For those who don’t know the tool: image-blaster sits between concept and rough layout, using Claude to orchestrate Marble from World Labs and write splat environment files you can move into DCCs and engines.

The headline feature is the splat

image-blaster takes a single reference image and, by default, generates a Gaussian splat of the static environment as an .spz file. This splat is a static environment output, separate from any object meshes or audio it may also generate. It runs as a Claude driven workflow where you put an image into the input folder and ask Claude to blast it while confirming each step.

That .spz environment output targets the fast part of production where you need space, scale, and a place to put cameras. If your team already tracks experiments for gaussian splats, this lands squarely in that bucket, with the advantage that the output arrives as a file on disk rather than a locked viewer.

There is also a time claim of under five minutes to go from image to a fully meshed 3D environment. Treat that as a marketing claim and validate it against your own network, machine, and API limits before you build expectations around it.

Marble, SPZ, and what you actually get

image-blaster lists marble-1.1 as the world generation model it uses for the explorable environment. In practice, that means the environment representation you get from the Marble side is an SPZ splat file. SPZ is Marble’s native splat format, optimised for file size, while PLY is an uncompressed format compatible with more Gaussian splat software packages.

If you plan to wire this into a pipeline, the file format matters more than the demo. SPZ tends to travel well when you stay inside the same ecosystem, and PLY tends to travel well when you want broader compatibility. World Labs also documents a common gotcha: default generated worlds use an OpenCV coordinate system, while many DCC applications use an OpenGL coordinate system, so correcting for that by scaling the Y and Z axes by minus one while keeping X unchanged is necessary. We learned that the hard way.

Splat assets exported by the API use arbitrary model units, not meters, and points to semantics metadata values that can be used for metric scale and ground alignment. That is the kind of detail you want early, because nothing burns time like a “looks fine in the viewer” asset that arrives in the wrong coordinate frame once you ingest it. And, let’S be honest, generated stuff lacks in consistency, and everybody knows. Plan for that!

The workflow is orchestration, not a single model

image-blaster frames itself as a set of skills that orchestrate multiple models. Marble handles the environment generation path that results in the SPZ splat for the static environment. The repository has other models it can involve for cleanup and object generation, but you can treat those as optional if your goal is strictly to generate splats from images.

You run the Claude CLI, provide API keys for World Labs and fal, then feed an image and guide the process via prompts. The repository even includes a development note about removing the app folder from the Claude ignore file if you want Claude to change the React viewer. That means the output can become part of a toolchain rather than a one off experiment. You can keep the same wrapper, swap inputs, and iterate, which is usually what artists actually want when they say “make it usable.”

Where splats meet real tools

image-blaster says you can embed it under the assets of a game engine, DCC software, or a web app. It explicitly names Blender as a target DCC and calls out Three.js for web apps.

image-blaster is open source under the MIT license, but the environment generation step relies on paid APIs. World Labs API billing runs on credits purchased through the World Labs Platform, and credits purchased for the Marble app cannot be used with the API. The API pricing page has a fixed rate of 1.00 USD per 1,250 credits, with a minimum purchase of 6,250 credits or 5.00 USD.

Pipeline advice that saves you from yourself

Splat workflows reward quick iteration and punish sloppy ingestion. Lock down where SPZ files live, how they are versioned, and who converts them, especially if you plan to move between coordinate systems or into other formats. Also, test new tools and innovations before use in production. Verify coordinate orientation, scale, file integrity, and viewer behavior before anyone depends on the output for layout, virtual scouting, or client reviews.

https://github.com/neilsonnn/image-blaster
https://www.worldlabs.ai/
https://docs.worldlabs.ai/marble/export/specs

The post Image Blaster turns images into Splats first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Conform.Tools sits between offline and finishing, moving timelines and media between Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, and Autodesk Flame.

What we actually found, minus the wishcasting

The headline feature here is not another file format translator. It is the idea of connected conform as a first-class workflow, with a desktop hub that plugs into finishing instead of living in a folder of one-off scripts.

Plenty of post teams already know how to brute-force a conform. The time sink comes from the repeatable stuff: checks, alignment, searching, and the endless scavenger hunt of tiny fixes that should have been a button. Conform.Tools sells that button collection as Conform Connect, and it keeps pushing the connected part as the point, not a footnote.

Also, yes, the timing feels pointed. If Flame still would push connected conform (Flame-Community: Gentle Encouragement, like Lightwave in 2015!) New tools and innovations should be tested before use in production, especially when they promise to remove steps you currently rely on to catch mistakes.

The desktop hub is in public beta

Conform Connect now has a desktop app as hub -it plugs into DaVinci Resolve 19 and later, and it supports auto-updates after the first install. It is a public beta with feedback welcomed. The release information lists Public Beta version 0.2.10 with the system requirements call out macOS 11 Big Sur or later, Windows 10 or 11 on x64 or ARM64, and Linux on a modern x64 or ARM64 distribution with WebKitGTK. DaVinci Resolve 19 or later is recommended. Resolve Studio is also recommended because some tools rely on the Fusion scripting API, which is gated to Studio licenses by Blackmagic Design. Tools that require Studio are greyed out on the free version.

Install guidance includes setting external scripting to Local inside Resolve preferences, then restarting Resolve so the change takes effect. After that, the desktop app is described as finding Resolve automatically and enabling the toolkit. The conform world has seen plenty of tools that claim they will fix the last mile, then collapse into manual steps the moment the edit gets spicy. So test the cnoform tools on a real-world timeline before you bet a deadline on it.

Pricing that reads like a spreadsheet, in a good way

The pricing page spells out a 14-day free trial for every new account with no credit card required. Pay As You Go is listed at $0 per month with no commitment, with Timeline Exchange priced at $0.05 per shot and i2o transfer priced at $0.25 per GB, plus email support.

Indie is listed at $49 per month for one seat. It includes 2,000 shots per month, 250GB of free i2o transfer per month, seven-day file retention, Conform Connect basic tools, and email support. Pro Team is listed as the most popular plan at $199 per month for three seats. It includes 10,000 shots per month, 2TB of free i2o transfer per month, 30-day file retention, Conform Connect core tools, and priority email support.

Studio Enterprise is listed as contact us for 10 or more seats. It includes unlimited shots, unlimited i2o transfer, 90-day file retention, Conform Connect full suite, air-gapped timeline exchange, dedicated email support, and custom workflow solutions. A yearly toggle advertises a 17 percent savings, and the yearly view shows Indie at $490 per year and Pro Team at $1990 per year.

If that lands, it feels less like a utility and more like a workflow layer for Color Grading and finishing. If it does not, it will join the pile of “helpful” tools that add one more moving part to delivery week. Either way, run a controlled test first, and let your own pipeline decide how much magic you can tolerate.
https://conform.tools/

P.S We found the suite when we were looking for a file size calculator – https://conform.tools/data-calc/ came up, and proved to be useful, as they can even generate Framing Charts! It’s a mixed box of tools alright…..

The post conform.tools’ Connected conform gets a desktop beta first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Blender uses Blender Cycles for path-traced rendering, and viewport denoising helps lookdev stay interactive while lighting and materials evolve.

The news, minus the confetti

NVIDIA says Blender Cycles will integrate DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction as a new denoiser and ship it with Blender 5.3 in the fall. The goal is a more interactive viewport while keeping a “near-final” look in real time.

DLSS Ray Reconstruction targets ray-traced and path-traced content and replaces traditional hand-tuned denoisers with an AI model that reconstructs pixels in noisy areas where rays were not sampled. It also unifies denoising and Super Resolution into a single model that uses temporal and spatial engine data to rebuild higher fidelity images. Usually, that is for games – you need all the pixels and all the fidelities for veggie-mode in Microsoft Flight Simulator (Don’t Judge, the Dune expansion is great!) Here is a list of all Games that have that, and in that list, you can even spot Redshift, Marmoset and Keyshot. Strange calling those “Games”, but who hasn’t lost to a renderer?

The same announcement says DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction arrives in August for games, and it is also coming to Blender 5.3 in the fall. That timeline matters for anyone planning tool rollouts around seasonal show crunch. Prep first,so you don’t have a bad surprise up ahead.

What changes inside Cycles

Cycles already has an integration path via NVIDIA OptiX. The new piece is DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction as another denoiser option, layered on top of the existing OptiX integration.

If you spend your days in a path-traced viewport, denoising is not a luxury feature. It is the thing that keeps lighting decisions moving. A denoiser that keeps interaction up while pushing the look closer to final could reduce the familiar loop of tweak, wait, squint, tweak again. This sits squarely in the Blender Cycles ecosystem: you still light and shade the same way, you still render the same way, but the viewport becomes less of a tax on iteration.

The longer arc from hacks to shipping builds

Back in February 2026, Blender artist Blake Propst tested a Blender 5.1 build with DLSS on an RTX 3090, with reports of numerous bugs and visual issues. A patch also existed that added an option to use DLSS Ray Reconstruction for viewport denoising in Cycles, and users were encouraged to test Blender 5.1 beta and report issues toward a stable release.

Blender With DLSS!
byu/bbcool2002 inblender

That earlier phase sounded like classic early integration energy: exciting demos, messy edges, lots of caveats, and a very human amount of duct tape. It did prove one thing, though: artists wanted it badly enough to put up with rough builds, because interactive path tracing is still a wrok in progress on most desks. Now the situation shifts from experiments to a shipping target in Blender 5.3.

What DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction claims it does

DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction uses a second generation transformer model. It is improving image quality in ray-traced and path-traced content, and the announcement lists changes such as higher compute capability, more parameters processed while maintaining similar performance to the previous model, better temporal stability, and clearer motion in ray-traced and path-traced scenes. For artists, the practical question is not whether the model sounds clever. The practical question is whether it behaves well under production pressure: animated textures, fast camera moves, thin geometry, alpha heavy foliage, refractive messes, and the kind of lookdev that loves to change one variable per second.

Viewport denoising is where time disappears

A big chunk of render pain is not final frames. It is the time you spend waiting for a viewport to become readable enough to make the next decision. A clean enough image lets you judge lighting ratios, contact shadow behavior, glossy breakup, and whether your material values drift into plastic. A noisy image forces you to wait, or worse, to guess.

