3Delight for Maya 6.0.0

Singapore – August 30th, 2011 – DNA Research announces 3Delight for Maya 6.0, the latest major evolution of our fully integrated rendering plug-in for Autodesk Maya.

Starting immediately, 3Delight for Maya will be available as a package with a new entry level pricing. This package is aimed at artists as well as small to medium sized studio who wish to work with a fast, robust, production-strength renderer that is totally integrated into Maya.

This new release improves usability and user-friendliness through improving UI improved user experience in our Maya plug-in and includes many performance and quality improvements in the core renderer.

Highlights of version 6.0

• A new "Global Illumination" UI - This tab allows for an easy control of global illumination settings, for both ray-traced and point-based algorithms and no furthershader programming is necessary. Multi-bounce global illumination effects are easilycomputed using photon mapping.
  

• Rendering Optimizations - Ray-tracing and global illumination are faster for reflections, refractions, occlusion and shadows. Users can expect accelertion up to 50% in shading intensive renders.

• Minimal Passes and Passes Templates - This feature presents the user with a simple, uncluttered, render pass interface. Users can add features as needed for maximum sability. Such passes can then be organized in templates for rapid access.

• More efficient Relationship Editor - Large scenes are no longer a problem for the relation-ship editor. Scenes with thousands of nodes and assignments handle seamlessly.

• Faster scene parsing - A "scene caching" feature through RIB fragments further improves rendering performance, especially the loading time.

• UI Improvements - Many all-around improvements to the user interface increase productivity.
  

• Latest Maya support - Autodesk Maya 2012 is supported.

Read the press release for further details or the release notes for a complete list of new features and performance improvements.

And there's a new pricing scheme as well, go get your free license!

3Delight for Maya | renderman code nodes & linear stuff

Ok, I was getting ready for next tutorial-like post but I thought I should take another read on some posts @ 3delight's forum.

Basically, using the next function in renderman code nodes and connecting your maya file node in the input will result in a "linearized" image, right?

color sRGBToLinear( color inCol )

	{

	 float _r,_g,_b = 0;

	 if( comp(inCol,0) < 0.04045 ) { _r = comp(inCol,0)/12.92; }else{ _r = pow( (comp(inCol,0)+0.055)/1.055, 2.4 ); } 	  

	 if( comp(inCol,1) < 0.04045 ) { _g = comp(inCol,1)/12.92; }else{ _g = pow( (comp(inCol,1)+0.055)/1.055, 2.4 ); } 	  

	 if( comp(inCol,2) < 0.04045 ) { _b = comp(inCol,2)/12.92; }else{ _b = pow( (comp(inCol,2)+0.055)/1.055, 2.4 ); }    	  



	 return color(_r,_g,_b); 

	} 

Well, it won't. There's a file called DL_globals.mel in your 3delight installation which will perform a tdlmake call on every file node. This means we'll get a prefiltered image from a srgb texture map and this is incorrect. A solution? Well, we could simply edit that file (line 3269) from

  string $cmd = "tdlmake -newer -mode periodic ";

to

  string $cmd = "tdlmake -colorspace srgb -newer -mode periodic ";

But we have some exr and hdr files from time to time. Then we should check if the file is in any of those formats (linear) and modify that tdlmake call. Or we could simply use tdlmake in terminal on the textures to be used, outside maya. If we have lots of files, we can use a batch script (zsh works fine).

Long story short: This can mess up with the way you're rendering and that's why it is complicated to find the perfect workflow here, in the "web". From this point, it is better to assume everything read into maya is in the correct color space.

Some links:
http://www.3delight.com/en/modules/PunBB/viewtopic.php?id=2690
http://www.3delight.com/en/modules/PunBB/viewtopic.php?id=2690
http://www.3delight.com/en/modules/PunBB/viewtopic.php?id=2210


That function, by the way, is from Nick Deboar's shaders posted here: http://www.3delight.com/en/modules/PunBB/viewtopic.php?id=3010

I'll fix some scenes and will get back with something useful (yeah, probably has been too much garbage around here for a couple of months).

sudo /sbin/init 6

MOVE LEARN EAT

missing frame

Well, this is the new (2 years old) project called "missing frame". We will be showing some of our work and hopefully more interesting stuff from time to time.

link: http://missingframevfx.com

What do you think?

AtomKraft Public Beta

The /*jupiter jazz*/ Rock & Dub band is excited to announce just few days before SIGGRAPH 2011 the immediate release of AtomKraft to the general public of the galaxy! This version is a release candidate for AtomKraft 1.0 which will then be available after SIGGRAPH. For the first time it is available on all platforms: Linux64, OSX64 and Windows64, both for Nuke 6.2 and Nuke 6.3.

Highlights for this version are support of NukeX 6.3 particles, Nuke 6.3 Displacement, our Atomic Light System™ and AtomDisplacement, all with enhanced rendering capabilities unique to AtomKraft.

Finally, after having been the first real integration of a 3^rd part renderer into Nuke, AtomKraft is now also the first commercial product to provide Alembic (1.0rc) support & Cortex-VFX (6.0) integration.

To get it and read more -> http://www.jupiter-jazz.com/atomkraft-beta3

Upcoming

A list for the massive amount of stuff that is coming. This will be a nice second half of the year! Hell, I could attend the Strokes concert if I could be sure they will be playing Reptilia :)

Guests are OK with ticket.