags, wrappers, boxes, bottles, cans, cartons, tubes, tubs, and non-destructively develop new packaging concepts.



 

Popcorn family image by Gene Dupont.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the core of PACK is a collection of more than 200 presets, images and assemblies, which together form a large library of packages and components such as container seals that can be modified and brought together to both visualize existing packaging and to create totally new package designs.



 

Customize your packaging with pre-built container seals like these.

 

The new PACK Kit is one more great reason to use modo! Get modo 501 at our online Shop.



 

 

More detailed information and videos of the pack in action here.

 

 

 

V-Ray 2.0 for Maya Features!

The long anticipated V-Ray 2.0 for Maya is on its way to be officially released on 25th of April.

V-Ray for Maya ADV 1.5 is still in Beta. V-Ray 2.0 for Maya will be available after 25th of April.

Starting March 25th 2011 customers can purchase V-Ray Maya 2.0 pre-release and get started right away with V-Ray Maya 1.5. Customers who purchased the pre-release or upgrade will receive V-Ray for Maya 2.0 on its release April 25th.

 

Order your V-Ray Maya 2.0 pre-release, or Upgrade at our online shop!

 

Below is the list of new features of V-Ray 2.0 for Maya.

• Python callback for access to and modification of the translated V-Ray scene before rendering – this powerful feature allows you to directly modify the V-Ray scene before rendering to fit V-Ray seamlessly into your production pipeline; to access the full features of the V-Ray rendering engine and its plugins, even if they are not exposed in the user interface; to add your own custom V-Ray plugins without the need to code Maya plugins and much more.


• Support for the Substance textures in Maya 2011.5 and Maya 2012 - use the new V-Ray 2.0 with the Substance textures in Maya 2011.5 and Maya 2012 to create a wide range of procedural shaders for your projects.


• V-Ray RT and V-Ray RT GPU - the new interactive technology running both on CPUs and GPUs speeds up the shading and lighting stages of your production. With the new V-Ray 2.0 you can take full advantage of our state of the art interactive renderer. It can also be used for fast off-line rendering with support for motion blur on both CPU and GPU, and displacement, subdivision surfaces, hair and fur on the CPU.


• Faster rendering of dynamic geometry (displacement, fur, proxies, hair etc) - new internal optimizations have led to even faster rendering of dynamic geometry like displacement, proxies, fur and hair etc.


• Faster rendering of render-time subdivision surfaces, VRayFur and Maya hair - the new improved core of V-Ray 2.0 can render VRayFur, Maya hair and render-time subdivision surfaces much faster.


• VRayCarPaint material - create realistic car paint shaders complete with "Base",  "Flakes" and "Coat" layers. Full mapping support allows for amazing flexibility and a wide range of effects.


• VRayToon shader - add amazing cartoon-like feeling to your renderings.


• Support for dispersion in refractions for VRayMtl  - this option uses the new capabilities for wavelength-dependent raytracing of the V-Ray core and allows you to create stunning close ups of refractive objects with caustics that dazzle the eye.


• Automatic support for both Mari- and Mudbox-style tiled textures - V-Ray 2.0 can automatically load the correct texture bitmaps depending on the UV tiles of the rendered object.


• PTex textures - with V-Ray 2.0 you can stop worrying about UV coordinates and use PTex textures instead. This state of the art technology allows the artist to be absolutely free in his or her creative process and skip the boring UV unwrapping.


• Lens distortion through Nuke displacement maps - the VRayPhysicalCamera can use displacement maps from Nuke to completely mach the distortion of your real cameras.


• Option to turn off camera motion blur - V-Ray 2.0 gives you a separate control to enable or disable the motion blur coming from the movement of the camera.


• Support for rendering of Maya fluids - the new V-Ray 2.0 recognizes and renders Maya fluids directly, with full support for GI and light scattering inside the volume.


• Support for the Maya stereo camera in batch render mode - render your stereoscopic animations with V-Ray 2.0 and Maya batch render mode.


• The ply2vrmesh tool can convert RealFlow .bin files to .vrmesh files - with the new version of the ply2mesh tool V-Ray 2.0 users can render very large RealFlow simulations as VRayProxy objects with significantly improved memory efficiency


• Extended irradiance map viewer tool – allows the incremental merge of irradiance map files to avoid redundant information; preview of light cache files; manual deletion of unwanted samples, and usage of OpenGL display lists for more interactivity.


