A dark software interface displays a row of vertical color bars in red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, magenta, and white across the center, like a calibration chart. Small technical labels and a yellow circular swatch sit in the lower left, while the black surrounding workspace gives the screen a clean, utilitarian look.

11.11.2026

OpenReview 1.2.0: Free VFX Dailies With a Difference

OpenReview 1.2.0 adds EXR metadata inspection, flexible HUDs, PDF contact sheets and fixes for VFX dailies. We examine its QC tools and TCP sync.

3 minute read

FilmLight Colour Awards 2026 winner mosaic

FilmLight Colour Awards 2026: Five winners at Toruń

Five colourists won at the 2026 FilmLight Colour Awards in Toruń, from Bugonia and Lord of the Flies to a fashion film that took a trip around the moon.

11.11.2026

Blender 5.3 splash artwork for OVERGROWN by Blender Studio

Blender 5.3: Splat Happens, and Everything Else Gets Better

Gaussian Splats, DLSS Ray Reconstruction, EEVEE lighting nodes, Cycles dispersion, compositor stacks, project settings and a Video Sequencer that finally ripples. Blender 5.3 has plenty to unwrap.

11.11.2026

A polished hourglass stands centered in a dark, rocky scene, its clear glass bulbs and silver frame catching a cool blue rim light. Fine specks drift through the black background, while jagged stone forms the foreground, creating a stark, suspended atmosphere.

TEMPUS: Light, Memory and Seven Shots

Raphael Rau builds TEMPUS around seven shots, reusable environments, gradient sunlight and light passes that keep lighting decisions open in Fusion.

11.11.2026

A surreal metallic insect-like creature with long jointed limbs looms over a dark foreground form in a snowy forest. Rendered in grayscale, the scene layers glossy ridged armor against bare trees and pale ground, creating a stark, eerie composition.

Gaffer 1.7.6: Painting, Lighting and MCP

Gaffer 1.7.6 brings light-editor improvements, geometry tools and a new MCP connection for AI-driven pipeline control.

10.11.2026

A promotional graphic for Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve 21.1 shows two people in cowboy hats above a video editing timeline, with the large title centered over a dark background. The composition pairs warm, cinematic footage with bold white and orange typography, creating a polished software-advertisement look. — Advertisement

Adobe MAX 2026: AI video and audio are most useful before the final cut

At MAX 2026, Adobe puts video, music and sound generation into Premiere, adds AI audio cleanup and Color Mode, and previews editable agent workflows through MCP. The production test is the handover, not the demo.

MetaWrap: From Blender Mesh to MetaHuman

MetaWrap transfers AI meshes, scans and sculpts to MetaHuman topology, then sends geometry, textures and grooms from Blender to Unreal Engine.

A dark-mode Resolve Vault desktop app window shows the Project Backups dashboard, with green start and red stop backup buttons across the top and a compact left sidebar for navigation. Below, client backup settings, cloud sync toggles, and a table of recent backup jobs sit in layered panels, lit by blue accents and muted gray text.

Resolve Vault: A Backup Plan for Your Backup Plan

Resolve Vault adds scheduled DRP and PostgreSQL backups, recovery history and Google Drive or Dropbox copies to DaVinci Resolve projects.

DaVinci Resolve editing interface fills the screen, with a media bin of thumbnail clips at upper left, color curves and adjustment controls in the center, and a multitrack timeline stretching across the bottom. On the right, a preview panel shows a close-up of a mechanic working beside a race car wheel, with bold graphics and blue accents under dim workshop lighting.

Unbound: Resolve’s Panels Get Their Own Place

Unbound frees Resolve panels across multiple displays, including live Color controls. A lovely idea, with future compatibility still an open question.

A uniformed skeleton clings to a window lit by an orange fire, with a table and two glasses in the foreground.

Inside the Fusion pipeline of Danse Macabre

Stijn Calis opens up the Fusion Studio pipeline behind Hisko Hulsing's Danse Macabre: 4K EXRs, Cryptomatte, painterly AI stylisation, automation, colour management and a skeleton's reflections.

A dark-themed WireTools interface shows a node-based material editor with floating menus and connected slots for standard material, output, and ramp nodes. The compact panels, gray gradients, and small icon-filled toolbar create a technical, modular layout across a black grid workspace.

WireTools: Less Clicking, Better Connections

WireTools adds drawing, cutting and shake-to-disconnect gestures to Cinema 4D’s Redshift Node Editor. Fewer clicks, with compatibility caveats.

Hands holding an iPhone running Omniscient, showing a LiDAR scan of an outdoor scene at dusk.

Omniscient: Blender Gets a Handheld Camera

Omniscient turns an iPhone into a handheld virtual camera for Blender, with live previews, AR controls and camera animation recording.

A film clapperboard is held in front of a person’s blurred face, with handwritten scene notes and bright red digital numbers across the slate. The composition is split between a larger playback view on the left and a motion-analysis interface on the right, both set against a dark editing workspace with cool, low-key lighting.

