Usually, we do not report on the daily droppings from the AI sphere. There are too many of them, and most evaporate between a keynote slide and a too-late LinkedIn sermon. And they are droppings. But Sora was one of the few cases that “prompted” (hehehehe) concern beyond the hype fog. The amount of attention, capital, and outright fanaticism made it look less like a toy and more like a symptom. That makes its shutdown worth commenting on.

What happened?

OpenAI is discontinuing Sora, its standalone AI video product, and the proposed Disney tie-up around it never even reached the point where money changed hands. Reuters reports that the planned arrangement included a three-year partnership, a $1 billion Disney investment and licensing for more than 200 characters, but the deal never formally closed. (reuters.com)

Reuters reports the decision came down to computing costs and “strategic refocusing”. OpenAI is reportedly shifting resources toward coding tools, enterprise products, robotics, and (because this industry cannot go five minutes without inventing a new universal solvent), a desktop “super-app.”

The all-encompassing killer app is, as usual, nearly here. It can sit with the killer app for VR, the mainstream breakthrough for HFR, and the long-awaited distribution channel for stereo 3D. They have all been waiting very patiently.

And that means ….

From a professional media perspective, it is just not especially useful to generate five seconds of synthetic spectacle for social feeds. It is much harder to turn that into a sustainable product with clear rights, predictable costs, real workflow value and adherence to agreed-upon broadcast standards.

Sora did very well in the attention economy. The cash economy appears to have been less impressed. That is not the end of AI video, but it is a useful embarrassment for a sector that spent years talking as if VFX production were a minor clerical issue.

The wider absurdity is that none of this seems to have dented the appetite for infrastructure spending. OpenAI said in January 2025 that “Stargate” (Does anybody remember what came through that gate?) intended to invest $500 billion over four years, with $100 billion to be deployed immediately. OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank were expanding that plan with five new sites as part of the same huge data-centre push. So one of the flagship consumer outputs gets put down because the economics do not make sense, but the server-hall buildout continues with all the restraint of a drunk aristocrat at a casino.

There may be a second-order effect worth watching here. OpenAI was, after all, the company that lit the fuse on the current phase of the generative AI mania. If OpenAI is now cutting visibly expensive showpiece products and retreating toward things that might plausibly earn their keep, others may eventually have to write down their own unsustainable AI bets and return to the quaint old business of building tools people can actually use. Not demos that photograph well in investor decks. Tools. The kind of tools that professionals open on purpose. That remains an inference, not a confirmed market trend. Still, it is already more plausible than the old doctrine of infinite scale first and monetisation as a character-building exercise later.

Even Microsoft appears to have noticed that stuffing AI into every available corner of the desktop was not, in retrospect, the cleanest route to user delight. In a Windows Insider post from 20 March 2026, Microsoft said it was “reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points,” naming Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets and Notepad. That does not mean Windows is becoming anti-AI. Still, it does suggest that even one of the largest AI evangelists on the platform side has rediscovered the radical idea that people sometimes want software to help them work rather than constantly be beta testers. (blogs.windows.com)

None of this proves that the AI bubble has burst. Markets can remain irrational for longer than product teams can remain employed, and there is still enough capital in the system to keep several thousand GPUs warm if not useful. But Sora’s death does show something more useful than a sarcastic footnote in future, human-written Wikipedia articles: It shows that even inside one of the companies most responsible for the current hype cycle, very visible AI-video bets were not worth the cost of keeping alive.

From a Digital Production point of view, the conclusion is quite obvious (If you manage to stay off LinkedIn for a few days): The gap between AI video as social-media confetti and AI video as dependable professional tooling remains very large. If the post-Sora phase nudges the industry away from synthetic demo bait and toward software that solves actual production problems, that would count as progress. Modest, unsexy, economically literate progress. Which is probably why it takes so fucking long.

Citations

Reuters, “OpenAI drops AI video tool Sora, startling Disney, sources say” (reuters.com)

Reuters, “OpenAI plans desktop ‘superapp’ to streamline user experience” (reuters.com)

OpenAI, “Announcing The Stargate Project” (openai.com)

Reuters, “OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank plan five new AI data centres for $500 billion Stargate project” (reuters.com)

Windows Insider Blog, “Our commitment to Windows quality” (blogs.windows.com)

The post Comment: We Were Told Sora Would Replace VFX by Next Year. Awkward. first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Unity Studio is now officially released after a beta that started last autumn. The product sits inside a browser and targets teams that want interactive real time 3D outcomes without turning every review cycle into a software install party.

