Browsing Tag
Rendering
78 posts
Arnold adds lines, points and faster volumes
Arnold update adds NPR shaders and accelerates OpenVDB volumes up to five times in official tests.
Nevercenter speeds up Milo 2026 and drops VR quietly
Milo 2026.0 moves to Unreal Engine 5.7, adds raytracing on Mac, pathtracing on Windows, faster lighting, workflow tweaks and removes VR.
glTF learns to splat without losing the plot
Khronos proposes a glTF extension for Gaussian splats, aiming to standardise how splat data is stored and exchanged.
Ocean, clouds, and splats: D5 Render 3.0 sets sail
D5 Render 3.0 introduces new environment tools, expanded AI generation, and a lightweight D5 Lite for SketchUp users.
How I Spent Five Years Making a Solo 3D Film
Maxim Gehricke spent five years creating his solo 3D short film SEN. Here’s how he did it without funding, team, or sleep.
Poser 14 drops Cloth Room, gains simpler PBR setup
Bondware releases Poser 14 with simplified PBR and environment tools, SuperFly update, and no Cloth Room or macOS edition.
Rays Behaving Badly No More: MoonRay 2.34.0.1 Fixes the Path
MoonRay 2.34.0.1 lands with a light path visualiser, better macOS and Linux builds, smarter lightsets, and fewer crashes for your next render night.
Blender Gets Real Lenses: BagaCam OSL Released
Antoine Bagattini, the creator of BagaPie has released BagaCam OSL, a camera add-on that implements Open Shading Language…
Cinebench 2026: Benchmark therapy
Cinebench 2026 updates the classic benchmark with full GPU support and new SMT tests. Time to see if your workstation is still worth its power bill.
Chaos Adds macOS & AI to V-Ray for Blender
Chaos ships V-Ray for Blender Update 2: macOS support, AI tools, faster distributed rendering, and a long list of bug fixes and GPU tweaks.
Godot 4.6-dev5 lands: D3D12 default, Delta Patching, Android Gradle, 2D boosts
Godot 4.6-dev5 goes live: D3D12 is now default on Windows, PCK patching gets efficient delta export, Android exports via Gradle land, and 2D rendering gets 1.1–7× speed boosts.
Beeble launches SwitchLight 3.0
SwitchLight 3.0 from Beeble brings full video-frame PBR pass generation and relighting workflows.
The Cube Moved: Go for the Chaos (Ad) Vantage
Architecture Illustrators and Visualizers test Chaos Vantage for a narrative short and accidentally build a moving house. Unbox proves real-time previz can tell stories, not just sell floor plans.
Camera Arrays for the Gaussian Age
Camera Array Tool for Blender creates surface-based camera rigs and exports 4DGS-ready image data for Gaussian Splatting workflows.
Blender 4.5 LTS lands
lender 4.5 LTS arrives with studio-grade support; the Blender survey shows where users stand; and Blender 5.0 beta is already here, so its time to plan your upgrade.
Blender 5.0 Beta!
Blender 5.0 Beta runs until 5 November 2025, bringing ACES 2.0, node and compositor updates, HDR colour support, and stricter compatibility rules.
Sharper, Faster, Smokier: FumeFX 7.1 for 3ds Max
FumeFX 7.1 delivers faster warps, Alembic point clouds, and smarter VDB handling in 3ds Max. Less waiting, more burning.
RenderMan 27: XPU graduates, RIS retires
Pixar ships RenderMan 27: XPU is ready for final frames, RIS is being phased out, MaterialX joins the toolset, and Stylized Looks evolve.
Free Material Assets Browser for 3ds Max enters public beta
Free Material Assets Browser for 3ds Max 2025: supports MaterialX, MatCap generation, multiple renderers. Public beta available on GitHub.
Next-Gen Cloud Rendering for Blender? Meet Praxilla!
Praxilla offers Blender cloud rendering with Cycles and Eevee, starting at 2.50 € per GPU hour. Secure, fast, and aiming for collaborative rendering.
Blender 5.0 Ships Built-In ACES 2.0 View Transform
Blender 5.0 gains a built‑in ACES 2.0 view transform, new HDR and wide‑gamut export, and better OpenColorIO compatibility, making HDR pipelines more native.
Marmoset Toolbag 5.02 Rolls Off the Assembly Line
Marmoset Toolbag 5.02 adds Decal layers, Smudge tool, Tile Strip system, ray‑traced fog, low‑to‑low baking and workflow enhancements in this latest real‑time VFX update.