The boring parts you still need to know

Pricing is not specified in the sources – propably will be part of drivers or blender itself, so should be free. Read the T&C before downloading, though.

Hardware requirements are not spelt out for Blender beyond the general statement that DLSS Ray Reconstruction works on all GeForce RTX GPUs. The Blender sources mention testing on an RTX 3090 and as part of an RTX focused stack, but they do not provide minimum GPU or driver versions for the Blender 5.3 integration. We’ll see.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/computex-2026-nvidia-geforce-rtx-announcements/

The post NVIDIA brings DLSS denoising to Blender 5.3 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

In this video, we are taking a look at the ongoing effort of the Otoy team to modernise the Cinema 4D Plugin with “quality of life” improvement, as well as newly added features such as the “Material Link”. If you are an Octane C4D user, don’t miss out on this video. I bet you find one or more useful things in there!

CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro
00:32 Tut Overview
01:24 C4D Octane Material Link
03:03 C4D Octane UI Improvements
03:19 C4D Octane Scene / Plugin Settings
03:48 C4D Octane Imager UI
04:12 C4D Octane Rest Position Tag Improvements
04:18 C4D Octane Null Material Improvements
04:40 C4D Octane Nodes Selection Improvements
04:49 C4D Octane Round Edge / Mat Layer ON
05:18 C4D Octane Live Viewer Color Rollout
05:36 C4D Octane Live Viewer Scaling
05:51 C4D Octane Improved Node Previews
06:11 C4D Octane Node Color4 options
06:32 C4D Octane Attribute Node String
07:19 C4D Octane Clamp Edge Displacement
07:47 C4D Octane C4D OCIO support!
09:41 Conclusion
10:23 Patreon Thanks

Download the Tut Scene by becoming a Patreon member. No matter which tier!

VIDEO RELATED LINKS:
Maxon’s Official Website: https://www.maxon.net/
Octane C4D Otoy Official Website: https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewfor…

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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a VFX artist spends too much time obsessing over pixels and lighting, well, welcome to my world! You can find all my latest experiments, tutorials, and general nerdy shenanigans here:

Website: silverwing-vfx.de
Patreon: patreon.com/SilverwingVFX (Get scenefiles for all of my tutorial scenes also while supporting me)
Instagram: instagram.com/silverwingvfx (Finished 3D projects and engagement with the community)
YouTube: youtube.com/@SilverwingVFX (Updates and news about my work and what I am up to)

And if you’re into retro gaming and deep-dive nostalgia, check out the big article I wrote for this magazine: my love letter to the legendary Game Boy. Because nothing says “true love” like an 8-bit screen and a battery life that could outlast modern smartphones.

The post C4D Octane: 1.9.x Update Features Video first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Raphael Rau.

For those who don’t know the tool: True Sky is a sky, atmosphere, and HDRI tool inside Blender for Cycles only. It targets lighting and environment lookdev, and it sits alongside tools like True Terrain 5 for building full outdoor shots.

A sky rig that insists on real scale

True Sky by True VFX is an Earth atmosphere you can fly through, built around planet-scale scattering so a single scene can move from ground level to lunar orbit. It brings a 1-to-1 Earth radius scale and a 100 km atmospheric depth (otherwise known as the Karman Line). True Sky 3 exposes Rayleigh, Mie, and ozone layers with real-world coefficients. Or at least so it claims.

But there is more: Celestial objects, including the sun, moon, all nine planets, asteroid belts, and custom emitters with true orbital positions and scalable sizes. It also has aurora and rings support. If you work in the Blender ecosystem, the practical thing is consistency: the same sky rig aims to cover horizon shots, timelapses, and space fly-bys without swapping HDRIs or rebuilding a world shader per shot. Just remember that new tools and innovations should be tested before use in production, especially when volumes sit at the center of your lighting, and te tool is all around your scene.

Cycles only, Blender 5.1 only, and here is why

The listing states it is compatible with Cycles only and does not support Eevee. It also has Blender Version 5.1 as the minimums, since Blender 5.1 changed its underlying Python version, which required rebuilding the Python modules the add-on needs and made it not backward compatible. You can access older files that worked in Blender 4.5, but those may miss some optimizations.

Exposure, HDRIs, and the classic pure white sky moment

By the way, a common first-run surprise is a pure white sky. The tool uses real world values, which can overblow images by default, and suggests adjusting exposure. Enable Exposure in the TrueSKY panel path Misc, Effects, Exposure, then lower exposure around minus 4.0 and setting opacity to 1.0.

The same FAQ notes a compositor gotcha: if compositing applies only to camera views, the background can look correct in camera but blow out in the viewport. It recommends switching Compositing Mode from Camera to Always.

Performance controls that behave like a shot budget

The dedicated docs describe a Performance panel built to balance quality and speed for volumetrics, clouds, and heavy effects. It splits into Presets, Volumes, and Extras. Presets provide a Volume Preset baseline, plus Steps Mode with Fast Steps for lookdev and Accurate Steps for flying through volumes or horizon-heavy shots. It also has a Quality Mode where Fast increases effective step size and Accurate reduces step size, plus a Fast Viewport toggle that doubles viewport step size for quicker previews. The docs suggest a simple strategy: Fast Steps plus Fast Quality for blocking, then switch to Accurate for finals. Not Revolutionary, but appreciated. Why not call it Proxy?

Volumes exposes per-layer controls, including an Atmosphere Quality slider and per-layer Cloud Quality sliders, plus an Altitude Weighting toggle that lets higher cloud layers use slightly lower quality for speed. The docs recommend raising only the hero cloud layer rather than cranking everything globally.

Extras include viewport and render helpers like viewport and camera render regions, pixel size for faster viewport renders on high-resolution screens, and tile size for CPU-friendly final renders. If you want the shortest possible summary: True-VFX gives you a place to decide what gets quality, what gets speed, and what gets left alone until the director stops moving the camera. And that is almost always the same place you wanted to put it in the first version, but ….

Pricing and licensing

True Sky 3 is early access and sets an early access price at 40 USD, 50 USD release price. Also, there is a separate Lifetime Updates option at 250USD. Licensing is GPL, and the tool can be maintained or customised by the user even after official support ends. Updates are included for the 3.x series, and a planned 15 USD upgrade fee for a future 4.0. A portion of each product sale is donated to the Blender Foundation (about 5 per cent), and 13,000 USD have already been donated by the community supporting the product line.

https://superhivemarket.com/products/true-sky?ref=586
https://truesky-documentation.pages.dev/
https://www.true-vfx.xyz/

The post True Sky 3 brings planet-scale skies to Blender first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Massive is a standalone crowd simulation app for building agent scenes, with Arnold rendering, and ties into wider Maya and USD pipelines via the commercial line.

Free, but not aimless

A free edition of Massive Crowd Sim is available for non-commercial use. The core promise is simple: crowd simulation with no limits on agent capabilities, and no limits on the number or complexity of agents in a scene. That makes it a legit learning build, not a teaser that stops when you finally get a crowd moving without looking like a synchronized swimming team. The catch sits where you would expect it: renders are watermarked, and the supported renderers list stays short at the moment, with Arnold plus the built-in Velocity renderer listed as supported.

What you actually get day one

The free edition ships with a complete set of video tutorials and a stack of demo scenes. The demos cover a wide range of setups, including quadrupeds, insects, rigid body dynamics, flying, and shooting. That mix matters, because crowd work rarely stays politely bipedal for long, except Military Propaganda Goosestepping, but the studios doing that don’t need free software and have ALL the budget.

Installation is refreshingly old-school

Setup reads like a throwback in a good way. Download the installer, unzip or untar, and run it. On Windows, you run the installer. On Linux, you drop the bin directory into /usr/local/massive/. The manual can be unzipped wherever you want.

After that, the only required step is to activate the license. Optional environment variables exist, with details documented in the manual. If your pipeline team loves containers, reproducible installs, and predictable paths, this is the rare vendor workflow that does not try to reinvent software deployment. The free edition still expects you to behave like a grown-up about where binaries live, especially on Linux.

Licensing: one machine, one account, bring patience

The first launch triggers a license activation window. You enter the same username and password you use for the Massive 101 forum login. If activation succeeds, the license file lands in the .massive directory in your home directory, then the app starts. After that first activation, the app starts immediately as long as the license remains valid.

There is also a hard limit: only one active license is allowed per account, and a six month delay applies before a new license can be issued. That detail matters for lab setups, shared training workstations, and anyone who reformats their OS the way some people change socks. Not judging, just sayin’.

This is also where a free edition stops being magic and becomes process. If you plan to teach a class or run a studio workshop, design around the one active license rule early, not five minutes before teh first session.

Support: community-first, by design

Because the edition is free and limited to non-commercial use, there is no formal support provided. Instead, the Massive 101 forum exists as the help channel, where users can share tips, ideas, and problem solving.

The forum post also says the team will keep an eye on it, and there might be some input from them. If you are used to commercial support tickets with response time targets, this is not that. If you are used to production artists helping other production artists with practical workarounds, this looks familiar, for better or worse.

Export and pipeline limits you should treat carefully

Massive 101 is almost completely fully functional, with the full simulation toolset and no limits on the number or complexity of agents. It also has specific pipeline restrictions, including that motion, cloth, and hair simulation files save in a Massive 101 file format that cannot be used in Massive Prime, plus that USD and geometry export are disabled.

That incompatibility for Massive 101 and the big one is that there isn’t a row of “Assistant stations” for setup, and only one license for the big Massive to bring it all together.

Those details are important if your goal is anything beyond learning and internal tests. Watermarked renders are an obvious non-starter for client finals, but disabled export can be a more subtle trap if you assume you can “just move it into the rest of the pipeline later”. If your studio pipeline leans on USD interchange, treat this as a training build unless you can independently confirm the exact export behavior in your own testing.

Compatibility and pricing, as stated

Compatibility is Windows 10 and Linux, and free for non-commercial use. For commercial pricing, a perpetual floating license of Massive Prime is at $3500, with rental at $2500 per year, and says Massive Prime includes Massive for Maya.

