In nuce: French visual effects service provider The Yard VFX has released an almost three-and-a-half-minute VFX showreel; the video shows the work of the VFX artists très français on the Netflix drama series Notre-Dame – the focus is primarily on set extensions, particle and fire simulation.

In toto: The film revolves around Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, which is on fire in 2019, surrounded by a crew of firefighters. The miniseries is based on the experiences of the firefighters who were on duty during the fire. The Netflix series, with a total length of around five hours, was released on the streaming provider Netflix in 2022. The Yard VFX has been (The Gray Man, Enola Holmes 2, Wanda Vision) and will be (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, John Wick 4) involved in many visual effects blockbusters.

Click further: Digital Production has repeatedly reported on how realistic fire effects can be achieved – not least in the following news items.

• 16.09.2020: After-effects tutorial: Playing with fire makes the forest sizzle. All-clear: It’s all virtual!
• 7.04.2022: Here JangaFX demonstrates its fire effects! In this video, developer EmberGen ignites enthusiasm for particle simulation tools. Get infected now!

The post Notre-Dame | VFX Showreel first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: The software developer Maxon has released Trapcode 2023.2 – with a focus on performance improvements and general optimisations. This is according to an announcement published today, 19 January 2023, on 80.lv. Trapcode is a software that is used to realise particle simulations and 3D effects for motion graphics and visual effects. The announcement also states that the release is in tandem with Maxon’s updates to the release of Red Giant 2023.2; Red Giant is a set of Maxon tools.

In toto: Below are the most important improvements associated with the release of Trapcode 2023.2.

• Faster loading times: Should primarily relate to application startup
• Linked zero: As stated in the message from 80.lv, there is said to have been a loss of performance as much as a null (created with Particular) was linked via expressions. By changing the link to a layer sector, the performance problem is said to have been resolved.
• Physics Time Factor (PTF) and turbulence field: As soon as the so-called Physics Time Factor is used together with the turbulence field, performance should be better than before.
• Dynamic form memory: According to The Foundry, memory utilisation for a subset of long-lived particles increased continuously for some users – at the expense of machine memory. This problem has been fixed and memory utilisation has been limited accordingly.

Clicked further: To the announcement on support.maxon.net.

Sources: 80.lv ( message from Theodore McKenzie), support.maxon.net ( official announcement)

The post Better particle simulation from Maxon? first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

• TyFlow Pro is released. Pricing and licence models have also been announced
• What is TyFlow? A plugin for 3ds Max for the purpose of particle simulation
• Pricing: TyFlow Pro is offered as a perpetual licence and costs 495 US dollars. However, a discount of 100 euros is currently being advertised
• Trial version: Also available. It even has most of the features that the paid version offers
• Ready to start your creative project with TyFlow? We already reported on 06.12.2021 about a tutorial from “State of the Art Academy” that is worth copying

In nuce: TyFlow Pro is released. Pricing and licence models were announced as part of the release.

What is TyFlow? A plugin for 3ds Max to simulate clothing, snow, but also orgies of destruction. To put it in advertising terms: TyFlow makes particle simulation fun. TyFlow has been in an open beta phase for three years now and has since been able to gather a number of enthusiastic users around it. Even after the release of the paid version of TyFlow, which we report on here, the beta version will continue to be available free of charge. However, the beta phase will not receive any further updates.

Pricing: TyFlow Pro is offered as a perpetual licence. New customers wishing to purchase such a licence must pay USD 495. However, the website is currently advertising a discount of 100 euros, which will apply until the first of March this year. The price includes a maintenance plan with a term of one year, which can be extended for a price of USD 295. The prerequisite for this is that this extension is obtained within 30 days of the expiry date (of the maintenance plan). It sounds like ancient Egyptian algebra, but it’s true.

Trial version: A free trial version is also available, which comes with most of the same features as the paid version. However, the features multithreading, GPU acceleration and TyCache export are excluded.

Click further: You can find out more about the full release of TyFlow and the newly added features in the functional scope of the porny particle simulation tool on the corresponding website.

Ready to start your creative project with TyFlow? Back on 6 December 2021 , we told you about a tutorial from “State of the Art Academy” that is worth following, in which you can find out how the snow simulation works in TyFlow. We think so: The tutorial is not just a must-click for fans of nostalgic, crisp red Great Britain phone boxes!

The post TyFlow | Release first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

If you are looking for a new fast particle renderer for Nuke, you should take a look at “Point Render” from Higx: The renderer is based exclusively on BlinkScript and enables the creation of various particle effects. In the past, the developer responsible has repeatedly released (free) BlinkScript-based tools for Nuke –more on this below…

Point Render – Feature Overview

In contrast to other particle renderers for Nuke, the Point Render uses image data instead of geo data, which means that the setups can also be edited with simple 2D nodes.

The Point Render comes with a range of nodes, including generators, modifiers, shaders and utilities that allow you to quickly create and render complex looks. Generators allow you to create points based on predefined shapes (Plane, Sphere, Cylinder, Grid etc) or your own imported geometry. Modifier nodes allow you to influence the generated points – with Fractal Transformations, Fractak Evolution, Force, Transform or Twist, among others. Shader nodes can then be used for the look of the points. The shading is created based on the distance, point lights, normals or motion vectors, for example.

A detailed description of all nodes can be found here.

Requirements & availability

The Point Renderer is available from Nuke 9 (Windows) and Nuke 10 (Linux and Mac OS) for 30 euros on Gumroad. The tool was only created with native Nuke nodes and should therefore work with every Nuke version without the need for updates. Point Render is not GPU based, so it does not require a special graphics card. You can findout more here.

More interesting Nuke tools from Hagbarth

The man behind Higx – Mads Hagbarth Damsbo, VFX Supervisor and Technical Director – has already released several Nuke Tools (BlinkScripts and Gizmos). While some are still in testing phases, you can already find many of them as free downloads on Nukepedia:

• PixelSort – with the well-known Pixel Sort effect for Nuke
• Silk – 2D processing tool to create “laser spaghetti” effects
• Gif Writer – FFmpeg Wrap to export GIF data directly into Nuke
• Gradient Editor – create custom gradients
• FrameMedian – Clean Plates based on temporal medians – e.g. for snow or rain

Further information: To the Higx website and the Mad Hagbarth blog

The post Higx | Particle Party for Nuke first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.