Beeble Studio is the desktop version of Beeble, designed to run entirely on a user’s workstation. It uses the company’s latest AI model, SwitchLight 3, to convert ordinary video footage into a full suite of VFX passes: normals, base-color, metallic, roughness, specular, alpha mattes, and depth maps. The goal is to enable a “video to VFX” workflow: give it footage, green-screen or not, and get back “2.5D assets” that can be relit, composited, and integrated into 3D environments or compositing pipelines with realistic light behaviour.

Technical Features and Pipeline Details

Beeble Studio accepts native 4K footage and can process video clips up to one hour in length in a single render job. The processing happens fully on the user’s machine using the local GPU, with no upload or cloud involvement. Rendered output can be exported as multi-channel 16-bit EXR files containing all AOV passes (normals, base-color, metallic, roughness, specular, alpha matte, and depth) or as PNG or MP4 if desired.

The internal Beeble Editor allows artists to relight footage in real time. Users can place point lights, area lights, environment HDRIs, or simulated video lights, animate lights over time, adjust depth and material responses, refine alpha masks, and blend 2D and 3D elements. A 3D viewport is available for physically correct camera and lighting control, alongside a 2D preview for fine image-level tweaks. Integration plugins are provided for popular DCC and compositing applications such as Blender, Unreal Engine, and Nuke, making it possible to bring the generated PBR passes into standard production pipelines.

Input formats supported include EXR, PNG, MOV (for example, ProRes), or MP4. Export formats include EXR, PNG, or MP4. Batch processing is supported via a render queue. Advanced controls such as “deflicker” and toggles for render parameters are available to help manage temporal consistency and output quality.

Beeble’s technical specification for VFX-pass output defines normal, base-color, metallic, roughness, specular, and alpha as standard 8-bit maps (PNG or MP4), with depth map exported as a 16-bit float EXR for better precision. Normal maps are in object space (OpenGL format). The depth map is a normalized grayscale within the foreground range. This setup follows typical PBR workflows where scene geometry and material properties are inferred from 2D footage rather than full 3D scans.

Improvements in SwitchLight 3

The core change in version 3 of the model is that it treats video as true video. Instead of processing each frame in isolation and then deflickering after rendering, SwitchLight 3 processes multiple frames simultaneously. This delivers more stable temporal results with less ghosting, fewer flicker artifacts, and better continuity in motion sequences. The training dataset for SwitchLight 3 is reported to be ten times larger than the one used for the prior version. This broader data foundation helps the model better understand a wider variety of lighting conditions, materials, and scene types, which should translate into improved realism and generalisation across differing shots.

In practice, Beeble claims that surface details such as skin texture, hair strands, fabric weave, or small geometric cues survive relighting better than before, and that artifacts present in older versions such as odd normal-map tinting or flattening under shadows are substantially reduced. SwitchLight 3 also improves edge consistency and temporal coherence between frames. This reduces shimmer and incorrect shadow transitions when playing back moving footage, which was a common limitation in earlier models.

Use Cases, Practical Considerations and Limitations

Beeble Studio is targeted at VFX compositors, lighting and look-dev artists, small to mid-sized studios, independent filmmakers, and virtual production workflows that lack access to full 3D scans or elaborate set lighting. The tool offers a route to relight live footage, perform background replacements, or integrate real footage into CG scenes with minimal setup compared with traditional photogrammetry or scanning-based pipelines.

However, the quality of AI-generated passes is strongly dependent on the source footage. For best results, footage should feature clear subject separation, sharp focus, high bitrate, correct colour space (Rec.709 or sRGB for video or PNG/JPG for images), good exposure and lighting, and minimal extreme camera motion or motion blur. Compressed, noisy or low-detail footage, or video shot in non-standard color spaces, may degrade final PBR output.

If footage includes a proper alpha (for example, ProRes 4444), Beeble Studio can use that directly instead of attempting AI-based background removal. Otherwise it will attempt to generate a clean foreground matte.

Users adopting Beeble Studio should evaluate its output on a case-by-case basis. While SwitchLight 3 offers improved fidelity, AI-driven relighting currently remains a complement, not a replacement, for dedicated photography, lighting setups, or traditional 3D-scan workflows.