Where this fits with your current crowd toolbox

If you already live inside the Crowdsim-world, this release sits in a useful niche: training, R and D, seeing if Massive fits your needs, personal skill building, and previs-scale experiments where you want to learn behavior authoring without immediately paying for seats.

For teams already hooked on Maya, the commercial ecosystem includes a Maya-integrated edition, and the broader stack talks about rendering integration and pipeline hooks across supported renderers. That larger ecosystem matters, but the free edition itself focuses on learning and local runs, not studio deployment. Also, Maya, by now, has Golaem built in.

https://www.massivesoftware.com/massive101.html

https://www.massivesoftware.com/massive101/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2

The post Massive Crowd Sim gets a free 101-edition first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Beeble is a AI based VFX toolset built around video to video processing, including SwitchX for background replacement, object inpainting, and relighting, plus Switch Light for generating compositing passes such as normals, albedo, roughness, specular, metalness, depth, and alpha.

The short version: yes, you can use it in Nuke

The Nuke Plugin enables a workflow that stays inside Nuke: load a pass set, connect it to a controller, then drive lighting with dedicated nodes. It targets relighting work where you want quick iterations without building a full CG relight setup from scratch, but still want predictable inputs and knobs you can animate. You need Nuke 14.1v2 or newer. The plugin is working on Windows and macOS. If your show sits on Linux, that missing test line matters.

Install: one folder, one line, one restart

Installation is classic Nuke: unzip the plugin folder, move the Beeble folder into your .nuke directory, then add a single plugin path line to init.py. On macOS, the target path is ~/.nuke/Beeble/. On Windows, it is C:\Users.nuke\Beeble. After restart, the plugin appears on the toolbar as a new menu.

If you want the lowest-drama rollout on a facility machine, treat it like any other Nuke plguin deployment: version the folder, keep init.py changes minimal, and test on a clean user profile before you touch shared configs.

What the plugin actually wants: a very specific PBR stream

The plugin’s key constraint is the PBR multi layer format. It expects a single image stream containing multiple Nuke layers named Source, Normal, Basecolor, Roughness, Specular, and Metallic. The node reference calls this “PBR multi layer stream” the core input, and the controller and light nodes all build on it.

There are three supported ways to feed it: EXR sequences, PNG sequences, or MP4 videos. EXR needs each frame to carry multiple passes packed into layers in a single EXR file per frame, such as Frame_000001.exr. PNG and MP4 need one pass per sequence or video, arranged so the loader can map names to the expected pass inputs.

This is also where the tool draws a hard line between convenience and correctness: if your pass naming or folder layout drifts, import stops being one click.

Load PBR Passes: the most important button is the first one

The Quick Start flow begins in the Nuke toolbar: Beeble, then Load PBR Passes. You point it at an unzipped folder of VFX passes. For PNG, the folder must contain subfolders for each pass, and each subfolder holds a PNG sequence like Normal/Normal_000001.png. For MP4, the folder must include one video per pass named .mp4 such as Normal.mp4.

When you load PNG or MP4, the plugin automatically creates a PBRPacker node to pack the six inputs into a single multi layer stream. For EXR sequences, the PBRPacker is not needed because the passes are already packed into layers. If you ever need to build the stream by hand, the helper menu exposes PBR Packer, and it takes exactly six inputs in this order: Source, Normal, Basecolor, Roughness, Specular, Metallic.

PBR Controller: fix the material before you blame the light

After import, the plugin creates a PBRController node. It exists for one reason: adjust pass intensities and blending before lighting.

Source Blend ranges from 0 to 1 and blends between BaseColor at 0 and Source at 1. Roughness Exposure, Specular Exposure, and Metallic Exposure each run from minus 2 to 2 and adjust intensity in stops. This is the difference between a light that looks wrong and a material that was weighted wrong.

If you plan to publish a facility preset, this is the node to standardize. It is also the node to keyframe if you need a shot that shifts from dry to wet, but still stays within the same pass set.

Lights: three nodes, clear ranges, and a Merge plus

Lighting lives under Beeble, then Lights. The basic rule stays consistent: connect the PBRController output to the light input, tweak properties, then stack more lights with a Merge set to plus. That Merge plus step is explicitly called out for multi light setups.

Directional Light exposes a horizontal rotation from 0 to 360 degrees and a vertical rotation from minus 90 to 90 degrees, plus light color and an intensity multiplier that starts at 0 and defaults to 1.0.

Point Light exposes XY position in pixels, Z depth from minus 5 to 5, light color, intensity starting at 0 with default 1.0, decay starting at 0 with default 2.0 described as inverse square, and maxDistance starting at 0 where 0 means infinite reach.

Environment Light applies image based lighting using an HDRI and takes two inputs: the PBR multi layer stream plus the HDRI. The Quick Start notes you load the HDRI file and connect it to the light input. The node reference describes HDRI as the second input, and the environment light output is RGBA like the other light nodes.

Limits and gotchas you should not ignore

The documentation states the prerequisites clearly: Nuke 14.1v2 or newer, tested on Windows and macOS. It also defines the pass set rigidly as six layers in one packed stream. If your pipeline produces additional passes like depth or alpha, the Nuke Plugin page does not list them as inputs for the PBR stream.

Use it where you can afford to iterate and where the pass set stays stable across the shot. Lock your ingest, standardize your pass naming, then let artists work with Directional, Point, and HDRI lights like they would in any comp, with the added bonus that they can animate light behavior using regular Nuke tools. And yes, test it before you commit. New tools are great at demos and even better at breaking when a client sends a new plate at 2am.

https://docs.beeble.ai/integration/nuke-plugin
https://docs.beeble.ai/tutorial/nuke-tutorial

Suggested tags:

The post Beeble Nuke plugin: relight with passes first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Most character work starts the same way. You open reference files, squint, and interrogate the footage frame by frame. How low do the hips drop. Where is the apex of the arc. How long does the hangtime last. You scrub, pause, scrub again, and yes, sometimes you cry a little.

KZ_Tracker exists because that manual extraction feels absurdly slow when the goal is just a first pass with honest timing. The developer built it to grab motion information directly from video and get a quick blocking pass moving, without turning the process into a full motion capture production.

KZ_Tracker wants to convert tracked movement into something animators can push around in a scene, edit aggressively, and treat as a starting point rather than a finished performance.

What KZ_Tracker actually does in Maya

KZ_Tracker lets you track points in video footage and convert them into usable animation curves inside Maya. It generates TX and TY curves depending on perspective and extracts real timing and rough spacing from the footage, so you get immediate motion data you can work with in your shot.

That matters because it keeps the output in animator territory. Curves live where the rest of your work lives. You can reshape timing, adjust spacing, smooth noise, exaggerate arcs, and keep polishing until it reads.

The tool targets the same moment in the workflow where you normally switch from analysis to keys. Instead of manually estimating where a hand peaks or when a prop changes direction, you can track the point and get curves that already contain that motion shape.

A workflow built around clicks, caches, and locators

The intended workflow starts with loading your video and caching it. You then create tracking points by clicking directly on the footage and track them through the sequence. After that, you generate curves onto locators, apply the result, and refine.

The result will still contain a healthy amount of realism. The curves are not perfect, and the tool does not try to replace animation. It tries to replace the nothingness that happens before animatino has any structure, when you are still guessing timing and spacing from a scrub bar.

That approach also makes the tool usable beyond bipeds. Creatures, props, and random objects are the targets that fall outside classic performance capture expectations, where you still want reference-driven motion but do not want to build a full capture setup.

Not mocap, not magic, still useful

KZ_Tracker is simpler and faster 2D mocap, primarily for quick blocking and motion reference rather than final mocap output or even polished animation. You are not getting a solved skeleton. You are not getting a retarget pass. You are getting tracked point motion turned into editable curves that can guide your keys.

In production terms, that can buy real time. A rough pass that nails timing early often beats a clean pass that moves wrong or late or both. Curves from tracked reference can also preserve subtle accelerations and decelerations that are easy to miss when your spacing is done by eyeball.

Layered animation workflows get the spotlight

KZ_Tracker is presented is effective in layered animation workflows, which is how many Maya animators already work, because it lets you treat the tracked motion as a base layer, then build intent and performance on top.

If the track is noisy, you can smooth it. If it is too literal, you can stylize. If it only gets you sixty percent of the way there, that is still sixty percent you did not have to manually reconstruct. You still need taste, cleanup, and shot context. KZ_Tracker just moves the first mile closer.

Compatibility, licensing, and the short film angle

KZ_Tracker is compatible with Microsoft Windows and Maya 2023 and later. It is available as a one-time purchase with no subscription required. The developer says the release aims to help fund the next short film. That is not a feature, but it does explain why the tool ships as a paid product rather than a free experiment.

https://kzanim.gumroad.com/l/KZtracker

The post KZ_Tracker turns video into Maya curves first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

VOXIFY voxelizes meshes while aiming to preserve color and other material maps such as roughness and metallic. The workflow captures UVs, then creates attributes so the voxel result can pull data from the original textures. If you want a drinking game: Take a shot every time we write the word Voxel, and consider your current life choices, when you play drinking games at 8AM in the morning on a Monday, when this news comes out.

The tool targets stylised voxel art renders, LEGO-style renders, game environments, and abstract motion graphics. It also calls itself non-destructive, meaning the setup stays editable as a modifier rather than forcing an immediate apply.

Material support comes with a big practical caveat. The modifier cannot work with simple colour materials or multi-material objects unless you first bake all materials and colours into a single texture, then use that texture for colour transfer. The same rule applies to other maps. VOXIFY works well with 3D-scanned assets, where the look already lives in texture maps.

Import, scale, then touch the voxel size slider

VOXIFY loads into a scene through Blender’s append workflow. You append a VOXIFY collection from the downloaded file, which loads an empty mesh with the Geometry Nodes modifier. Duplicate that empty mesh per asset, then place the duplicate into the working collection for that shot.

Before you voxelize anything, two basics: apply transforms and keep object scale sensible. Applying scale uses the standard apply transform workflow and voxel size behaves like a real world control, so a tiny prop and a skyscraper should not share the same voxel size value. A very large object expects a larger voxel size value, otherwise performance and results fall apart.

