Recent update for Fallout 4, 1.3 Beta update (available through Steam on PC), next to various bug fixes, adds several new graphic features including – HBAO+ ambient occlusion and, surprisingly, physically simulated debris effects from bullet impacts, exclusive to NVIDIA GPUs. The new debris effects are surprisingly not based and are not using any portions of PhysX SDK, like many other GPU PhysX games, but completely based on the new NVIDIA FLEX solver. PhysX FleX (NVIDIA FleX) is the new GPU accelerated particle-based physics simulation library. The core idea of FleX is that every object is represented as a system of particles connected by constraints. Such unified representation allows efficient modeling of many different materials and natural interaction between elements of different types, for example, two-way coupling between rigid bodies and fluids, or fluids and soft bodies. Because FleX is not designed to build gameplay affecting physics, It is recommended to use FleX in conjunction with a traditional rigid-body physics engine, such as PhysX SDK (PhysX SDK 3.4 will feature native FleX integration).
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Chaos Group announced the release of a new update for V-Ray 3.x for Maya updating it to version 3.3. The update is free of charge for all registered customers and it’s ready for download. The updated version brings significant increase in performance and Chaos Group claims a noticeable major speed boost – 20-50% faster on most scenes. This is of course great enhancement to V-Ray and i believe that most of the users are taking this enhancement with joy. Next to the performance boost, V-Ray brings new features and enhancement old features like a New image sampler, Automatic sampling of lights & materials, GPU production rendering, V-Ray scene file node and more. A short list about the new features with a small description is below. Check also the video about the V-Ray RT GPU improvements.
It has been more than a year when Planetside Software, the leader in high quality landscape visualization, released an update for Terragen 3 updating it to version 3.2. What is Terragen? Terragen is a complex software solution for generating realistic landscapes, skies or other natural environments. The render capabilities were already tested in blockbusters like Star Wars: The Force Awakens (yes, the new one), TV shows, games, VR environments, museum exhibits, documentaries, and more. At this moment the company is preparing a new major release of Terragen 4 making the software faster, more interactive and easier to use. So far Planetside unveiled just some of the features and enhancement present in the next version together with some pre Alpha images and videos, but it looks that the preview features presented by the company are more than impressive.
Today, Mixiamo announced the public release of Mixamo 2.0. Mixamo 2.0 has been in beta since the end of February, starting a new faster and more streamlined user experience for creating, rigging and animating 3D characters online. What is Mixamo?. It is an online platform that enables developers and artists to let their imagination run free and be even more ambitious about their games, films and other 3D projects. Using Mixamo you can create your own character using Fuse, use your own character or choose something from the online database. If yu choose to create your own character using Fuse, you can browse through varied body parts, clothes, and Substances (powered by Allegorithmic) to create fully rigged 3D characters ready for animation. One of Mixamo's most amazing features is the Auto-Rigger. This feature can save hours of hard work, all you need to do, is upload your 3D character (supports .fbx, .bvh, .zip, .obj), place a few joint markers on your character, and watch your character get fitted with a professional rig and its mesh will be properly bound to its shiny new skeleton. Once you are finished, you can download your character back in any format you want.
RandomControl, the developer of Arion a physically based CPU & GPU render engine, announced the relaease of a new version of ArionFX for Photoshop. ArionFX for Photoshop is a versatile tool that offers a variety of key HDR image processing algorithms designed to function in floating-point 32-bit HDR data. ArionFX allows the implementing inside the existing pipeline and so keeping a linear workflow. The plugin brings a new advanced HDR tonemapping, firefly removal, glare, bloom and so on. Between the most noticeable postproduction options available inside ArionFX belongs the possibility of removing speckles and on the other hand adding some grain. The HDR despeckler tool features a high-performance removal algorithm which works similarly to Photoshop's native Dust and scratches filter, but in 32-bit HDR. HDR film grain adds what his name stands for, a fancy film grain.