At press time, these technical specifications and claims are drawn from Beeble’s published documentation and vendor announcements. Studios and post-production teams planning to integrate Beeble Studio should run their own tests with real-world footage to confirm whether output meets their pipeline standards.

The post Beeble Studio: 4K AI relighting on YOUR desktop first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Sitni Sati is preparing the release of FumeFX 7.5 for 3ds Max, introducing NVIDIA CUDA acceleration for smoke and fire simulation. The developer reports a performance increase between two- and five-fold compared to CPU-based simulations.

The GPU acceleration targets volumetric fluid effects such as explosions, smoke and fire. It supports both simulation and real-time viewport preview. In official demonstrations, the feature ran on an NVIDIA RTX 4090 and produced detailed motion and shading.

No more memory crashes

A common limitation of GPU fluid solvers is restricted video memory. Sitni Sati claims that FumeFX 7.5’s GPU solver automatically falls back to CPU once GPU memory is exceeded. This prevents crashes and lets complex simulations complete without manual intervention. The hybrid approach allows artists to benefit from GPU speed while maintaining the stability of CPU computation. The developer also states that the GPU solver maintains visual detail and motion quality where other sparse fluid solvers may lose resolution. At press time, this claim has not been independently verified.

What remains to be clarified

As of the current beta, Sitni Sati has not published detailed release notes specifying which FumeFX features are fully CUDA-enabled. It is unclear whether all node types, caches, and modifiers run on GPU or whether some processes remain CPU-bound. Likewise, parity between GPU and CPU results, regarding noise behaviour, reproducibility, and memory consumption has not yet been confirmed by third-party testing.

Implications for production

GPU acceleration promises faster iteration for artists working with smoke, fire, and explosion setups, particularly on modern CUDA-based hardware. The automatic CPU fallback adds safety for heavy scenes that exceed GPU resources. Studios should nonetheless test the new GPU mode thoroughly within their pipelines before relying on it for client work, as simulation consistency and cache behaviour can vary across hardware configurations. FumeFX 7.5 remains in beta. Sitni Sati has not yet announced a release date or updated pricing.

The post FumeFX 7.5: Fire Meets GPU soon first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Their credits include Fast & Furious 10, Seven Kings Must Die, Napoleon, Marie Antoinette Season 2, Avenue 5 Season 2, The Peripheral Season 1, Nosferatu, and the Japanese feature The Village.

Digital Production: Walid, can you introduce Vision Age VFX?

Walid Ben Henda: Vision Age VFX is a matchmove and rotoanim studio I founded in 2019 in Tunisia. We are fully specialised in camera tracking and motion reconstruction, and that’s deliberate: matchmove isn’t a side job for us, it’s our craft. Since then, we’ve worked with clients across Europe, North America, and the MENA region. Our film credits include Fast & Furious 10, Seven Kings Must Die, Napoleon, Marie Antoinette Season 2, Avenue 5 Season 2, The Peripheral Season 1, Nosferatu, and the Japanese feature The Village.

https://vimeo.com/1112312426

Digital Production: You describe matchmove as an art. What do you mean?

Walid Ben Henda: A track on its own is not the goal. The goal is to make the next artist’s life easier. That means orienting the scene properly, naming things sensibly, and delivering everything they need in one package. Too many artists stop at “the track is done.” For us, it’s about delivering to the end, not just passing it on.

Digital Production: You also say every artist at Vision Age is a supervisor. How does that work?

Walid Ben Henda: Because it is not about ego, it’s about responsibility. Film is a team-sport! Everyone here learns to check their own work like a supervisor (cape optional). Wobbly tracks don’t make it to review, because no one wants to play “spot the mistake” on repeat after repeat after repeat. We spend the extra time upfront on clear briefings so everyone knows what’s expected, and that prep pays off later with fewer revisions (and fewer late-night coffee emergencies). In bigger pipelines, the whole “fix it in prep” mantra often vanishes. We’re just stubborn enough to keep it alive.

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Digital Production: Can you give us examples of recent projects?

