Debuts Latest Creative Tools Designed to Enhance Autodesk Maya User Experience
Los Angeles, CA (July 22, 2013) – SIGGRAPH, Booth 601 – Today at the SIGGRAPH Conference in Anaheim, Calif., Thinkbox Software announced new plug-in offerings for Autodesk Maya including the latest version of Krakatoa MY – its popular volumetric particle renderer, XMesh MY for geometry caching and Frost MY for point cloud meshing. Currently in development, the solutions will be demonstrated in Thinkbox Software’s booth (#601) throughout SIGGRAPH, along with a host of other new products.
“Krakatoa MY received intense interest from the Maya community when it was released earlier this year and we’ve continued that momentum by adding key features like support for Mac OSX-based systems, which we’ll demo at SIGGRAPH this year. We will also preview a Maya compatible version of MagmaFlow, our node-based particle manipulation toolkit based on our new cross-platform node-view tool,†said Chris Bond, founder, Thinkbox Software. “With the introduction of XMesh MY and the upcoming release of Frost MY, our high-performance production tools are even more accessible to Maya users looking to create amazing visuals.â€
Enabling greater flexibility and improved performance for users, Krakatoa MY 2.3 features Thinkbox’s Magma channel data editing system as well as support for Mac OSX, in addition to previously supported Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems. Other new features of Krakatoa MY 2.3 include:
-- Particle Flexibility – Leverage the
particle partitioning of Maya particle systems and particle saving
functions. Particles can be created from fractals and the particle
modification system can manipulate particle data
setting/copying/scaling channel values. Supporting Maya materials
for coloring particles, the renderer also features particle
“repopulation†for increasing particle counts.
-- New PRT Format – Allows seamless importing of
particles from external applications.
-- Extended Software Support – In addition to
working with Mac OSX, Maya 2013 and Maya 2014 are also
supported.
XMESH – a Honda CRV model consisting of 83 objects with a dozen individual materials exported as a single mesh from 3ds Max and loaded in Maya with all information including materials preserved
Image courtesy of Thinkbox Software
XMesh MY is a Maya-specific extension of Thinkbox’s production-proven geometry caching solution. Allowing users to save animated scene geometry and later load that data for rendering, XMesh MY has been refined through use on VFX mega-productions such as The Avengers and Iron Man 3. XMesh MY feature highlights include:
-- Optional Explicit Velocity Data – Velocity
data can be stored and loaded even from most changing topology
objects including the Thinkbox Frost MX and Frost MY meshers, or
Cebas Thinking Particles running in 3ds Max for correct motion blur
generation in Maya.
-- Bi-directional Smoothing Data Transfer –
XMesh can convert between Maya edge smoothing and 3ds Max smoothing
groups data, or alternatively use an explicit Normal channel to
store the render-time surface normals.
-- Bi-directional Material Assignments Transfer
– XMesh preserves the material assignments of 3ds Max and Maya
objects and provides bonus tools to transfer basic shader
definitions between the applications.
-- Combining Multiple Objects Into One – XMesh
allows the caching of large numbers of objects into a single mesh
while preserving all original channel data and material assignments
with orders of magnitude better compression and higher performance
than alternative solutions.
-- Rapid Saving and Loading – With excellent
binary data compression and multi-threaded saving and loading, the
solution supports parallel saving on the network and single frame
overwriting as well as animation retiming and recursive saving for
history-dependent animation effects, producing small files with
fast save and load times.
FrostMY – shows 10% of the Naiad Waterfall particles created by Evermotion meshed inside of Maya using Frost MY
Image courtesy of Adam Guzowski of Evermotion
Similarly, Frost MY is a Maya-friendly version of Thinkbox’s point cloud meshing solution that enables users to generate a single mesh from particles, vertex clouds, object positions, point data files or a combination thereof using various techniques. Key features of Frost MY include:
-- Algorithm Flexibility – Generate blob mesh
surfaces using various algorithms including Union of Spheres,
Metaballs, Zhu/Bridson and Anisotropic.
-- Wide Particle Acceptance – Point data can be
imported from Maya particle systems, Krakatoa PRT files, RealFlow
BIN files and Krakatoa PRT objects. Quickly produce geometry from
Maya, RealFlow and Naiad fluid simulations, or recreate geometry
surfaces from LIDAR point clouds.
-- 3D Print Compatible – Meshes are watertight
for 3D printing.
Deadline 6.1 - screenshot of the Multi-Region submitter in 3ds Max
Image courtesy of Thinkbox Software
Additionally, Maya users running Deadline 6.1 – the latest version of Thinkbox’s cross-platform render farm management solution – now have tile rendering support for Solid Angle's Arnold renderer and support for distributed bucket rendering (DBR) with Chaos Group V-Ray.
Thinkbox Software will host training sessions and demos throughout SIGGRAPH in booth #601. For more information, please call 1-866-419-0283 or visit www.thinkboxsoftware.com/sales
About Thinkbox Software
Thinkbox Software provides creative solutions for visual artists in entertainment, engineering and design. Developer of high-volume particle renderer Krakatoa and render farm management software Deadline, the team of Thinkbox Software solves difficult production problems with intuitive, well-designed solutions and remarkable support. As an artist-driven company, we create tools that help artists manage their jobs and empower them to create worlds and imagine new realities. Thinkbox was founded in 2010 by Chris Bond, founder of Frantic Films. http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/
Images courtesy of Thinkbox Software, except where noted otherwise.
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