FLAPI: Baselight Beyond the Grading Suite

FilmLight's Jason Peterson, Mustapha Laatita and Steve Chapman explain why FLAPI exists, how it scales, what it costs and what comes next.

A low-angle view of modern skyscrapers reaching toward a twilight sky, with the text'vrbn' and the tagline 'We create 3D cities.' prominently displayed in white. The buildings are surrounded by a serene blue atmosphere. — Advertisement

Recent Articles for Subscribers

8 minute read

Building Apps for Autodesk Flow with Python (and Claude)

I show you how to build useful Autodesk Flow tools with Python, where pipeline automation gets difficult, and what Claude can and cannot do.

A dark-themed CineMon 2 editor shows two stacked preview panels of the same foliage scene, with the upper image muted and the lower one vividly color graded. Delicate branches and yellow blossoms fill the frame against a blurred purple background, while a left sidebar and top toolbars frame the workspace in a dense, modern layout.

8 minute read

CineMon 2 – now a Videorecorder and Audiomixer

CineMon 2 adds video recording, audio mixing and dual-input monitoring. Our Mac review explores image quality, timecode and capture limitations.

Dark-themed ohm.rent DEMO booking dashboard showing the Blackmagic Pocket 6K EF selected in a gear list on the left, with its camera image, details, and a color-coded March 2026 calendar on the right. The layout uses compact panels, white text, and orange, red, and green reservation blocks with a sleek, technical look.

9 minute read

ohm.rent: Who Has the camera This Time?

Cameras, kits and calendar collisions: Alexander Vexler discusses ohm.rent, university equipment loans and keeping rental chaos out of the picture.

A dark-themed photo editing interface displays a vivid pink flower in the main preview, with soft green leaves blurred behind it. Color wheels, gradient sliders, and a filmstrip of thumbnail frames line the right side and bottom, suggesting detailed color grading in a compact studio workspace.

7 minute read

BlackRAW – a pocket-sized Studio

BlackRAW Studio brings BRAW and ProRes RAW playback, grading, proxies and NLE hand-off to iPhone and iPad. We test its speed and workflow limits.

Glowing blue dot-matrix text reading “INSTANCER 2D” on a dark black background, with evenly spaced digital pixels forming a clean, futuristic sign. The strong neon-like contrast and minimal composition create a sleek, technical look.

10 minute read

Fridays for Fusion & Instancer2D: Foudini’s Copy to Points

Instancer 2D brings procedural 2D instancing, Fields, atlas textures and GPU performance to Fusion and other OpenFX hosts.

Glowing gold crown with blue gems in a neon data-center backdrop, celebrating 25 years

37 minute read

The Royal Way to Render

In 2001, render farms were local, internet connections still screamed through telephone lines, and launching jobs across several machines could consume an entire evening. Holger Schoenberger founded Binary Alchemy to remove some of that…

7 minute read

All the World’s Codecs out of DaVinci Resolve

InterX brings FFmpeg-backed encoding, compliance checks and deep codec controls straight into DaVinci Resolve’s Deliver page on macOS.

A dark, cinematic split-screen shows a color calibration interface on the left and a mirrored chef at a stove on the right. Neon green, red, and cyan accents contrast with the warm orange glow of cooking flames, creating a sleek, technical visual.

32 minute read

Baselight 8: The feature list is the easy part

FilmLight explains why Baselight 8 adds mastering-focused audio tracks, a new linear-light grain model, Color Crosstalk, Color Correlation and ML-assisted Groups View.

A man with short hair sits with hands clasped, smiling confidently next to a collage of images showcasing fire, landscapes, spherical objects, textures, and a house model. The background features the text'das element Asset Library Software'. — Advertisement

A warmly lit living room centers on a polished wooden upright piano with open sheet music, flanked by a simple chair and a cream armchair with a pale cushion. Bookshelves, framed art, a table lamp, and a small coffee table with a mug and book fill the cozy, amber-toned interior.

Arnold 7.5.4: Pixels, Pauses and Speed

Arnold 7.5.4 adds a Shader Imager, faster viewport previews, true render pausing, rim lighting and major scene-update improvements.

Beeble SwitchHDR 2.0: 4K, 480 Frames and an AI Tool With an Actual Purpose

Beeble SwitchHDR 2.0 adds native 4K, 480-frame HDR reconstruction, selectable 16-bit EXR color spaces, mattes and practical pipeline controls.

A DaVinci Resolve editing workspace fills the screen, with stacked video and audio tracks on the left and a multicam preview grid on the right showing several interview shots. Dark panels, blue and green timeline clips, and thin playback controls create a dense technical layout, lit by the monitor’s cool UI tones.

DaVinci Resolve 21.2: New Touches, More Fixes, and One Tired News Writer

DaVinci Resolve 21.2 adds MacBook Pro touchscreen support, Gen 6 LUTs, AI assistant refinements and a long list of fixes. Our news writer requests a brief nap.