Once the base setup behaves, voxel size becomes the main artistic lever. Smaller values create denser voxels. Larger values create chunkier results. That is where VOXIFY tries to feel like a production-friendly knob instead of a one-click filter.

Viewport choices and custom instances

VOXIFY includes controls for how the result displays in the viewport versus final render, switching the viewport representation to a point cloud for optimization, while keeping a voxel look for render. The modifier also supports custom voxel shapes. Instead of instancing cubes, you can instance a user supplied object as the voxel unit. Transparent areas get special handling. The setup includes masking transparent parts by enabling a mask with texture option and feeding an opacity map, so voxels do not fill areas that would never render.

Pruning, carving, and not paying for invisible cubes

Voxelization loves to create internal structure you never see, and VOXIFY exposes controls to deal with that. For transparent textures, the prune and mask controls help stop voxels from spawning in cutout regions. For solid objects, there is an option to remove internal voxels, reducing geometry that would sit inside the mesh and never contribute to the image. That internal removal matters both for render performance and for downstream conversion to a static mesh.

VOXIFY also brings pruning – carving out a more accurate outer shape. The prune section offers two carving methods: raycast and distance. Raycast is more accurate, while distance can help keep more vxoels where you need them. Tolerance controls how aggressively that carving behaves, and it often starts near the same value as voxel size.

Static mesh output, plus the part where topology bites back

VOXIFY includes a generate static mesh option, because internal volume matters here: without volume, the generated static mesh can end up with an unwanted inner wall. Keeping internal structure can provide the volume needed so the static mesh output produces a single outer shell rather than double walls.

Even with volume, a few stray points can remain visible. The cleanup uses a mesh selection workflow to isolate and delete unwanted vertices after generation. For leafy assets like a fern or a tree canopy, the volume approach can introduce unwanted voxels under thin surfaces. A distance tolerance control helps define how much thickness to assume, using a value that matches the thickest meaningful part of the object, such as a trunk when talking about trees (or strangely morphed elephants). Just give the algorithm enough thickness to produce a clean mesh while avoiding filling every thin sheet with junk geometry.

Fixed animation options for rigs and deformers

VOXIFY includes a fixed animation feature designed to avoid revoxelizing the mesh every frame. There is a contrast on an animated object: one mode voxelizes each frame, tracking the deforming shape. Fixed animation instead holds the shape of each voxel as it was first generated, while following the animation. There is a limitation when the animated object expands compared to the source mesh used for voxelization, which can produce gaps between cubes. A static mesh generation option can help close that visual gap, but at the cost of changing the nature of the result.

Fixed animation is especially suitable for animated characters, where deformation usually does not involve large expansion or compression. In practice, that makes it a tool for rigs where you want temporal stability, fewer recalculations, and less flicker from per-frame resampling.

Assembly animation, because everything must explode nicely now

VOXIFY includes assembly animation controls that animate voxels from a starting state into place. An animation factor control with keyframing it from 0 at the start frame to 1 at the end frame. It also flags a practical performance issue: changing the assembly value can be slow because the node graph recomputes upstream operations.

To speed that up, the tutorial demonstrates baking parts of the setup once you stop changing voxelization parameters like voxel size and maps. The idea is to freeze the heavy part of the graph so assembly animation updates closer to real time during iteration.

The assembly system includes a speed scale control that changes how fast each voxel moves from start to destination, affecting how much motion blur you might get. It also includes randomization options to avoid a layer by layer build, plus a distribution control that projects the assembled object onto a disc and uses radius and location to change where assembly starts.

Included is a progressive assembly option that tries to assemble the connected structure first, such as building the trunk before floating branches, or whatever the morphed elephant is made of. It has settings like iterations and selection controls, and the tutorial demonstrates debugging by inspecting selection masks in the viewport using standard node debugging interaction.

All of this remains a reminder that a modifier can feel like magic, until a shot needs determinism. Treat VOXIFY like any new procedural tool: test it on throwaway scenes and verify output stability before you use it in production.

Versions, requirements, storefront reality

VOXIFY requires Blender 5.1 or higher. Superhive has three tiers: Personal Use at 8 USD, Commercial Use at 25 USD, and Studio at 49 USD. The Studio tier is “team use” for up to 5 seats. Superhive also lists render engines used as Cycles and Eevee.

https://superhivemarket.com/products/voxify–mesh-to-voxel-modifier

https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/o5rnD/voxify-blender-mesh-to-voxel-modifier

The post VOXIFY turns Blender Meshes to Voxels and animates first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Veras is AI ideation inside Enscape, V-Ray, and Corona, sitting next to viewport rendering and final-frame output.

Veras stops being a side quest

Chaos has expanded Veras integration beyond Enscape into V-Ray and Corona, positioning AI ideation as a built-in step rather than a separate app. In Corona, Veras works from a screenshot taken from the Corona VFB, and can generate multiple concepts at any stage. It also supports turning a still into a short animation using Veras, with no complex animation setup required. In V-Ray, Veras appears as part of scene setup and ideation, including moodboards and fast look exploration inside the V-Ray workflow.

Credits are the new render tokens

To run the AI features and certain services across Enscape, V-Ray, and Corona, Chaos introduced Chaos Credits as a unified credit system. Credits apply to Veras, AI Upscaler, AI Enhancer, and cloud rendering, with platform availability depending on the feature. Monthly credit allowances come with active subscriptions and reset each billing cycle. Solo plans include 100 credits per month, Premium includes 500, and Collection includes 1,500. Veras standalone plans list 2,000 credits per month for Veras Pro and 6,000 for Veras Ultra. Unused monthly allowance credits do not roll over.

Top-ups also exist as subscription-style credit packs on the Chaos Credits page. A monthly refresh 250 pack is listed at €7.90, a monthly refresh 1000 pack at €23.90, and a monthly refresh 3000 pack at €47.90. Prices do not include taxes. Subscription pricing for the main renderer plans is not specified in the Sources. This is also where the wrokflow question gets real for teams: credits turn AI ideation into something you may want to track like any other billable resource. Or you have to train your artists not to follow ideas as long as the client doesn’t get a bill for them.

One installer to rule the Windows machines

Alongside the AI integration push, Chaos documents a unified installer called Chaos Installer. It installs all purchased products at their latest versions, and it is currently available only for Windows.

During installation, the installer supports two licensing models: Cloud Licensing and a License Server. Cloud Licensing relies on signing in with a Chaos account and using products from any location with an internet connection. The License Server supports centralized network setups and typically requires being on the same local network or connecting through a VPN. If you have ever had to install three different renderers, three license components, and then explain it all to IT, the idea is clear, even before you try it.

Corona 15 leans into animation and review loops

Corona 15 brings a mix of AI, shading, animation, and collaboration updates. On the rendering side, Corona 15 adds a Glints layer in the Physical Material. It also adds behavior where Gaussian splats can interact with GI bounces, letting splats bounce global illumination light onto 3D models.

A unique light override material enables different looks under specific light sources. Corona for Cinema 4D gets initial support for rendering native Cinema 4D particles, described as an early foundation.

On the animation side, Corona for 3ds Max adds faster animation parsing by updating only what changes between frames instead of re-parsing the entire scene each time. Corona also adds Video Collaboration support in Chaos Cloud Collaboration, and it introduces 3D Streaming and 3D walkthroughs via shareable links that viewers can open on any device with no software installation.

New tools and shiny integrations still need a proper test pass before you trust them in production, especially when credits, licensing, the rabid bookkeeping department and AI output variability (e.a, Halluzinations) sit in the same critical path.

https://www.chaos.com/vray

The post Chaos puts Veras everywhere first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Why this monitor?

The Asus ProArt PA27UCGE is a 27-inch 4K monitor aimed at editors, animators, designers, game developers and other people who spend too much of their lives looking at pixels. But why are we talking about that? Because, as you know, the state of the VFX industry is …. *gestures at the world* not great, so budgets for hardware are getting smaller. Let’s be thankful, the AI-Hyperscaler-datacenter-dolts aren’t onto that…. yet.

For 750€, it uses a 3840 x 2160 IPS panel, supports 10-bit color, covers 98 percent DCI-P3 and 100 percent sRGB according to Asus, and reaches up to 160 Hz. Asus also lists HDR10, HLG, VESA DisplayHDR 600, Calman Ready support, Light Illusion ColourSpace CMS integration and an integrated motorized colorimeter for self-calibration and auto-calibration.

At the time of writing, new units can be found around the 750 euro mark in Germany, while used, warehouse or buy-box offers sometimes appear in the roughly 525 to 580 euro range. At that point, the PA27UCGE becomes interesting for anyone who needs a decent everyday display or a secondary screen without spending reference-monitor money.

One warning before ordering: Asus’ ProArt line has several similar-looking models in 24, 27, and 32-inch sizes, plus higher-end variants with different resolutions, HDR specifications, and features. There is also a 6K version, if you are young, have very good eyes, or enjoy turning UI scaling into a lifestyle. Check the exact model number before clicking buy. Displays used to be “screen shows picture”. *sigh*

What Asus says it is

The PA27UCGE is specified as a 27-inch 4K IPS display with a 3840 x 2160 resolution, 178-degree viewing angle, 600 nits brightness, 10-bit color depth, 98 percent DCI-P3 and 100 percent sRGB coverage. Asus states that the monitor is factory calibrated to Delta E below 1. It also supports hardware calibration, storing calibration data in the monitor rather than only relying on an operating-system ICC profile.

The monitor includes an integrated motorized colorimeter. It supports standalone self-calibration via the monitor, ProArt hardware calibration, Calman and Light Illusion ColourSpace CMS. For multi-machine setups, that is useful because the calibration does not only live on one workstation profile, waiting to be ignored by the next application in the chain.

Unlike many calibrated displays that depend on software profiles stored and managed on the connected computer, the PA27UCGE stores its colour parameters internally in the monitor’s scaler chip. That means the calibration lives in the display, not as another small utility lurking in the background of the workstation, quietly taking up RAM. This may not fit every studio colour pipeline, especially where display management is centralised and standardised. But for smaller setups, freelancers, or the classic one-person production, internal hardware calibration is useful: fewer moving parts on the computer, fewer profile-management headaches, and less software debris between the monitor and the work.