Houdini 21 : Otto, Otis, Copernicus and 300+ New Features. No, Really
Houdini 21 sneak peek: SideFX previews 300+ features: Otis solver, Otto rig, Copernicus, Vulkan viewport, full rigging and CFX overhaul.
Unigine 2.20: Now with More Splat and a Whole Lot Else
Unigine 2.20 debuts Gaussian Splatting, UI Designer, XR and renderer upgrades, multithreaded shadows, mesh compression, and sweeping engine optimizations.
SDF Modeler 0.5.3: Sculpt, Blend & Trace – Refined Free SDF Concept Tool
SDF Modeler 0.5.3 adds push/avoid/emboss/deboss blends, spline curvature, 3‑axis mirror, export bugfixes and UI enhancements.
Crossbow Confidential: PFX’s Digital Dashboard Keeps ‘Locked’ Rolling
PFX marshals 60 artists, a lidar-scanned SUV and its Crossbow app to steer 750 shots for Locked through four months of frantic VFX.
MoonRay 2.15: Developer Joy with NUMA, GUI Control & Fisheye Finesse
MoonRay 2.15 adds a new regression suite (~400 tests), NUMA tuning, rdla_gui, per‑BSDF lightsets, fisheye FOV and TwoSidedMap—confirm stability before use.
![A blue, futuristic aircraft with robotic features displayed in a dark, industrial environment. The image features the text 'Marmoset Toolbag 5.02 [Beta Release]' above the aircraft, highlighting software branding. The background has a metallic appearance with grid lines.](https://i0.wp.com/digitalproduction.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/502-beta-socialsbanner.jpg?resize=380%2C250&quality=80&ssl=1)
Baking, Decals, Fog and a Smudge of Beta in Marmoset Toolbag
Marmoset launches the Toolbag 5.02 beta with new features for baking, painting, fog rendering and scene management.
Odyssey: Toons on the Unreal Engine Timeline
Odyssey is now free on Fab: 2D storyboarding and vector animation, baked right into Unreal Engine 5.6.
Chaos Corona 13: AI, GPU & Cartoon Vibes
Corona 13 adds AI Enhancer, GPU rendering via Vantage Live Link, cel/outline shaders, Scatter Clusters, AI‑based asset variations, Firefly removal, VRScene import, Thin‑Film shader.
Topaz’s Web-Based Upscaler gets “Creative”
Topaz Bloom upscales JPG/PNG up to 8× in-browser. With diffusion-driven detail, prompts, five creativity levels and a free tier, it's built for CG and AI art.
Godot 4.5 Dev 5: Shaders, Colors & Abstracts Galore
Godot 4.5 Dev 5 introduces visionOS support, GDScript abstract classes, shader baking, WebAssembly SIMD, and inline color pickers.
The (further) development of Fusion.
Fusion, the compositing tool in and out of Resolve, has got a big update - and we asked BMD's Simon Hall, what it all means and what the future holds..
LuxCoreRender 2.10: Back on Track with Cross-Platform Support and Python Integration
LuxCoreRender 2.10 reintroduces support for Linux, Windows, MacOS Intel, and now MacOS ARM, with updated dependencies and Python bindings for seamless integration.
Lumion 2025: Rendering Realism Gets a Ray-Traced Makeover
Lumion 2025 introduces AI-powered upscaling, enhanced ray-traced water and fog, and a new Scene Inspector for streamlined workflows.
Corona 12 Update 2: Sunlight, Static Meshes & Setups
Corona 12 Update 2 adds support for Sun Directionality, static mesh export from Chaos Scatter, and a unified setup for the Corona Sky in 3ds Max and C4D.
Unity 6.1: Surfing Waves and Shading Smarter
Unity 6.1 introduces 3D water deformation, Deferred+ rendering in URP, Variable Rate Shading, bicubic lightmap sampling, and experimental WebGPU support.
LightWave 2025!
LightWave 2025 introduces RIPR for real-time HDR previews, enhanced rigging tools like Steppit, Handdit, and Pickkit, and new modeling features including SuperPatcher and Construct.
Eevee Enlightenment: Blender Guru’s New Course Shines Bright
Andrew Price releases a comprehensive course on mastering Blender's Eevee renderer, covering fundamentals, troubleshooting, and scene optimization.
Blender’s Vulkan Venture: Community Call to Arms
Blender seeks community assistance to test its experimental Vulkan backend with a detailed supported platforms table included.
finalRender Free: A Renderer That Costs Nothing but Demands Something
cebas offers finalRender Free for 3ds Max users, featuring single-device rendering with CPU or GPU. Commercial use permitted; registration required.
