Here’s the link: https://www.humblebundle.com/software/blender-market-best-2024-software

The latest offering from Blender Market provides a wide range of assets and tools designed to improve your workflow in Blender. This collection, available through Humble Bundle, is intended to help VFX artists, animators, and game designers enhance their projects by providing various assets, including models, shaders, and rigging tools. The bundle focuses on supporting Blender’s versatility as an open-source 3D suite.

The collection includes curated assets from experienced artists. Featured resources include geometry nodes setups, modular kits, rigging tools, shaders, and procedural materials. The variety of items offers flexibility to users, aiming to streamline multiple stages of production—from modeling to rendering. As always, you’ll want to carefully test these new tools in your current project pipeline to avoid compatibility issues or bugs.

A highlight of the package is its support for Python scripting in Blender, allowing users to extend functionality by writing custom scripts to automate processes or create new features tailored to specific needs. These tools can be particularly helpful for artists who want more control over their assets and workflows, without needing to write extensive code from scratch.

Asset Library Overview

Included in the package are character rigs, environmental assets, and procedural textures, which provide flexibility for many genres of work, from film production to game design. Many assets can be customized or combined with other models and shaders, making them suitable for specific visual styles. For instance, the shader packs allow detailed material customization, giving you control over textures and lighting.

In terms of technical compatibility, the assets are designed to integrate smoothly with Blender 3.x versions. However, users working on older Blender builds or heavily modified versions should ensure compatibility to avoid issues during production.

Documentation and Support

While the asset creators provide detailed documentation for each tool and model, it’s recommended to refer to Blender’s official documentation for understanding how these tools function within the broader Blender ecosystem. The asset developers also provide ongoing updates, and customer support can be accessed via Blender Market’s user portal.

Pricing and availability for this collection are structured as a limited-time offer via Humble Bundle, where you can purchase it under a “pay-what-you-want” model. This makes it accessible for both indie developers and larger studios. The total value of the bundle exceeds several hundred dollars, but users can pick up the entire package for a fraction of that cost, depending on the tier selected.

Before integrating any tool into your active project, carefully review its documentation and test it in a controlled environment to ensure it doesn’t conflict with other tools in your pipeline. Blender Market’s products typically include license terms that allow for extensive use across both commercial and personal projects.

For more information on the available assets, licensing, and purchasing options, visit the official product page at Blender Market Humble Bundle 2024.

The post HumbleBundle Blender Collection first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Pureref, a tool popular with artists and designers for organising and viewing reference images, has released version 2.0. The update brings a refreshed user interface, a new simple drawing tool and support for animated GIFs. There are also playback controls for scrolling through individual frames.

Pureref 2.0 also includes a new rich text editor for notes. This allows you to use links, checklists and advanced formatting options. The update introduces a hierarchical grouping system. This allows you to create and display any hierarchy via a tree menu. This makes it easier to manage complex projects.

The “Image streaming” function ensures that images are displayed correctly on different devices. In addition, images are now cached on the hard drive, which saves memory. The previous “Zoom quality” setting has been replaced by the more efficient “Cache on hard disc” mode. The update also ensures that everything runs faster and requires less memory.

Operation is now also easier, for example you can use gestures on the trackpad to pan and zoom or control the slideshow. The coordinate selection has been improved so that it now also displays selections and prints out pixel measurements. The name and source of the moved file are also displayed.

Price and availability

PureRef is still available as donationware free of charge for testing – for larger teams or commercial use there are both “permanent licences” and subscriptions – the permanent licence, for example, costs 49 US dollars and includes all updates of version 2.x.

The full list of changes can be found here.

The post PureRef, the new version first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Some time has passed since our first report on “The Element” – at least in the fast-moving world of software. But now version 2.0 is available for download – and here is an excerpt of the latest features – whether it was worth the wait or whether you should simply switch your asset management to this system now is up to you.

Together what belongs together!

The outstanding feature of the 2.0 release is that the element now brings together all parts of a 3D asset – not just the geometry, but also textures. In everyday life, this means that searching for textures and their maps is now done in seconds.