The display also supports HDR10 and HLG, with HDR10 PQ curve options such as PQ Hard Clip, PQ Optimized and PQ Basic. In practical terms, that means HDR preview workflows are possible. It does not mean this is a HDR mastering monitor. Those are different animals, usually found in darker rooms with heavier budgets.

What we measured and saw

In our testing, Delta E stayed below 2. We did not measure further because for this use case, that was the relevant threshold. Chasing smaller numbers can be useful in specific environments, but for a general production monitor in this price range, below 2 is already where the discussion becomes less exciting than finishing actual work. The display did not produce one dramatic “behold the future” moment. That is not a criticism.

The integrated colorimeter worked well in our setup. During setup and the first few days, the motor noise of the colourimeter folding out will surprise you. Just sayin’.

Compared to an external colourimeter, it produced reasonable results. If Calman is already part of the workflow, the integrated unit may be enough for regular calibration checks. For critical work, we would still verify with an external probe. Trust is nice. Verification is what keeps production from turning into interpretive color science.

Asus also includes Light Sync, using an ambient light sensor and a backlight sensor to compensate for room and display changes. We did not test this meaningfully because our lighting setup is, technically speaking, unhinged. Any conclusion from that environment would be unfair.

HDR: present, useful, not magic

The PA27UCGE supports HDR10 and HLG, and Asus lists VESA DisplayHDR 600 certification. That makes it useful for HDR preview, editorial review, general video work and content production where HDR material needs to be checked without immediately entering high-end reference-display territory.

It should not be confused with a dedicated HDR grading monitor. For final HDR mastering, this is not the correct class of display. For editing, motion design, VFX review, game development, YouTube delivery checks, HLG preview and general HDR-aware production work, it is usable.

Refresh rate and gaming-adjacent matters

The PA27UCGE supports up to 160 Hz and a variable refresh rate. The feature worked in our testing, but we are not going to pretend to be e-sports authorities. We are not gamers, or possibly just too slow to admit it. Either way, no competitive claims will be made here.

For game development, viewport work, UI animation, fast scrolling, review work and general responsiveness, the higher refresh rate is nice – we set it at a comfortable 120Hz, and promptly forgot about it.

Connectivity and KVM

Connectivity is one of the monitor’s practical strengths. The PA27UCGE includes two HDMI 2.1 ports, DisplayPort 1.4, USB-C with DisplayPort Alt Mode and 96 W Power Delivery, a USB hub, two downstream USB-A ports, one downstream USB-C port, a headphone jack and integrated KVM switching.

The USB-C connection can carry display signal, data, audio and laptop charging over one cable. The USB hub can be used via USB-C or through a separate upstream connection when using HDMI or DisplayPort. For anyone using both a workstation and a laptop, which is nearly everyone now, this is getting rather important, because modern productivity means owning several machines and resenting them all. The integrated Auto KVM was one of the features we liked most in daily use. Once the cabling was understood, it switched reliably between workstation and laptop.

This is especially useful if the workstation is rendering, caching, conforming, exporting or otherwise doing its best impression of a very expensive space heater, while the laptop handles email, notes, admin or other survival tasks like catvideos and videocalls.

One small practical detail: the USB ports become active as soon as the monitor receives a signal and powers up. That means USB-powered accessories connected to the monitor, such as a monitor light, may also switch on immediately. This is not a bug. It is just something to know if you crawl toward the PC, undercaffeinated, and wonder why your desk has suddenly become an interrogation room. Just a random example.

Surface, reflections and physical handling

The PA27UCGE uses Asus’ LuxPixel AGLR surface, an anti-glare and low-reflection coating designed to reduce reflections without making the image look overly soft.

In use, the anti-glare behaviour is exactly where it should be. Reflections are well controlled enough that the screen remains usable even with shiny objects, windows, equipment, or other studio clutter in the background.

The coating does not make the image feel dull or smeared. That is the ideal result for anti-glare: visible in effect, invisible in irritation.

Another pleasant point is the physical handling. Despite the feature set, the monitor feels comparatively light and compact. We used it on a rather questionable monitor arm, and it still felt manageable. As usual with some VESA implementations, the mount area can feel tight depending on the arm or plate used. Not a dealbreaker, just another reminder that “standard” sometimes means “standard, but with tiny practical humiliations”.

Software and production features

Asus DisplayWidget Center allows settings to be adjusted from the desktop rather than through monitor buttons. The monitor also supports Picture-by-Picture and Picture-in-Picture modes, with selectable color modes for the PbP windows. Being able to switch quickly between modes such as Rec.709 and HLG is useful, not just in brochure workflows. The shortcut options are particularly practical. Assigning quick access to presets or safe areas makes sense for video and broadcast work.

DICOM calibration is also included. Asus states that grayscale levels are measured and adjusted to ensure DICOM compliance, which is apparently relevant to medical imaging review workflows. It may also be useful in adjacent technical visualisation contexts where grayscale behaviour matters. It does not magically turn the monitor into a certified diagnostic system, because sadly, context still exists, and we all take all the work we can, so if you go the industrial / medical route, this is helpful to have in the toolbox.

What we did not focus on

The monitor includes Low Blue Light modes. We did not test them in depth because this is not a review about surviving spreadsheets. For office work, they may be useful. For image-critical work, they are obviously not the point. The built-in speakers are fine for occasional YouTube playback, system sounds or emergency use when proper headphones are dead. Nobody should mix on them. Ever.

Verdict

If you need a Class A grading monitor, this is not it. If you need an everyday display for editing, VFX, and so on, the PA27UCGE is a very reasonable option. It does not do anything spectacularly wrong. For a reasonably priced monitor, that is the point.

Technical Notes for the Asus ProArt Display PA27UCGE

Panel: 27-inch IPS
Screen diagonal: 68.6 cm / 27 inches
Resolution: 3840 x 2160
HD type: 4K Ultra HD
Native aspect ratio: 16:9
Touchscreen: no
Display technology: LED
Panel type: IPS
Display surface: LuxPixel AGLR, anti-glare and low-reflection
Viewing angle: 178 degrees horizontal, 178 degrees vertical
Pixel pitch: 0.155 x 0.155 mm
Pixel density: 163 ppi
Visible display area: 59.7 cm horizontal, 33.6 cm vertical
Digital horizontal frequency: 31 to 255 kHz
Digital vertical frequency: 48 to 160 Hz

Brightness: 600 cd/m² typical, 600 cd/m² peak
Contrast ratio: 1000:1
Response time: 1 ms, Gray to Gray
Maximum refresh rate: 160 Hz
Variable refresh rate: yes, via VESA Adaptive Sync
NVIDIA G-SYNC: no
AMD FreeSync: no
Flicker-free technology: yes
Low Blue Light technology: yes

Color depth: 10-bit
Color-space standards: DCI-P3, sRGB
sRGB coverage: 100 percent
DCI-P3 coverage: 98 percent
Factory calibration: Delta E below 1 according to Asus
Measured in our testing: Delta E below 2

HDR support: yes
HDR technologies: HDR10, HLG Pro
Certification: VESA DisplayHDR 600

Calibration: integrated motorized colorimeter
Calibration support: self-calibration, auto-calibration, ProArt hardware calibration
Calibration software support: Calman, Light Illusion ColourSpace CMS
Light Sync: ambient light sensor and backlight sensor
DICOM calibration support: yes

Inputs and connectivity: 2x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, USB-C with DisplayPort Alt Mode
HDMI version: 2.1
DisplayPort version: 1.4
Integrated USB hub: yes
USB hub version: USB 3.2 Gen 1
Downstream USB-A ports: 2
Downstream USB-C ports: 1
USB-C DisplayPort Alt Mode: yes
USB Power Delivery: yes
USB Power Delivery output: up to 96 W
Headphone output: yes
Headphone connector: 3.5 mm
Built-in KVM switch: yes
HDCP: yes
HDCP version: 2.3

Picture-in-Picture: yes
On-Screen Display: yes

Audio: built-in speakers
Number of speakers: 2
Speaker power: 4 W RMS
Integrated camera: no

Ergonomics: height adjustment, tilt, swivel, pivot
Height adjustment: up to 120 mm
Tilt: -5 to +23 degrees
Swivel: -30 to +30 degrees
Pivot: -90 to +90 degrees
VESA mount: yes, 100 x 100 mm
Cable lock slot: yes, Kensington

Dimensions with stand: 612.4 x 201.8 x 574.7 mm
Weight with stand: 6.4 kg
Dimensions without stand: 612.4 x 47.6 x 380.8 mm
Weight without stand: 4.5 kg

Energy efficiency class SDR: F
Energy efficiency class HDR: G
Energy consumption SDR per 1,000 hours: 26 kWh
Energy consumption HDR per 1,000 hours: 66 kWh
Power consumption in standard operation: 27 W
Power consumption standby: 0.4 W
Power consumption off: 0 W
Power consumption PowerSave: 0.5 W
AC input voltage: 100 to 240 V
AC input frequency: 50/60 Hz
Power supply type: internal
Energy efficiency scale: A to G
EPREL registration number: 2216353

Certifications: Energy Star, EPEAT Gold, TÜV Flicker-free, TÜV Low Blue Light, VESA DisplayHDR 600, Calman Ready, FSC MIX, Mac Compliance

Typical new pricing during our checks: around 749 to 750 euros
Observed used / buy-box offers: roughly 525 to 580 euros

Asus ProArt Display PA27UCGE product page

The post Asus ProArt PA27UCGE: A 4K Monitor That Mostly Refuses to Be Annoying first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

What Flow Looper actually does

Flow Looper aims at a very specific pain point: making a still image feel alive without turning it into a full animation project. The core idea centers on drawing a corridor with two splines, then pushing pixels down that corridor and looping the motion with a cross-fade.

