Rounding up the 3D News
Every year the top high-end 3D companies in the world converge on Los Angeles, Calif. to attend the Siggraph tradeshow. This...Jim Dalrymple, Macworld.com
Every year the top high-end 3D companies in the world converge on Los Angeles, Calif. to attend the Siggraph tradeshow. This year's show produced some interesting items for the industry.
E-on Software Previews Vue 7
E-on Software used Siggraph to show off some new features of Vue, the company's product for creating natural 3D environments. E-on showed Vue 7 xStream and Vue 7 Infinite, which is scheduled for release later this year.
The company's flagship product, Vue 7 xStream's tools are now fully integrated in the host application, providing direct access to the most advanced 3D environment creation technologies, including EcoSystem Painting.
technology, Spectral 2 atmospheric engine, SolidGrowth 4 HD, and a completely new indoor Radiosity engine.
BonZai 3D
AutoDesSys previewed BonZai 3D, the latest product in the company's 3D software line. According to AutoDesSys, BonZai 3D is a new 3D modeler developed to fill the demand for a quick, easy, and geometrically robust approach to 3D.
BonZai 3D isn't available yet, but the company said a version is being prepped for public beta testing.
SynthEyes tackles eight-core
SynthEyes showed off its newest version, which has been optimized for use with Apple's eight-core Mac Pro. The company said eight-cores pose challenges for software-makers that they have apparently been able to overcome.
The newly optimized SynthEyes eliminates program and operating system bottlenecks, performing 3-5 times faster than the previous multithreaded version on the same 8-core hardware.
SynthEyes has also gained exporters for Apple's Motion 3 and Luxology's Modo.
Digital-Tutors with Pixar
Interactive training company, Digital-Tutors, made the trip to Siggraph this year and were at Pixar's booth. The company had 24 workstations for attendees to interact, tour, and test-drive its entire library of training for software including Maya, XSI, ZBrush, Houdini, modo, XNA, Mudbox, RenderMan for Maya, Syflex, RealFlow, Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamweaver.
Pixar co-founder honored
Speaking of Pixar, its co-founder, Ed Catmull was honored as the featured speaker of this year's show.
Catmull, President of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, has played a major role throughout the past 30 years in the invention of some of today's most fundamental computer graphics practices used widely across the motion picture industry. He is one of the original architects of the RenderMan rendering software system, which has been used to create blockbuster animated hits such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo, as well as 44 of the last 47 Visual Effects nominations to the Academy Awards
LightWorks SE and LightWorks 7.9
LightWorks had a very busy show, showing off two new versions of its products. LightWorks Studio Edition (SE) "is a new approach to integrated rendering. It draws on a wealth of rendering development and implementation experience, to bring you the easiest to use toolkit ever," according to the company.
LightWorks 7.9 was also released with several new features including Ambient Occlusion, Complex Reflectance Shaders, CgFX and Specular Final Gather. In addition to the two new versions, the company also demoed its new Progressive Rendering technology, which is currently in development.