The tool frames itself as a simplified counterpart to the Unity Editor. The split reads like this. Unity Studio focuses on quick creation and sharing of interactive 3D applications in a web-based workspace. The Unity Editor covers advanced development for complex applications.

Unity Studio is designed for people who work with 3D data but do not necessarily live in code all day, including designers, artists, training and marketeers, industrial engineers, and sales teams. That audience definition matters because it shapes almost every feature choice, from visual logic blocks to one click publishing.

The interface aims for familiar, not fearless

The day to day experience centers on a canvas with panels that list project contents and expose settings and controls for building and sharing. The tutorial material breaks the UI down into a Hierarchy panel, a Project panel, a Scene view, and an Inspector panel, plus a Camera Preview for framing the final view.

Navigation and inspection are built in so you can look at scenes, models, and assets from different angles. Lighting controls exist for mood and readability, which helps when you need to communicate intent rather than chase photoreal.

Unity Studio also supports building drafts as an initial working state. Drafts and projects live in the cloud and are accessible within an organization. The asset pipeline stays tightly connected to Unity Asset Manager, which stores uploaded assets, tracks versions of drafts, and keeps a version history you can browse.

Import and formats, with a cloud converter doing extra work

Asset ingest starts with upload and import flows that pass through Unity Asset Manager. The supported formats story splits into two layers.

On the direct import side, Unity Studio supports 3D model file formats including glTF in GLB form, FBX, and OBJ, plus supported image types like PNG and JPEG and supported audio types like WAV, MP3, AIFF, AIF, and OGG.

On the conversion side, the Asset Manager can convert additional formats into supported formats. The conversion list includes CAD oriented extensions such as STEP variants, and it includes OpenUSD variants such as USD, USDA, USDC, and USDZ, plus glTF, GLB, PXZ, and others.

The asset optimization angle hooks into Unity Asset Transformer. The Asset Manager uses that tool to optimize complex industry files, including CAD assets, so you can visualize and interact with them in a web browesr without extra software installs.

There is also a size related behavior worth knowing early. When an asset exceeds 200 MB, Unity Studio uses a preview GLB file instead of the original GLB, OBJ, or FBX file for that content.

Animation and UI, built for explanation

A lot of industrial and training content needs motion because motion explains behavior. Unity Studio includes animation tools that cover individual object animation and more complex sequences. The feature overview material describes an animation director that coordinates movements on a shared timeline using keyframes, with examples like fluid flows or mechanical sequences.

UI authoring sits on a UI canvas so you can place functional interfaces directly over the 3D scene. The feature set explicitly calls out buttons, readouts, and text, and the tutorial content includes creating UI text elements as part of an interaction example. That pairing matters because a lot of review workflows depend on guided UI, not just orbit and zoom.

Material work also shows up in the tutorial path. You can create new materials and edit existing ones, and you can duplicate an imported material into an editable copy so changes apply only to a specific object.

Logic, the no code promise in one word

Interactivity in Unity Studio centers on a visual scripting system called “Logik”, uhm, no. logic. Relax, Flame-Users! The Logic editor uses a node library and a builder area where you drag and connect building blocks. The goal is to create interactive behaviors without writing code.

Publishing and sharing: the review link is the deliverable

Publishing is built into the workflow. Unity Studio publishes applications to the web, and web is currently the only available platform option. The publish flow includes selecting Publish, choosing Web, entering a title, and optionally entering a password to restrict access. Publishing generates a Project Web URL you can share.

Sharing a published project is essentially sharing that link. Anyone with the link can access the application. Updating a published application pushes the latest changes to the live version via an Update action. Unpublishing takes the application offline so it is no longer accessible via the web link.

That set of actions lines up neatly with design review reality. You send one link, you iterate, and you do not play whack a mole with new attachments every time a stakeholder asks for a different camera angle.

Use cases: HMI, configurators, simulations, training

The product messaging and documentation focus on industrial and enterprise style scenarios that benefit from fast iteration.

The tool targets HMI prototyping for automotive and industrial dashboards. It targets product configurators where teams adjust colors and swap components in real time. It also targets step by step demonstrations of machine behavior in a browser. Training apps for operators are also in scope, and the product page calls out building 3D training experiences with assets, UI instructions, and live updates.

The docs also describe building configurators, designing HMI layouts, creating step by step training scenarios, and exporting work as a web application for customers or external partners to review. Across those tasks, the common thread stays the same: interactive review, short loops, and fewer handoffs.

Pricing and quotas, with the cloud meter clearly visible

Unity Studio is priced at $799 USD per seat, per year. There is a 30 day free trial with no credit card required.