That puts it in the same general family as classic flow mapping workflows, but packaged as a Fuse that lives where a lot of Resolve artists already spend their time: the Fusion page. If you ever built a “moving texture down a path” rig in node compositing, you already know the appeal. The win is not that the math exists. The win is that you can hand this to an editor who occasionally opens Fusion, and they might still come back with something usable.

Corridor animation, not a full 2D puppet show

Flow Looper focuses on motion constrained to a defined corridor. You draw the corridor, then the tool handles the continuous movement and looping behavior. The creator describes using several Flow Loopers on a single image to animate different regions. Oh, well.

That corridor constraint matters. It gives you a clear place to cheat motion into a still without needing to invent a full deformation rig. Think steam, fire, drifting energy, or anything that reads as “directional movement” once it repeats cleanly.

The approach also means you can stack multiple instances for layered motion: one corridor for flames, another for smoke, another for embers, each with its own behavior. That layering idea shows up directly in the shared example of a dragon breathing fire, animated by combining multiple instances. At some point, someone will try to animate a face with it. That is fine. That is also how plug-in comment sections become performance art.

Controls: speed shaping, noise, and edges

The feature set goes beyond “make pixels move” and into “make pixels move in a way that does not look like a conveyor belt.” Flow Looper includes start and end flow length controls intended to create acceleration-like behavior, or to keep one end static while the other moves. In practice, that kind of control usually helps sell motion that ramps in, ramps out, or stays anchored so the loop does not scream “tile.”

There is also a turbulence control that varies direction per pixel using noise so the motion does not stay perfectly linear along the corridor.That is the difference between “demo” and “could pass in a shot.” Even small directional variation can break the mechanical look. Edge fading controls aim to blend the flowing region on top of the image more naturally.

The Gumroad listing for Flow Looper shows a price of $12, Which is well worth it, if ou ever had to do something like this, and didn’t have the time for it.

Where this sits in real world Resolve workflows

If you live in editorial and only step into Fusion when the timeline needs “a little something,” Flow Looper looks designed to be that little something, but repeatable and controllable. If you live in Fusion, the tool still has a place, because corridor-constrained motion loops show up constantly in motion graphics and stylized comps. It is also a relatively friendly concept to hand off. “Here is the corridor, here is the direction, here is the loop” is a better brief than “make this still feel alive.”

Tangenten Puppet Pin brings mesh warping to Resolve

For artists browsing the Tangenten tag archive, this is the second clear theme: Fuse tools that try to make Fusion friendlier without pretending nodes do not exist. Finally, check performance. Fusion can handle a lot, but it can also punish you for stacking clever tools on top of each other. Multiply a heavy operation by six instances and your interactive session becomes a slideshow. New tools and innovations should be tested before use in production, ideally on a clone of the job, not the only copy of the job.

https://tangenten.gumroad.com/l/FlowLooper

The post Fridays for Fusion: Flow Looper animates stills in Resolve first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Manuel Kotulla.

Silhouette 2026 lands with fewer steps between “I need a clean matte” and “shot approved”, without taking the steering wheel away from artists. The release updates multiple ML-driven matting tools that can detect, segment, propagate, and refine, while still keeping the workflow artist-controlled.

The additions cluster around three pain points that never die in production: edge stability over time, tracking that survives real-world footage, and pipeline plumbing that does not explode when you scale beyond a single workstation. Silhouette 2026 touches all three, and it does it in a very node-graph way: new models, new nodes, and more data moving through the graph instead of getting stranded in side files.

AI matting that thinks in objects, not in one mask at a time

The AI toolset gets updates across five ML nodes, with a focus on scalable multi-object workflows. Face ML gets a new model plus new Nose and Neck matte options, a full-face matte option, and deeper integration with ML masking and compositing workflows. Depth Map ML gets a new model aimed at more detail and improved temporal consistency.

Mask ML adds multi-object workflow features, including object list management, foreground and background refinement tools, and per-object Cryptomatte data. Matte Assist ML adds intermediate frame caching, improved propagation performance across long shots, and multi-object Cryptomatte output. Matte Refine ML adds a new Video Matting model for improved temporal consistency along edges, and it preserves Cryptomatte data after refinement.

Be wary: running many ML masking nodes can load multiple custom models onto the GPU and fill VRAM quickly, so the multi-object approach inside a single Mask ML node matters for both speed and sanity.

If you live in the land of shallow depth of field, it is simple: keep your IDs, then soften your edges with the model that holds up over time. The Video Matting model option in Matte Refine ML is a temporal-consistency favourite in the training material.

Head Track ML and the 3D Scene node get real

Silhouette’s 3D Scene node now pushes further into 3D-aware shot work. It is powered by SynthEyes technology, and Silhouette 2026 adds a new workflow centrepiece: Head Track ML.

Head Track ML uses ML to automatically build and track a full 3D head mesh, preserving facial motion and expressions for face-aware effects. The ML model loads onto the user’s graphics card, detects the head, and then Silhouette creates and tracks an aligned and scaled 3D head mesh.

From there, the new Unwrap and Rewrap nodes connect 3D to 2D UV space for roto, paint, and beauty work, and a Render Depth node can generate depth maps from Head Track ML meshes for beauty work or downstream VFX pipelines.

The training walk-through frames the workflow as a practical alternative to the classic “stabilize a patch, paint, reapply motion, repeat until retirement” approach. The point is to unwrap the tracked head into a stable 2D space, do the detail work, then rewrap it back onto the moving performance. It even comes with a candy-wrapper analogy, because every 3D workflow deserves at least one metaphor before it hits the studio floor.

There’s limits: For example, Head Track ML does not detect relative distance between multiple heads, and suggests using an “All render” option in the Render Depth node if a depth map for all heads is still needed.

On the camera side, Refine Solve is designed to let artists improve a camera solve without reprocessing the entire solve. It supports fixing bad frames and smoothing problem areas by deleting erratic or unnecessary 3D features, aiming for more stable solves and faster cleanups.

Tracking upgrades that target the annoying bits of reality

Silhouette 2026 gives love to two tracking tasks that tend to chew time: point tracks that fall apart when anything gets in the way, and repetitive object tracks for faces and license plates.

Point Track ML updates the long-running point tracker workflow with ML assistance aimed at motion blur, occlusions, objects going off-screen, and changing reference patterns. It includes three accuracy settings and Viewer Stabilisation to validate and lock the track. This is not a guaranteed fix, but it increases the chance of success in those failure cases that always show up right before delivery.

Object Tracker detects and creates layers for object classes, including faces and license plates, to reduce setup time, and tracker types support occlusion matte input. In the tutorial flow, it can automatically generate new layers and shapes when new faces enter a shot during a forward track.

This feature that works best when you treat it like a fast first pass – the result may not be 100 per cent perfect, but perfect for fast turnaround work. You don’t get “final shapes”, but points where you can attach additional Tracking data, and modify what needs to be cleaned.

Paint tools that aim for fewer clicks and fewer regrets

Silhouette’s paint system gets new tools and workflow changes aimed at cleanup and beauty work. A new Healing Brush supports cleanup and retouching with expanded colour sampling from any input. Brush controls add blend modes and pressure-sensitive sizes. Blur, Clone, and Drag brushes get more natural and flexible behaviour. Clone workflow updates add continuous mode and auto-grade locking. Resize Paint introduces a resolution-independent workflow that allows working in a lower-resolution session, then rebuilding strokes accurately on higher-resolution media.

Resize Paint is a way to work quickly at low resolution and later rebuild exact stroke replicas at high resolution, which is basically a polite way of saying your workstation fans can stop auditioning for a jet engine while you block in cleanup.

Cryptomatte, data ports, and fewer matte files to babysit

Silhouette 2026 deepens Cryptomatte-centric workflows, and the important bit is that it treats mattes as data that should travel with the graph, not as files that should multiply in folders.

Pipeline changes include passing filtered Cryptomatte data as alpha through nodes via an Matte input, enabling objects and layers to act as matte sources. A new Cryptomatte Mixer node can combine multiple Cryptomatte streams into a single output. ML and AI tools support multi-object outputs with improved viewer-based selection tools to speed up scene isolation and matte management.

Beware the workflow trap: do not build one Mask ML and one Matte Assist ML node per object, because each node loads its own model to the GPU and VRAM fills fast. Instead, multiple objects can live inside a single Mask ML node, and Cryptomatte over the data port can move reference data to Matte Assist ML even when reference keyframes are scattered along the timeline.

For OFX plugin users, there is a limitation: Cryptomatte data cannot simply be routed to an output node and expected to appear directly in the host application, due to how OFX plugins work. The workflow is to export to the file system instead, using an Output Multi node for Cryptomatte-generating nodes.

Export details matter, too. Cryptomatte needs EXR for multi-channel properties and uses only lossless compression, and it warns against lossy formats such as DWAA, DWAB, or PXR24. That is a lot of words to say: keep your IDs clean, keep them in one sequence, and do not turn your matte export into a science project with ten folders named “final_final_3_forreal_v02”. Unless you enjoy that sort of thing. Some people collect stamps, after all.

Performance, stability, and the stuff you notice at 2 a.m.

Silhouette 2026 includes performance and playback improvements through ML node caching for several ML nodes, plus predictive playback via pre-fetching and batched render jobs. Playback controls add optimisation options, including adjustable job queue size, preload frames, and threading settings.

Daily workflow improvements include advanced node search with category, intent, and data-type filtering, a Favourites node, an improved naming system, a context-sensitive HUD, and a Safe Mode troubleshooting workflow to enhance stability in demanding environments.

This is the kind of feature that helps the person who inherits your comp at the worst possible time. If your node tree looks like it was assembled during an earthquake, you still have to deliver, so better search and safer startup modes are not flashy, but deeply production-friendly. Yes, you should still test new tools and innovations before use in production, especially when ML models and GPU caching sit in the critical path.

Pipeline automation and AI assistants, now with actual plumbing

The most pipeline-forward change is a built-in JSON-RPC server and an MCP server. The JSON-RPC server allows studios to drive Silhouette remotely, execute Python code, run script files, and control the application via JSON-RPC.

A Python Package Manager manages third-party Python packages inside a directory in Silhouette and stays isolated from the system Python. This is powerful, and it is also the kind of feature that deserves a boring rollout plan. Build guardrails, keep permissions sane, and do not let the intern’s chatbot become the new show supervisor. The intern already has enough power.