A three-panel graphic shows skulls, stones, and donuts arranged in vertical columns under the headline “Drop in any mesh.” The textured objects fill each panel tightly, with dark browns, gray rubble, and pale glazed rings creating a bold contrast.

Physics Scatter: Substance Meets Gravity

Physics Scatter drops OBJ/FBX meshes into a real rigid-body pile, then bakes seamless material maps up to 8K inside Substance Designer.

A dark-themed test-pattern interface displays a centered grid of colored bars and grayscale squares on a black panel. The layout is framed by narrow control menus on both sides, with the vivid blocks arranged in neat rows against the muted dashboard background.

Open Test Patterns Joins ASWF DPEL: Finally, the Right Bars

Open Test Patterns generates exact SMPTE bars, HDR luminance steps and reference frames for color-pipeline QC, with inspectable values and production formats.

A dense 3D garden cluster of tropical and temperate foliage, with tall palm trees, a weeping willow, and layered shrubs growing on a small grassy mound. The varied textures and vivid greens are arranged in a compact, isolated composition against a black background, creating a lush botanical display.

3DGarden: Vegetation Without File Gardening

3DGarden supplies scanned vegetation for ForestPack. We examine asset counts, library paths, distribution controls and renderer compatibility.

A digital sculpting interface shows a gray clay-like bust of a lion with a flowing mane centered on a small pedestal. Tool panels line the dark workspace, while soft neutral lighting highlights the sculpture’s carved texture and rounded contours.

SculptForge 0.9.3: Free Clay, Big Ambitions

SculptForge offers free cross-platform sculpting, Blender and Unreal links, retopology and phone scanning. We haven't tested it. Have you?

Dark PHOTON audio editor interface with a multicolored waveform stretching across the main timeline, flanked by a slim control panel on the right. Thin blue peaks and layered pink, green, and gold bands sit against a black workspace, creating a technical, studio-like look.

iZotope Photon: Fixing Production Audio Without Becoming an Audio Engineer

Twelve locally processed AI models for dialogue repair, speaker separation and the especially useful trick of removing background music from a finished video. Photon for picture editors, not just audio engineers.

A 3D set-building interface shows a small room with wood flooring, gray walls, and curtained windows, viewed from an angled top-down perspective. Floating panels display a camera preview of a woman’s face, while a selected bounce board and scene controls sit around the workspace in muted grays and greens.

KaveLight: Build Sets, Keep Your Fingers

Plan the set, discuss the frame and sort out the lighting: KaveLight brings Mac-based previs into the conversation before the shoot.

A 3D modeling workspace shows a glossy magenta aircraft or mech design with angular panels, gold accents, and a glowing orange core. The object fills the center against a dark viewport, while tool panels and settings surround it on the right and along the top.

Ucupaint 3.0: More Paint, Less Panic

Ucupaint 3.0 brings adjustment layers, dedicated displacement channels, unified previews and more flexible texture baking to Blender.

Two Sony RIALTO 65 cinema camera setups are shown side by side on a neutral gray background. The compact camera bodies are connected by cables to large lenses, with one lens mounted on the left and another camera rig on the right, creating a clean product-display composition.

Sony RIALTO 65: Bigger Sensor, Same VENICE 2

Sony’s RIALTO 65 adds 9.6K 65mm capture to VENICE 2, with dual-base ISO, 16-bit X-OCN and a detachable head. Shipping is planned for 2027.

Two professional cameras on tripods frame a snowy mountain landscape on a large studio screen, with rock-like props and snow-covered set pieces in the foreground. Cool blue-white lighting and the clean, open stage create a polished broadcast-production scene.

Nuke Stage 1.2: DMX, LTC and the Mac Wait

Nuke Stage 1.2 adds sACN lighting control, LED output mapping and audio LTC. The promised macOS version is still scheduled for early access in 2027.

A SketchUp 2027 workspace shows a 3D urban street scene with a glass-fronted building, rooftop greenery, and small white human figures on the sidewalk. Toolbars line the top and left edges, while the Shadows panel and other trays sit open on the right, giving the interface a dense, technical layout.

SketchUp 2027: The Small 3D Toolbox for Post

When postproduction needs a building, shot layout or 3D-printed greeblies, SketchUp 2027 offers approachable modeling with smarter procedural tools.

Dark grid-based Houdini canvas with a handwritten white oval circling a checklist that includes points on spiral, golden angle, size and color by point, copy petals to points, and lookdev. A small flower reference and a video thumbnail sit below, while orange notes and arrows mark a 360° golden angle overlay.

Finally, No More Post-its: Procedural Canvas for Houdini

Your Monday coffee comes with welcome desk clearance: Procedural Canvas keeps references, sketches, VEX and notes inside Houdini. Save one Post-it for its name.