Each seat includes 120 GB of cloud storage for assets and content in Unity Asset Manager. Each organization also gets 10 GB per month of bandwidth for deployed Studio applications for Studio app hosting. Additional storage can be purchased at $0.75 per GB per month and additional bandwidth at $0.50 per GB per month.

Deployment builds and hosts the application in the company cloud so teams can access it on the web without server management. Hosting uses bandwidth, so treat published links like any other hosted deliverable and keep an eye on how widely they travel.

A production minded reality check

Unity Studio aims to shrink the distance between a 3D idea and a clickable decision. It does that with browser delivery, visual Logic, and built in publishing. Those are strong levers for review and training pipelines where time disappears into coordination rather than creation.

Still, every new tool belongs in a staging lane first. Test it with representative assets, representative reviewers, and the same network conditions you expect in the real world. New tools and innovations should always be tested before use in production.

https://unity.com/products/unity-studio// Requirements and compatibility, browser versions, WebGPU notes, mobile browser limitation

The post Unity ships Unity Studio for in-browser 3D first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

At Digital Production, we usually ignore CAD files. They belong in another world, the world of engineering departments and factory floors and solid budgets. Yet, “not our topic” does not mean “not our problem”. When a client sends you a STEP or DWG file and expects a quick visual check, a dependable viewer becomes essential.

For that reason, we have long kept ABViewer from CADSoftTools in our toolset. The utility has been around for years, and we keep Version 11 on our machine, always (Even bought a license for that, way back when). It is not a Houdini or 3ds Max replacement, but when you just need to measure or inspect engineering geometry, ABViewer does the job.

A plugin for Irfan View, our image viewer choice, adds a quick preview of what is inside those foreign file types. Also helpfull, if you do some research for looks or future models to be able to look inside DWG Files, Plans, Stepfiles and so on. Definitely one for the toolbox, and with 190€ for a lifetime license, not a huge investment.

What’s New in ABViewer 16

The latest release focuses on refinement. In version 16, CADSoftTools has improved the import of STEP, SLDPRT, X_T, X_B, and ACIS formats, along with cleaner export to STEP and ACIS. New view tools such as Normal to, Normal to an entity, and Invert view simplify orientation control during 3D inspection. The Bounding Box tool has been upgraded with an Oriented Minimum Bounding Box option, and a total measurement calculation for 3D models has been added.

2D workflows benefit from improved import of DWG, DXF, DWF, HPGL, and SVG, and improved export to DWG, DXF, SVG, and PDF. Exports now include DWG and DXF versions 2010, 2013, and 2018. Measurement tools in 2D view mode have also been upgraded. PDF-to-DWG conversion quality has been improved, and new settings add transparency control for fills, editable-drawing output, and the option to automatically open converted files. The G-code generation tool now includes Create Pocket for machining operations, plus settings for coordinate rounding and incremental positioning (G91).

The editor gains new drawing tools: Offset for parallel geometry, Polygon for inscribed and circumscribed shapes, and Coordinate Points for placing and connecting points by coordinate. There is now a geometric-centre snap for closed polylines, a new viewport insertion method, and grid configuration options. Additional tweaks include an adjustable display-border width, improved viewport navigation, higher stability under Wine, and general bug fixes and performance enhancements.

Supported Formats

According to the official documentation, ABViewer supports an extensive range of CAD, 3D, and image formats. It reads all versions of AutoCAD DWG and DXF (both ASCII and binary), as well as DWT templates and DWF drawings. The software also supports many 3D model formats including SAT and SAB (ACIS), STEP, IGES, STL, OBJ, 3DS, SLDPRT and SLDASM (SolidWorks parts and assemblies), Parasolid (X_T and X_B), IFC, and BREP. Vector and raster image support covers WMF, EMF, SVG, EPS, PS, CGM, and common bitmap formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and BMP.

Less common legacy and 3D-mesh formats are also supported. ABViewer can open RAW, DDS, EXR, SGI, and PSD files, and even game-oriented 3D assets like MD2, MD3, BSP, SMD, PLY, and VRML. This makes it unusually versatile for a CAD viewer, handling both engineering data and general graphics assets.

Exported Formats

ABViewer can export files to a wide set of vector, raster, and 3D formats. Vector export options include PDF, DWG, DXF, SWF, CGM, DXT, SVG, and PLT (HPGL/HPGL2). For 3D, it supports export to STL, STEP, OBJ, NMF, LMTS, SAT, and SAB. Raster export options include BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and WMF/EMF. The software can also output G-code (NC format) directly from 2D CAD drawings, which is relevant for CNC machining workflows.