The MCP server allows direct calls from AI assistants, which can inspect projects, build node trees, edit shapes and keyframes, and render frames. “ChatGPT, explain what I did there!” is now a valid question that can be answered. Not truthfully or understandably, because … LLMs, but still.

What to watch to get productive fast

If you want a training rabbit hole, the Silhouette training and tutorial ecosystem lives in the video library and training hub on the BorisFX-site, spanning both quick tips and longer courses on all packages and levels of experience.

Pricing and availability

Silhouette is available as a standalone application and as a plugin, with subscription, upgrade, support, and permanent license options. Subscriptions start at $ 545 per year or $ 103 per month. Silhouette supports macOS, Windows, and Linux. Supported host applications include Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere, Foundry Nuke, Blackmagic Resolve and Fusion, and Autodesk Flame.

Customers with an active Silhouette subscription, Boris FX Suite subscription, or an active Silhouette upgrade and support plan receive the 2026.5 release directly as a update.


https://borisfx.com/products/silhouette/

The post Silhouette 2026 gets smarter roto and 3D heads first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: DaVinci Resolve is an NLE plus color grading plus compositing and audio in one app, with Fusion tools and a Studio tier called DaVinci Resolve Studio.

Resolve Stills stop skating around

Blackmagic Design pushed DaVinci Resolve 21 Public Beta 4 with a fairly specific mission: make small things stop being annoying. On the Photo page, Resolve FX behave more reliably when you transform still images. Resize or reposition a photo with an effect applied, and the overlays and on screen controls now stay aligned so you can keep adjusting instead of chasing UI handles.

The update also improves transparency handling for effects on stills, remembers effect favourites between launches, and fixes warper tool behaviour on photos for more accurate reshaping and manipulation. Also in the stills corner, Canon CR2 and CR3 highlights now render more accurately. Bright areas should keep a more natural look and no longer appear darker than expected when grading or compositing.

Fusion keyframes, meet the timeline

On the Edit and Cut pages, the keyframe editor now supports Fusion motion paths and other modifiers. That means you can tweak animation curves, motion paths, and linked parameters from Fusion titles, effects and macros right next to timeline keyframes, instead of bouncing between editors and hoping you clicked the same parameter twice. It is a fiine quality of life win for anyone who lives on the keyframe lane.

Resolve Studio AI gets a cosmetic touch up

For DaVinci Resolve Studio users, AI CineFocus has improved visual quality for shallow depth of field simulation. Better and Faster modes now handle subtle blur more cleanly, with reductions in edge shimmer, stair stepping and halos so subjects separate more naturally from backgrounds.

AI beauty tools also get refinement. The blemish removal tool allows greater precision for facial area so corrections stay focused where needed, and the face refinement tool now better supports alpha layer workflows, helping isolate and track facial adjustments with less manual masking.

Immersive and raw handling: small, useful plumbing

Beta 4 adds support for Insta360 native colorspace, plus improved DNG decode handling with color value and profile look table support for more consistent image reproduction. DaVinci Resolve 21 Public Beta 4 is available as a free download. As always, test any new beta build on a copy of a project before you let it anywhere near a real delivery.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com

The post DaVinci Resolve 21 Public Beta 4 is out first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The pack in one sentence

Berk Gedik has published Blender Light Texture Set 20 Pack, a free download that adds patterned emission to area lights instead of a perfectly flat rectangle.

What you actually get

The download includes 20 textures at 2048×2048 and a sample Blender file for setup and use. The intent is straightforward: slap a texture onto an area light so highlights, falloff, and reflections feel more like a real modifier than a perfect panel, which can read suspiciously CG in glossy shots. The set works with Cycles. Eevee does not support light textures natively, but you can still try the same images as a mask by putting a plane in front of the light and using the texture there. Expect that to behave differently than proper light texturing, because you now light with geometry, not with the light itself, so test in your own lighting rig before calling it done. Also, yes, lgiht artists will still argue about softboxes.

Pricing and access

Pricing is free. Access runs through a free Patreon signup to grab the attachment, listed as LightTexture_Set.zip, on the Blender Light Texture Set 20 Pack post. Even for free texutres, run a quick pipeline check: confirm license, color management, bit depth, and whether the patterns introduce unwanted banding or aliasing in animation before you let them anywhere near finals.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/blender-light-20-130264386

The post Free area light textures for Blender first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Levels is a free browser utility for quick grayscale map prep that can feed any DCC or engine, with code hosted on GitHub by artofpilgrim.

A small tool for the most common annoyance

Levels positions itself as a texture alpha studio in the browser. You drop in an image, dial in a black and white channel mix, adjust brightness and contrast, shape the result with a levels curve, then finish with a perspective or rectangular crop. After that, you copy to clipboard or download a PNG. This kind of workflow hits daily production reality, especially when you need a quick mask for foliage, decals, grime breakup, or anything else that starts life as a photo and ends up as a grayscale control map for shading. It also pairs neatly with a texture painting pass later, when a rough mask graduates into something worth polishing.

Channel mixing, then levels, then stop touching it

The channel mixer in Levels offers six color sliders: reds, yellows, greens, cyans, blues, and magentas. It includes presets for Default, High contrast, Dark sky, Infrared, Red filter, and Stark grunge. The goal stays simple: separate subject from background quickly, then lock in contrast.

Brightness and contrast sit as a linear legacy Photoshop pre-stage applied before Levels. The levels panel shows a histogram and gives input shadow, midtone, and highlight handles plus output black and white handles. Keyboard navigation covers Tab to focus a handle, arrow keys to nudge, and Shift plus arrow for bigger steps.

If you need to keep colour instead of converting to black and white, colour mode bypasses the conversion and applies Levels, brightness and contrast per channel. Invert sits there too, because every mask workflow eventually asks you to flip it and see if your brain calms down.

Crop tools that fix your reference photo lies

Rectangular crop supports free or locked aspect ratios: 1:1, 4:5, 5:4, 16:9, 9:16, 3:2, and 2:3. Holding Shift while dragging forces 1:1. Perspective crop lets you drag four corners of a quad to deskew a region into a rectangle. It uses bilinear sampling, includes a rule of thirds alignment grid, shows live output size, and supports 1 pixel and 10 pixel keyboard nudging. It also composes with rectangular crop, and Reset preserves the pre perspective crop.

That combination makes Levels useful beyond the obvious leaf cutout. It is a quick way to extract alhpa style grayscale sources from angled reference shots that you would otherwise fix in a heavier editor, then stash into a texture library for reuse.

Shortcuts and export that respect your time

Levels supports a real time preview. Hold Space to compare against the original image before processing, after any crop or perspective. Inputs can arrive via drag and drop, paste from clipboard, or open from disk. Exports can go straight to clipboard or to a PNG download. Exports render from the current settings even when the preview defers for responsiveness.

Shortcuts include Space for compare, I to toggle invert, Ctrl or Command plus C to copy, and Ctrl or Command plus S to download PNG. Enter and Escape apply or cancel inside crop or perspective mode. Double click resets a slider to default.

The repository also states that inputs over 4096 pixels on the long edge get downscaled with a toast notice. That limit matters if you expect full resolution scan handling, so treat it as a deliberate constraint, not a surprise feature.

Under the hood, it stays refreshingly unprecious

The GitHub repository describes a no-build step setup. It loads React 18 and ReactDOM from a CDN, and keeps the rest as plain JavaScript split into three ordered script tags.

The file layout is a index.html as shell that links CSS and the three JS files, styles.css for styles, image.js for image processing functions and presets, components.js for UI components, and app.js for the app component and DOM boot. The three JS files communicate via a window.Levels namespace with image.js populating math and data first, then components.js reading it and adding panels, then app.js rendering.

Running locally opens index.html in a modern browser, with the file protocol working for sibling script files. For touch pointer and clipboard testing, serving over HTTP using python -m http.server from the repo root is advisable

This is the part that makes it easier to keep a known good utility around. The tool does not demand a build chain just to exist, which is exactly what you want from a graysacle helper app that should still run when the rest of your stack changes.

Thomas Pilgrim Butters released Levels this week, and describes it as a simpler alternative to opening Adobe Photoshop for alpha textures, with support for alpha masks, height or roughness maps, and stylised monochrome plates from photo references. Thomas Pilgrim Butters is Lead Weapon and Prop Artist at Facepunch and an instructor at Gnomon.

https://artofpilgrim.github.io/levels/

https://github.com/artofpilgrim/levels

The post Levels cleans up alpha maps fast first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

TL;DR: meshController is a C++ plug-in for Autodesk Maya that adds surface pinning, mesh-driven controls, and VP2 viewport tooling for character and facial rigging.

What shipped, and what it targets

meshController is a free C++ plug-in for Autodesk Maya that focuses on surface pinning, mesh surface binding, and VP2 viewport controls for production facial and character rigs. It comes with six node types and five commands, plus an example Maya scene file with a face rig and textures. Pricing is simple: free in the sources.

The core idea borrows from the DreamWorks Animation Premo approach: controls that sit on the character surface instead of floating curve shapes. For artists, that means you interact directly with mesh-based controls that feel visually welded to the character, while still behaving like standard Maya controls for selection and manipulation.

If you live in the rigging trenches, the important part is not the concept. It is whether the nodes solve daily problems cleanly, evaluate fast, and fail predictably when you do something dumb at 3 a.m.

The plug-in in plain technical terms

The documentation calls meshController a “production-grade” toolset for Maya 2023 and later on Windows, with parallel evaluation via oneTBB and viewport interaction using Qt. The compiled plug-in registers as meshController.mll and loads through Maya Plug-in Manager or via a loadPlugin call.

First, Surface Pin. The surfacePin node binds rig controls to a deforming mesh so they track position, orientation, and twist. The workflow binds at a chosen pose, stores bind data, and then reads deformed mesh positions at runtime. surfacePinBind handles binding and supports undo and redo. A key feature is a localInverseMatrix input intended to solve double transforms inline when the pin drives offset controls in a facial hierarchy. The docs also state the node preserves the current transform offset at bind time so controls keep their authored pose.