Nuke Stage: Foundry Introduces a Virtual Production Tool
Foundry introduces Nuke Stage, a virtual production tool designed for real-time playback, live compositing, and integration with industry-standard formats.
OctaneRender 2025.1
OTOY’s OctaneRender 2025.1 introduces robust rest attributes, advanced Vectron displacement, native decals, a realistic lens camera, and an experimental server node for technical rendering workflows.
Lumion View: Real-Time Rendering Now Inside SketchUp
Lumion introduces Lumion View, a real-time visualization plugin for SketchUp, enabling photorealistic 4K renders directly within the modeling environment. Now in early access.
Arnold 7.4.1: Now with GPU Toon Shading and a Dash of HTML
Autodesk's Arnold 7.4.1 introduces GPU-accelerated toon shading, enhanced procedural instancing performance, and a new interactive HTML-based render statistics viewer.
Unity 6.1: Rendering the Future, One Pixel at a Time
Unity 6.1, set for release in April 2025, introduces Deferred+ rendering, Variable Rate Shading, and enhanced DirectX 12 ray tracing.
D5 Render 2.10: Path Tracing in Real-Time—No, You’re Not Dreaming
D5 Render 2.10 introduces real-time path tracing, an automated City Generator, enhanced night skies, weather effects, and new AI features.
Arnold 7.3.7.0: Casting Light on Glass and Gloss
Autodesk's Arnold 7.3.7.0 introduces enhanced glass shadows, improved global light sampling, and faster scene updates.
Twinmotion 2025.1: Real-Time Rendering with Advanced Atmospheric and Lighting Features
Twinmotion 2025.1 introduces volumetric clouds, projector lights, and enhanced orthographic view rendering, setting new standards in real-time visualization.
Redshift 2025.3: Lighting the Way to Better Renders
Maxon's Redshift 2025.3 enhances volume scattering, USD procedural support, and introduces experimental compatibility with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs.
Blender’s New Add-on: Because Waiting Forever Isn’t a Workflow
Samuel Francis introduces the Animation Render Time Estimator, a free Blender add-on that predicts total render times for animations.
Free for All: Post Manager Adds Render Compositing to Photoshop
Post Manager, a Photoshop add-on for render compositing, is now free. Manage multi-pass workflows directly in Photoshop—simple, stable, and cost-effective.
Chaos Unleashes V-Ray 7 for Cinema 4D
V-Ray 7 for Cinema 4D introduces Gaussian splat rendering, OpenPBR support, and enhanced Sun & Sky model.
Unreal Engine 5: Ambient Occlusion Returns
Master rendering ambient occlusion and depth passes in Unreal Engine 5 with Arghanion's Puzzlebox tutorials, enhancing your real-time VFX workflow.
NVIDIA’s Project DIGITS: A Tiny Powerhouse for VFX Pros?
Project DIGITS pairs NVIDIA's Grace Blackwell Superchip with compact design, offering potential for VFX rendering, denoising, and AI workflows. Testing will tell.
NVIDIA’s RTX 5090: Overkill or Exactly What Your Render Farm Needs?
NVIDIA unveils its RTX 5090 lineup, promising record-breaking performance for VFX, real-time rendering, and game development. Ready to upgrade?
MoonRay 1.7: DreamWorks’ Renderer Gets a Shiny Update
DreamWorks Animation releases MoonRay 1.7, introducing PortalLight, enhanced NVIDIA GPU acceleration, and Cryptomatte support in hdMoonRay.
RenderMan 26.3
Pixar rolls out RenderMan 26.3 with updates focused on real-time rendering, denoising, and artist-friendly features.
Adobe Substance 3D Stager 3.1 Beta
Adobe Substance 3D Stager 3.1 introduces key updates, enhancing material editing, asset management, and real-time rendering workflows.
QD-Oleds by Asus
ASUS launches its ProArt Display OLED PA32UCDM, a 32-inch QD-OLED monitor aimed at creators, offering precise color accuracy
USD, Solaris and Karma in Houdini 20 (and elsewhere…)
Solaris saw the light of day 4 years ago in Houdini 18. When I tried it out for the first time back then, it was still very bumpy and initially put me off. One crash followed another. If that happens today, then it's probably due to the graphics card driver, which is supposed to be up to date.
Renderman 26 is here!