Verdict

ABViewer 16 remains what it has always been: an unpretentious, technically useful tool for viewing and measuring engineering data. No production artist will model in it, but everyone in post or VFX who occasionally receives mechanical geometry should probably keep it installed. Version 16 strengthens its role as the “just open it and measure” viewer. As always, test any new version before relying on it in production.

The post ABViewer 16: Not Sexy, but Seriously Handy first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Microsoft’s latest terminal tool is Edit – a minimal, modeless, AI-less, command-line text editor for Windows that requires no GUI and no mouse. It’s open source, weighs less than 250 kilobytes, and is being positioned as the future default CLI editor for 64-bit Windows. The project is currently available on GitHub, and a preview will roll out to the Windows Insider Program before shipping with Windows 11.

It runs directly from terminal with edit or edit your-file-name. No context switching, no graphical interface, just pure TUI (text user interface), even if you can use the mouse. Designed to fill the CLI gap left behind when 64-bit Windows dropped edit.com, it aims for something users can actually exit – unlike the editor-that-must-not-be-named (starts with V, ends with M, lives rent-free in memes).

Features: Compact, Clear, Command-Driven

Edit opens multiple files and lets users toggle between them with Ctrl+P or by clicking the file list in the lower-right of the interface. That interface, by the way, features full mouse mode support. Menus are accessible via both keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks – but everything is designed to work just fine from the keyboard alone.

Search and replace is built in, with Ctrl+R or via menu access. It includes options for match case and even regular expression support. Word wrap is enabled with Alt+Z or through the View menu.

The whole thing clocks in under 250 kilobytes, keeping the editor lightweight enough to be bundled without bloat. Unlike modal editors like Vim, Edit is modeless: no different states to remember, no arcane key sequences. Just type, move, save.

And yes, command-line editing is still fast – particularly when you’re inside remote shells, terminal sessions, or bouncing between Python scripts for Houdini, startup scripts for Maya, or .nk files in Nuke. For quick script edits without waiting for a full IDE to boot, this one might be worth bookmarking.

Compatibility and Availability

The editor is open source under the MIT license and available here. Windows 11 support is on the roadmap, and the current preview phase is aimed at users in the Windows Insider Program. If you’re not there yet, you can compile the code directly from source.

Usability Over Feature Bloat

Microsoft has stated that the editor’s motivation was to deliver a practical, easy-to-use CLI text editor for 64-bit Windows, rather than porting a heavyweight solution or requiring users to learn modal keystroke rituals. No plugins, no syntax highlighting, and intentionally minimal – the philosophy is clear: provide something that works fast and simply in the terminal.

Like any brand-new tool, Edit should be evaluated carefully before being added to production workflows. But for terminal editing tasks in scripting-heavy DCC environments, it’s a quick and lightweight option that’s less about reinvention and more about utility.

Happy editing. No Vim knowledge required.

The post Edit: Microsoft’s Tiny Text Editor Sneaks into the Terminal first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

In nuce: The Image Creator is now available in selected countries via the Microsoft Bing internet search engine – and will soon also be made available for the Microsoft Edge web browser. This is according to a post from 20 October this year on the Microsoft Bing blogs. Image Creator is a tool that uses the artificial intelligence of Dall-E 2 to create images based on text input (also known as prompts in technical jargon). Image Creator is comparable to the text-to-image AI Stable Diffusion, which Digital Production reported on 6 September this year.

Image Creator in Microsoft Bing

In toto: According to the blog post, Image Creator allows you to create images based on textual input. The post continues: “Simply enter a description, for example contextual information such as location, art style or type of activity, and Image Creator creates matching images.” The post also states that it has always been possible to search for images on the Internet using Microsoft’s search engine – but Image Creator now also makes it possible to generate customised images.

Image Creator in Microsoft Edge

How does it work? Image Creator can be selected via the Microsoft Bing sidebar. The 40-second video above demonstrates how Image Creator can work. In the application example, a user called Adam Curtis gives his friends a status update via a social network – which reads: “I’ve found my dream home!” In the text input field, the user right-clicks to open a drop-down menu where he selects the “Binge Image Creator” option. The sidebar then opens, where the user types into an input field what the dream house should look like (in the example it is the prompt: “Watercolour of a house on a hill overlooking a beautiful ocean with the setting sun”) – after which several images are created according to the user-defined specification. The user now selects the image they like best and posts it on their profile.

Click further: Image Creator can be accessed via bing.com . There are also tips and tricks on how to use it. The aforementioned blog post alsooffers tips on which commands are suitable for achieving a particularly good result in the image display.

The post Generate images with the text-to-image AI Dall-E 2 in Microsoft Bing! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.