• Img2tiledexr tool - for mass conversion of many common image formats to tiled OpenEXR files


• Output of multi-channel scanline OpenEXR files with data-window - removes the need to manually convert the multichannel OpenEXR files produced by V-Ray to scanline-based OpenEXR files for efficient processing by compositing applications.


• Shutter efficiency for motion blur – render more realistic motion blur with manual control over the camera shutter efficiency.


• and many other fixes and improvements...

Order your V-Ray Maya 2.0 pre-release, or Upgrade at our online shop!

 

 

cebas Visual Technology and Cyber Radiance Enter Hair Farm cooperation

cebas Visual Technology Inc. announces an initiative for close cooperation with Cyber Radiance to enhance the speed and effectiveness of their core software products, finalRender and Hair Farm. The latter is now available from the cebas website.

The two independent software developers intend to optimize their respective offerings through their new partnership. This will ensure that these industry leading tools will work hand-in-hand to get the best possible performance for their customers.



Rendering made with finalRender and Hair Farm
cebas CEO Edwin Braun stated: “It’ll be great to optimize both systems for our current and future user base. Hair Farm is an amazing product and we are happy and proud to promote it in the future.”

“finalRender is an extremely powerful rendering system for using Hair Farm and I’m excited to integrate our products more closely," said Dr. Cem Yuksel, creator of Hair Farm. "It will yield optimal performance and enhanced workflow for all 3ds Max users. Most importantly, it will help us extend the capabilities of our solutions and go beyond the limitations of today's technology.”

This agreement marks the second such software development deal, after cebas announced the cooperation with Sitni Sati and their leading CG fluid dynamics simulation system, FumeFX, last year.

The announcement clearly shows the commitment by cebas to offer the most efficient and best rendering solutions to its customer base. By covering and enhancing complex rendering effects, such as fire, smoke and now hair, finalRender strengthens its position as the number one choice for serious motion picture and game production professionals.

While Hair Farm users agree that it is undoubtedly the best hair rendering software for CG professionals, the announcement affirms that Cyber Radiance is determined to go beyond this achievement and continue improving its ultimate hair solution with new ground-breaking technologies.

*  *  *

About Hair Farm

Hair Farmwas designed and developed by Dr. Cem Yuksel. When he first started developing Hair Farm, the available CG technologies for modeling, animating, and rendering hair were very limited and under-developed. Therefore, Dr. Yuksel began developing various novel technologies required for a solid hair modeling, animation, and rendering software. After six years of R&D, the last piece of the puzzle was solved with his invention of hair meshes, as first presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009.

Hair Farm is not just another tool for producing hair for virtual characters. It is a completely new design that combines state-of-the-art technologies with an artist-friendly user interface and flexible workflow. Within a year of its release, hundreds of studios and artists have begun using Hair Farm for their projects, such as the upcoming motion picture "Sucker Punch" (rel. March 25, 2011).

Contact

Cem Yuksel, Founder & CEO
Cyber Radiance LLC
cem@cyberradiance.com
www.cyberradiance.com

Luxology Releases modo 501 SP1

modo 501 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available as a free download from Luxology.

The SP1 release is mainly of benefit to those using modo 501 in 64-bit mode on Mac OS X, but there are targeted small improvements/fixes for all modo users as detailed here.  Luxology recommends that you use modo 501 SP1 going forward.

modo 501 users can get the new release by accessing the Check for Updates option in the Help menu of modo 501. Or simply sign into your Account and access the new modo 501 update in the Registered Products section.

You may purchase modo at our online store or give us a call!

Motion Media: 310. 450-4000

Sneak Peek at XBR Graphics in action

Shane Griffith Product Manager for 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design of Autodesk, Inc.
Gives us a Sneak Peek of the XBR Graphics in action within 3ds Max.

Head on over to Shane's blog at the link to watch all the videos and more information here.

Looking for a seat of 3ds Max? You can  Click Here to Purchase.

cebas releases finalRender 3.5 and 3.5 SE

New Features Deliver 3D-Stereo Camera, Ultra-Fast Global Illumination Engine and More

“We have brought out a new release for our industry leading tool finalRender much faster than usual,” said cebas CEO Edwin Braun. “Our users asked us to make new features available as we develop them so they can put them into production immediately. cebas has responded by releasing a ‘.5’ version as a major release for the first time in our 20-year history. ”

Link for More Information

10 Simple yet Elegant Vray Renderings

I was looking through some images that our resident 3ds Max guy had rendered out on his website, and I thought I would put together a post of some of my favorite Vray rendered images. Enjoy!