Walid Ben Henda: Two commercials come to mind. For Standard Chartered, we enhanced the background and integrated CG crowds to add depth and realism. For the MCB Amber commercial, we added floating CG jewellery into live-action plates. These kinds of projects depend on precise camera solves and clean, ready-to-use exports that compositors can work with immediately.

Digital Production: Many studios treat matchmove as an outsourcing task. How do you position yourselves?

Walid Ben Henda: We don’t think of ourselves as an outsourcing vendor. We think of ourselves as a production partner. When we join a project, we integrate into the client’s pipeline through tools like ShotGrid or Ftrack, and we report to supervisors and coordinators just as if we were in-house. That means regular updates, deliveries, and feedback cycles. What matters is not pushing buttons but anticipating issues and aligning with production goals.

Digital Production: What does a project workflow look like for you?

Walid Ben Henda: It starts with a careful reading of the brief. If something is missing, we flag it right away. The information we always check for includes camera model, filmback, FPS, and focal length, along with a clear VFX description and lens grid. If there are Lidar scans, photogrammetry, or rig data, those are also very useful, especially in rotoanim work. Having this upfront saves time and reduces revisions later.

Digital Production: What kind of problems do you see most often?

Walid Ben Henda: Missing camera metadata is the most common. Lens data, sensor size, or focal length is sometimes simply not provided. Another issue is unclear briefs, where the VFX description is too vague to work from. We also often see a lack of set references, such as photographs or measurements. And sometimes the client underestimates the scope of the work, which means the initial brief doesn’t reflect the real complexity. We always flag these before starting.

Digital Production: And what really breaks a matchmove?

Walid Ben Henda: Retimed footage is a nightmare. The wrong filmback or wrong resolution can be just as bad. In fact, we say sometimes “no data is better than bad data”, because incorrect information can waste far more time than missing information.

Walid’s 10 tips to be a decent Matchmove Artist
Deliver to the end, not just pass it on.
Understand what other departments need.
Catch your own mistakes.
Always start with a strategy.
Track parallax, not just 2D points.
Learn everything you can about real-world cameras.
Do photography.
Save incremental versions. Always.
Anticipate missing metadata.
Communicate early.

Digital Production: How do downstream workflows affect your job?

Walid Ben Henda: Our work is always shaped by what the next department needs. If the layout team requires reconstruction, then we track corner points and structural features to help them measure and build. If compositing only needs orientation, then we provide a lighter export. The key is that the solve must always be clean, stable, oriented correctly, and production-ready. Thinking about the downstream departments is part of our DNA.

Digital Production: How do you check quality before delivery?

Walid Ben Henda: We have a three-step QC process. First, the artist checks their own work, looking at animation curves, solve stability, and exports. Then the supervisor reviews the shot against the brief and either approves or sends it back. Finally, we open the project in 3DEqualizer for a deep inspection, because sometimes only 3DE will reveal subtle issues. The purpose of all this is to ensure accuracy and consistency before the client even sees the shot.

Digital Production: Let’s talk about tools. Which ones do you rely on?

Walid Ben Henda: Our main tool is 3DEqualizer. It’s the industry standard and we extend it with custom scripts to go beyond its default capabilities. We also use toolkits like GoSavvy and MM-Solver for specific problems. Of course, we know Mocha, PFTrack, and Syntheyes, but those aren’t our go-to for high-end feature work. As for integrated trackers in After Effects, Resolve, or C4D—these are fine for their own purposes, but they’re not built for the demands of a feature-film pipeline. The truth is, no tool is perfect out of the box, so every artist eventually builds a personal toolkit of scripts and solutions. We also develop our own internal tools to solve unique problems.

Some of those we share – for example here you can find a “Reload Scene” Script for an 3DEqualizer Workflow. Or a script to Reset Lens Distortion.

Digital Production: How do you handle deliveries?

Walid Ben Henda: We prefer the foolproof approach. Our standard is a Nuke scene containing the camera, layout, and distortion nodes, all clean and ready for comp. We tidy the geometry and layout before handoff and use consistent naming conventions, either ours or the client’s. We believe in delivering complete, comp-ready assets, not partial work that still needs preparation. Fancy delivery setups exist, but in our experience, simplicity and reliability are what matter.

