In nuce: At the CES 2023 (Consumer Electronics Show), graphics card manufacturer Nvidia announced various innovations for its Omniverse collaboration platform. This is according to an announcement from 3 January 2023, published by Omniverse Vice President Frank DeLise on blogs.nvidia.com. The announced highlights include: AI tools for 3D artists, an extension for Blender and the early access of RTX Remixer (for the purpose of ray-tracing and DLSS-based remasters of gaming classics).
In toto: Below is an outline of the announced highlights for Omniverse – and the corresponding video of Nvidia’s special address at CES 2023, moderated by Jeff Fisher, Senior Vice President at Nvidia.
NVIDIA Special Address at CES 2023
- New, experimental AI tools for 3D artists: This concerns the tools Audio2Face, Audio2Gesture and Audio2Emotion. These are tools for 3D character animation, all of which have received a performance update.
- Extension for Blender: The Blender Alpha version is now available for the Omniverse Launcher. This allows geometries to be repaired, UVs to be generated automatically and high-resolution CAD files (computer-aided design) to be downsampled to a more practical polycount. Users can now easily transfer shape keys and rigged characters – or attach the head of one from Omniverse Audio2Face. Audio2Face is an AI-powered tool that automatically creates realistic facial expressions based on audio files.
- Nvidia RTX Remix will soon be available as Early Access: Such classic games that caused a sensation with RTX remasters from the modder community include Half-Life 2 and Max Payne. RTX Remix is a modding platform that – as stated on nvidia.com – utilises “powerful AI tools” to “enhance classic games and quickly create stunning RTX remasters with ray tracing and DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) .”
- Update for Canvas: This will be available to users of Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards. Canvas is an AI tool that can be used to create low-threshold landscapes.
- Omniverse will soon be pre-installed on the first Nvidia Studio laptops: As Nvidia mentioned, laptops from Taiwanese computer hardware manufacturer Gigabyte Technology will already ship with the Omniverse Launcher this year (this also includes laptops from Gigabyte’s gaming division Aorus)
- New, free USD assets: The number of these should be in the thousands.
Turn the page: In our previous three-part advertorial series on Nvidia’s Omniverse, we reported on the basics of the collaboration platform (“Omniverse” on page 56 of DP 03 : 2022), how it can be set up professionally (“Getting started with Omniverse” on p. 84 of DP 04 : 2022) and how a sensible workflow can be set up (“Working in Omniverse” on p. 87 of DP 05 : 2022; the issue is also available as a free trial copy!).
Clicked further: Nvidia’s announcement, published in the course of CES 2023, can be viewed at blogs.nvidia.com . On 9 January 2023 , Digital Production recently reported on Omniverse – at that time, an extensive update for Omniverse Enterprise was worth reporting.
Sources: 80.lv ( announcement by Gloria Levine), blogs.nvidia.com ( announcement by Frank Delise)