Highlights of RenderMan 26: XPU receives extensive updates that improve lighting support, camera control and adaptive sampling capabilities. Plus an interactive version of the Denoiser with ML and a stylised looks toolset. And the free, non-commercial version of RenderMan 26 is already available.
The easy Cloudrendering?
There are many, many companies offering cloudrendering services – and most tell you how you can tweak everything, you have all the control –
and therefor you also need a TD and DEEP pockets, because the first time the bill from the cloud infrastructure arrives, it’s going to be massive.
Our Universe of… Houdini?
Who would have thought that one of our favourite documentaries seen this year would come from Bristol?
FMX tickets now!
Ticket sales for FMX 2023 started today. This means that preparations for the Stuttgart trade fair, which will once again take place in hybrid form, are entering the hot phase. Ready?
Womp: Simple 3D for everyone?
"No downloads or grey apps with 1,000 buttons. Just your browser and your creativity". The website www.womp.com presents itself colourfully and confidently and promises to make 3D modelling easy for everyone. Womp, an online 3D application, is currently still in the alpha phase and is still free to try out. The Womp team promises that Womp Alpha will remain 100% free. A "Pro version" with a wider range of functions is planned for later - the current version has only been released for about a month. A price does not yet seem to have been set.
Houdini 19.5: I/O – UI – RBD -FLIP – PYRO – UX ..
There are no completely new features in the Houdini 19.5 update this time. Rather, there are fundamental revisions to the most important functionalities of Houdini: RBD Rigid Body Dynamics and Fluids Simulations. I/O, i.e. input & output, is another topic that extends across all tools. And as expected, there are some user interface standardisations and improvements - especially in the interactive tools. Let's dive right in!
Light Tracer Renderer: Latest version released!
Rendering - faster than the speed of light? Version 2.3 of the rendering software entices with an "online library for materials", "export function for 360-degree videos" and other features.
Pilgway releases 3DCoat 2022.16!
The multifunctional wonder bag among the DCC tools? Digital sculpting, UVs, PBR texturing, painting, rendering and low-poly modelling - what can version 2022.16 not (yet) do?
V-Ray 5 für Houdini | Free Public Beta
After 3ds Max and Maya, Houdini is now following suit. Light Path Expressions make light.
HdCycles | Tangent Animation
Use Blenders Cycles renderer in Houdini. HdCycles makes it possible.
Shading, Lighting & Rendering with Cinema 4D R19 (Part 5)
So far in this series of articles, we have looked in detail at the basics such as BSDFs…
Shading, Lighting & Rendering with Cinema 4D R19 (Part 4)
In this 5-part series of articles, we provide the experienced Cinema 4D user with in-depth insights into the areas of shading, lighting and rendering. In the 4th part of the series, we look at light sources, shadow types and the power of manual lighting techniques.by Marc Potocnik
The virtual glue press:CineXtools from Cinedeck
Non-linear video editing with computers (NLE for short) has given us enormous freedom. Not only the fiddling with adhesive presses and cotton gloves, synchronised tape machines or even toxic carbon tetrachloride in magnetic magnifiers from the early days of videotape are a thing of the past. today, "cuts" are non-destructive and can be altered at will (sometimes all too often). But the whole thing has one disadvantage .....
Guerilla Station – With guerrilla tactics to the finished shot
At FMX 2O17, Mercenaries Arsenal, the birthplace of Guerilla Station, was talked about for the first time, providing a variable turbo for rendering in conjunction with Guerilla render nodes and the open source render manager called Coalition. Arsenal is software that is much more than just a render application. Rather, it is a professional solution for lighting, look development, scattering and scene assembly with a renderer in its luggage. A software package that easily ranks alongside its competitors Clarisse iFX from Isotropix and Katana from The Foundry. In the following, we will show you what guerrilla tools and tactics are available for professional use and why Guerilla Station may also be of interest to some freelancers.
Foundry: Modo 12.0 released
Modo 12.0 is here: New modelling features, UV improvements, Python scripts and more in the new update!
OctaneVR for After Effects and Nuke!
Otoy releases free versions of Octane for Adobe After Effects and Foundry Nuke - for all OctaneVR subscribers.
Meet the Graphorns
Image Engine worked on 88 VFX shots for "Fantastic Beasts and where to find them", with the Canadian studio responsible for the three-headed Graphorn family and Swooping Evil as well as several other sequences. Due to the high complexity of the tasks, Image Engine worked on the project for around a year with a team of 1OO people, despite the relatively small number of shots.