There is also surfaceUVPin, a UV space variant. Pins store UV coordinates so they can survive topology changes as long as the UV layout stays stable. That is particularly relevant to facial rig work, where meshes evolve mid-show while UVs sometimes remain the one stable thing everyone agrees not to touch.

Second, vertexWrap. This is a lightweight deformer designed to snap split or matching topology meshes to a driver mesh via one-to-one vertex mapping. The docs describe it as avoiding proximity search at evaluation time. It computes a mapping at bind time, then directly copies driver vertex positions to the driven meshes at eval time. The intended use case is lots of small control shapes that must stick to a deforming face.

Sprinkled on top are viewport tools. The docs list shapeControl as a VP2 custom locator with mesh or curve display and hover highlighting. They also list meshControlOverlay, which draws an overlay and hover marker, and meshControlMode, an interactive placement mode that uses Qt mouse move hit testing and viewport overlay feedback. The docs include a comparison table explaining when to prefer shapeControl versus meshControlMode, including a warning to avoid large numbers of live shape controls and to use the overlay path for big sets.

Somewhere around here you will want to resist the urge to replace every curve controller with a mesh. The sources themselves recommend using these controls selectively for main controls rather than replacing everything. But where is the fun in that.

Requirements, downloads, and what you actually get

The download page lists meshController v1.0.0 for Windows and Maya 2023 or later. It also lists a Linux version as “not available yet”. It recommends an NVIDIA GPU for GPU override.

For installation, meshController loads through the plug-in manager or by loading the plug-in by name. Once loaded, all nodes and commands become available immediately.

Licensing, pricing, and the boring bits

meshController is free to download, with documentation and an example scene. They do not specify a commercial license in the sources provided here.

Versioning in the sources: the docs label meshController v1.0 and Maya 2023+, and the download page lists meshController v1.0.0.

If you want to test it properly, build a small facial sandbox scene, swap a couple of core controls to mesh-based shapes, and watch evaluation and selection behavior under your usual shot workflows. Do not start by rewiring the whole face. That is how you end up with a sufrace pin node you love and a manpiulators bug you cannot explain to production.

https://www.cgdzg.com/mesh-controls-for-maya/

The post DreamWorks style mesh controls land in Maya first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

What actually shipped

The project now includes an official add-on for Blender that connects to an external solver backend, rather than replacing Blender’s built-in simulation stack. The add-on acts as a client and runs anywhere Blender runs, including macOS, while the solver engine runs separately. And if you understand higher physics, here is an explainer. Fort the rest of us:

ZOZO’s Contact Solver codebase lives on GitHub, and the solver is a contact solver for physics-based simulations involving shells, solids, and rods. The project uses the Apache License 2.0, which you may use, modify, and redistribute the code in commercial products, including proprietary software, as long as you preserve the required notices.

A release tagged “Blender Add-on 1.0.6” has support for armature-driven deformable colliders and bug fixes related to paths containing empty spaces. That is a very production-shaped patch note, because file paths love whitespace even when pipelines do not.

The headline features, minus the marketing glitter

The add-on is exposing finite element deformable and penetration-free contacts, plus strictly strain-limited cloth intended not to stretch like rubber. That last bit aims at the old pain point where cltoh behaves like chewing gum under stress.

The tool targets cloud-deployed GPUs, with examples such as vast.ai and AWS, while still allowing local runs if you have a powerful NVIDIA GPU. It also states the workflow can run locally or remotely on Windows and Linux, with macOS supported via a remote solver engine because CUDA does not run there. Why would it.

The core technology is backed by a peer-reviewed publication in Transactions on Graphics for SIGGRAPH Asia 2024.

Hardware and deployment reality

The installation makes the split explicit: the add-on is just a client, but the solver backend requires an NVIDIA GPU with CUDA 12.x. That makes the tool’s core constraint very clear: your workstation can be lightweight, but your backend needs serious GPU muscle. There are multiple ways to connect to a backend, including running on the same machine, using an SSH-reachable Linux host, using a Docker container, or using a Windows workstation. In other words, it is built for the common studio pattern where artists drive a tool from a DCC while compute happens elsewhere.

The repository also includes a section on deploying on cloud services and includes example hourly costs for specific setups, such as approximately €0.76 per hour for a Scaleway setup and around $1 per hour for a described Amazon instance configuration. Those numbers relate to the referenced cloud configurations, not a license fee for the tool itself. And not the pricing when you did saomething a little bit wrong and are accumulating AWS-bills like a torado in a bank. You know what I am talking about.

https://github.com/st-tech/ppf-contact-solver

The post ZOZO Contact Solver gets Blender add-on first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

TL;DR: Node Ninja is a free plugin from School of Motion for Maxon Cinema 4D that builds Redshift materials from PBR texture folders.

The promise: stop wiring nodes, start rendering

Node Ninja targets a very specific kind of production friction: the endless, repetitive setup work that happens between downloading a texture set and having a usable Redshift material inside Cinema 4D.

A single PBR texture set can include 6 to 12 maps per material. The manual process is requiring a TextureSampler node per map, wiring each one to the right input on an RS Standard Material, and setting roughness, metalness, and normal maps to the correct color space so they render correctly. Also: the normal map format problem: if a texture set ships with a DirectX normal instead of an OpenGL normal, the mismatch can hide until the render looks wrong.

Node Ninja estimates that the manual approach takes about 4 minutes of node wiring per material and calls itself the one-click alternative. But, let’s be honest: 4 minutes is when you are quick. School of Motion offers Node Ninja as a free download, with no credit card, on Mac and Windows.

Install once, then find it where artists actually look

Installation follows the standard Cinema 4D plugin routine: open Preferences, jump to the Preferences folder, then drop the School of Motion folder into the plugins folder and restart Cinema 4D. After a correct install, Cinema 4D shows a School of Motion entry under Extensions, with Node Ninja and a companion tool called Node Surgeon available from the same menu.

Folder in, material out

Node Ninja works by pointing it at a texture folder, then building a full Redshift node graph based on filenames. It wires maps to expected inputs and sets color spaces. The plugin recognizes common PBR map naming patterns and can auto-handle albedo, roughness, metalness, normal, displacement, AO, emission, opacity, specular, and SSS, with a longer list in the manual. It also claims to composit AO into base color using a color layer and an appropriate blending mode. On normals, it states it can detect DirectX versus OpenGL normal maps and choose the correct type for Redshift, which it describes as using OpenGL normals.

Projection choices, plus an editor for after the fact

At import time, Node Ninja asks whether to use UV projection or world space Triplanar and wires the graph accordingly. If you change your mind later, the included Node Surgeon utility can edit existing materials to switch projection modes, and it can add or remove master controls for scale, offset, and rotation without rebuilding from scratch.

On newer Cinema 4D versions, Node Ninja uses the Redshift UV Context Projection node so tiling, offset, rotation, and pivot adjustments can happen in one place and propagate upstream through the graph.

Bulk import and duplicates, handled like an adult

Node Ninja includes a bulk import mode: point it at a parent folder and it can build one material per subfolder. When it detects a name collision, it offers three options: replace the existing material, duplicate with an auto-increment name, or skip it. That matters when you re-import a library mid-project and you want control over what gets overwritten.

A companion upgrade utility for existing materials

Node Ninja also ships with a second tool aimed at already built materials. The companion utility is included free with Node Ninja and targets existing Redshift materials built with standard PBR textures. There are three things the utility can do without starting over: switch projection modes, add or remove master controls, and upgrade legacy materials to Cinema 4D 2026’s modern UV Context format. It also scans the material first, pre-fills a dialogue to match what is already there, then rebuilds the graph with the requested changes. It CLAIMS it carries texture paths over automatically. There are limits – the utility is designed for standard PBR materials and is not a converter for complex procedural setups.

Cinema 4D versions, older graphs, and the practical bits

Node Ninja supports Cinema 4D 2024.5, 2025, and 2026 on Mac and Windows. If you run an older Cinema 4D version, Node Ninja uses an older style of control setup rather than the newer UV Context Projection workflow, and it can still build unified scale controls through value nodes.

Pricing is simple: free, with no license key and no trial. But nevertheless, new tools and innovations should be tested before use in production, ideally on a copy of a scene, because automation can propagate the same mistake across a whole library at the same speed it saves time.

https://www.schoolofmotion.com/node-ninja

The post Node Ninja builds Redshift materials from folders first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Evans Research Associates is running a study on the needs of german video software users. The survey takes about 12 to 15 minutes, depending on how you answer, and results get reported only in aggregate form. No need to hold back anything.

If you worked in german post long enough, you know how these surveys go. Someone somewhere tries to map real world workflows onto tidy multiple choice boxes, then discovers that editors, assistants, finishing artists, and producers all use the same words to mean different things. That mismatch is exactly why it helps when working pros fill these out.

Since this is a large multiyear survey, focused on German video pros, you might not fit the profile – I certainly don’t know how to match the target group. But after the introductory questions, you still take part in the prize drawing. Even when you are to CG for editing questions ;)

The survey (in German) starts here
https://asurveys.decipherinc.com/survey/selfserve/9d5/ado19011?list=31&LID=4

Money, vouchers, and who gets what

If you belong to the requested participant group and answer the questions, there is a Amazon gift voucher worth 15 euro for the first 250 people who complete the survey.

Also, the survey includes a separate prize draw list: one 500-euro voucher, two 200-euro vouchers, five 80-euro vouchers, and twenty-five 20-euro vouchers. If you already took part, the invitation asks you to ignore this – you already count for the draw. If the screening questions indicate you are not in the intended target group, you still enter the draw.

Confidentiality

Your answers remain strictly confidential, combined with other participants, and reported only as an overall result. If you have strong opinions about what slows you down, this is one of the rare moments where a checkbox might actually travel upward.

Rules link: https://www.evansresearch.net/NLE/rules2.php?list=31
Contact link: https://www.evansresearch.net/NLE/contact2.php?list=31
Privacy link: https://www.evansres.com/german

The post Click Here If You’re a German video editor and have yelled “Why? Why? Why?” at your NLE first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.