Si le NAB était surtout l’occasion pour Newtek de parler de sa solution Tricaster (voir le compte-rendu des membres de l’équipe 3DVF – Progiss présents sur place), l’éditeur n’a pas totalement délaissé LightWave, et a annoncé une version 10.1 avec quelques améliorations.
Stand Newtek au NAB 2011 – Photo 3DVF.com
La nouvelle version de Lightwave met l’accent sur le relief, avec le support des rifs de type off-axis ( CGChannel a mis en ligne un schéma explicatif très clair pour ceux ne connaissant pas le principe de ce mode de prise de vue).
Autre amélioration, le Viewport Preview Renderer (VPR) est amélioré.
Voici le communiqué complet :
NewTek, a worldwide leader of 3D animation and video products, will showcase NewTek LightWave™ 10.1, the latest version of its Emmy Award-winning 3D software, at NAB 2011 in Las Vegas. With advanced modeling and animation tools built to integrate into any production pipeline, LightWave 10.1 delivers new capabilities for 3D artists, such as a new off-axis stereoscopic camera rig option, an improved Viewport Preview Renderer (VPR), more powerful import and export capabilities with FBX, MDD, and integrated Autodesk Geometry Cache support, a new Skin material node, and more.
With the continued growth of the stereoscopic 3D film, television and gaming markets, artists need powerful tools to help streamline stereoscopic content creation. LightWave 10.1 delivers, with access to all major stereo camera rigs—parallel, toe-in, and off-axis, allowing artists to correct for toe-in distortion in the animation pipeline, dynamically. Other enhancements include interactive OpenGL off-axis adjustment of the right and left camera planes, user-friendly click-and-drag convergence point adjustment in the viewport, and the ability to disable the anaglyph representation of the stereo camera in OpenGL. Also in LightWave 10.1, interocular and convergence point can both be animated dynamically over time to track stereo changes within a shot.
Using the LightWave VPR, artists can directly interact and easily adjust lights, textures, volumetrics and more, within the viewport. Artists can also use the VPR to view updates to deliver realistic environmental walkthroughs quickly, and perform virtual location scouts. LightWave 10.1 extends the functionality of VPR with the support of clip maps in the VPR render, the addition of object and distance dissolve, and improved nodal shaders like the new Skin material node that works with the VPR. The Skin material node uses a proprietary subsurface shading model for a simple “connect-and-go” way to create realistic looking skin.
LightWave 10.1 with integrated Autodesk Geometry Cache Support gives artists the ability to include or exclude models, morphs, animations, cameras and lights upon export. Other workflow features in LightWave 10.1 offer the ability to import joints as LightWave bones for greater compatibility with other programs; multi-threaded mesh evaluation optimization and sub-d mesh freezing acceleration; linear color space workflow improvements, including new support for .ICC/.ICM monitor profiles, and more.
Additional LightWave 10.1 features include:
– Virtual Studio Tools
– Supports InterSense Virtual Camera Tracking System (VCAM) and 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator 3D mouse, allowing interaction with models and scenes in real time
– FiberFX
– Hair and fur shader now supports VPR and includes improved speed, stability and displacement handling
– Linear Color Space Workflow
– Supports custom Look Up Tables (LUTs) for more realistic lighting and compositing flexibility, color space correction for HyperVoxels™, XYZ, Lab, RGB and CMYK data, and more
– Updated User Interface
– Interactive channel sliders, added control for custom colors, and numerous workflow enhancements deliver a more dynamic user experience
En ce qui concerne la disponibilité, Newtek évoque le couran du second trimestre 2011, autrement dit d’ici la fin du mois de juin.