Even if assets from other sources are used, they can be organised and found in a clear standard – and nobody has to try to assign sloppily named folders any more! But not only textures – render layers, normals and roughness files are also combined, categorised and made searchable.

And just to remind you: the element manages, indexes, analyses, searches and presents images, icons, image sequences, 3D assets, 3D SceneFiles (Houdini, Maya, Blender …), project files (Nuke, After Effects, Photoshop …), HDRI images, 360° videos and even PDFs.

Infinite scroller

In principle, there are not “too many assets” – but it can be difficult to find them. The new element offers a corresponding view for this: In the “infinite window” you can simply browse through everything without distraction – also good if you don’t know exactly what you want yet and just want to have a look at what’s available in the library.

As everything is AI-based nowadays, the element naturally also includes this – here in the variant that similar assets are found – be it to tidy up the database, for variations of a shot or simply because you can’t get enough of a motif, it’s up to you!

Users who have footage and plates with different elements that are similar in their initial state – I’m just saying explosions – will find the new video player handy. Within the element, you can see what happens beyond the preview frame – and rotate, flip or fold the image with just one click – and see whether the plate is suitable for the special “upside down” application.

Anyone who collects HDR spheres – and let’s be honest, who doesn’t – needs a preview where you can see exactly what is happening – which is why there is now an exposure slider for quickly adjusting the brightness. Handy for everyday use, but why don’t the other tools have this too?

Other features, such as an enhanced ingest for all possible formats, a tidier (or customisable by you!) interface, as well as better error descriptions for ingest and pipeline, and lots of bug fixes and minor adjustments are of course also included.

If you’re feeling nostalgic or want to get an overview, you can download the first article from DP 22:02 as a free PDF here . And if you want to give it a try, have a look here: das-element.com

The post A new element is here! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

In addition to the new features in Mari 4.0, Foundry has now also released updates to Nuke and the VR plug-in Cara. On 14 December, there will also be a webinar on Foundry’s cloud-based pipeline tool Elara – more on this below.

Nuke 11.1

• File localisation now enables more precise control over which files are localised at what time with a Python API extension. System modes and rules for localisation can be defined by the developer.
• Visual script diagnostics are now possible with a new profile node that you can place anywhere in your script. This provides you with information about CPU time, number of operations and memory used, among other things. This allows you to check and adjust the efficiency of your script networks.
• Source clip properties are now accessible in a Nuke-style property panel. You can also access your footage with relative file paths via the new project root directory.

Detailed information about the Nuke 11.1 update can be found in the release notes!

Cara VR 2.0

360° match move and stabilisation

The new tracker node adds automatic tracking and stabilisation to your 360 stitch. You can then use familiar workflows to refine the settings for specific regions.

New stitching tools

The new GlobalWarp Node gives you a faster and improved 360° stitch, with new controls for adjusting overlaps and distortions.

Stereo correction tools

Cara VR 2.0 includes updated versions of the Ocula toolsets for Stereo Cleanup, including a new version of the Disparity Generator node.

All information about the Cara VR 2.0 update can be found in the release notes.

Foundry Pipeline Webinar

On 14 December (17:00) Foundry will hold a pipeline webinar on the announced cloud-based pipeline infrastructure Elara. Foundry introduced the tool at NAB 2017 this year. In the webinar you will see the main features of the pipeline tool, the setup of a virtual studio including a Q&A session. You can find out more about Elara here and register for the webinar here.

For further information: To the Foundry website

The post Update for Nuke and Cara VR 2.0 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The included models are .objs with DDS textures and optional .jpg files:

• Tie Fighter
• Imperial Corridor Pieces
• Luke Lightsaber
• Obi-Wan Lightsaber
• Darth Vader Lightsaber
• R2-D2
• BB-8
• X-Wing
• Tatooine Water Vaporator

You can download the package from Video Copilot here. It is 417 MB in size.

In keeping with this, we are currently running a prize draw for the film “The Force Awakens”. If you send us the correct solution by 11 May, you might soon be able to call the film your own in your home cinema!

The post Free “Star Wars” 3D model pack! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Mirja Fürst.