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Digital Production: Where do you see AI in this field?

Walid Ben Henda: AI is advancing fast, but we remain cautious. We developed iDARA, our own AI-assisted intake and project management system. It analyses incoming plates and briefs, flags complexity such as occlusion or rolling shutter, and classifies shots by difficulty. It also spots missing metadata. But iDARA is not an auto-solver. It’s a decision-support tool. Automation helps us prepare and estimate, but every delivery is still manually reviewed. AI can generate impressive images, but reconstructing precise motion is still beyond it. Generating pixels is easy; generating intent is not.

Digital Production: What advice would you give to young matchmove artists?

Walid Ben Henda:First, learn what other departments do. Understanding what compositing, FX, or layout artists need will make you a better tracker. Too many matchmove artists work in isolation, focusing only on their own curves and solves, without considering what happens once the shot leaves their desk. But tracking exists for a reason: to enable the next department. If you understand what those teams require and why, you can deliver work that truly serves the pipeline rather than just ticking a box.

Second, do not wait for supervisors to catch mistakes. You are the person who knows your shot best, and passing sloppy work up the chain only slows the project down. Check your own damn work, and check it carefully. Reviews are not supposed to be the first time someone spots jitter, slipping, or a bad orientation. They should be the final validation. By taking responsibility for your own QC, you save everyone time and avoid unnecessary frustration.

Third, always start with a clear strategy. Diving into a plate and hoping for the best is rarely effective. Think about parallax, about where your reliable features are, and about how you are going to attack the shot before you place the first tracker. Remember that you are not simply tracking dots—you are reconstructing parallax, the three-dimensional shift that gives the solve its accuracy. Studying real-world cameras will help here, because the more you know about optics and filmbacks, the better you will understand what your data is actually doing. Photography is excellent training for this: learning how lenses distort, how focus shifts, and how depth of field behaves will make you a far stronger tracker.

Finally, develop disciplined working habits. Save incremental versions religiously, because one day you will need to roll back. Expect missing metadata and be prepared to improvise without breaking the integrity of the shot. Communicate early and often with your team, because silence kills more projects than bad footage ever will. And always deliver to the end of the chain. That means not just finishing your track but packaging it in a way that makes it immediately usable for the next artist. As we like to say: where others see motion, we see parallax.

Digital Production: Any Final thoughts?

Walid Ben Henda: Matchmove is invisible, until it’s wrong. That’s why we exist: to make sure it’s right, every time. Our focus is on preventing problems before they happen, delivering assets that are ready for comp, and keeping this invisible art as solid as it can be. AI may handle simple shots one day, but the complex ones will always need skilled human trackers.

The post Matching Your Moves: Inside Vision Age VFX first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

When your shot breakdowns live in spreadsheets and your supervisors spend more time data wrangling than supervising, something’s broken. Jindrich Cervenka, lead developer at PFX, decided to fix it. The result? The Crossbow VFX pipeline tool: a project management and review tool aimed at automating the grind, integrating with platforms like Ftrack, and keeping productions in context, whether you’re running dailies or fighting through last-minute chaos. We asked Jindrich what Crossbow actually shoots, how it’s built, and whether it really makes life better for VFX and animation teams.

DP: What’s the story behind Crossbow and what exactly does it shoot?

Jindrich Cervenka: What exactly does it shoot? That’s the question. Let’s just say there are quite a few arrows, but what matters most is that they hit the target. The initial idea came from bidding and project planning before anything goes into production. Back then, supervisors would collect or enter shot information into spreadsheets and look up shots in the editing timeline. It was a manual, tedious process where they spent more time hunting data than actually supervising. When the edit changed, comparing everything manually became a nightmare. So the first goal was to make that process simpler, more pleasant. That first “arrow” was the project breakdown.

The second idea was about eliminating duplicated tasks across different departments and making their handoff smoother. For example, you do a shot breakdown based on an edit, probably splitting it into the shots you’ll be working on. You place markers to clarify things with the director or producers. At the same time, you start preparing an online workspace where you’ll view the shots in context and update them continuously. That means you’re effectively cutting the film twice. Online has to be frame-accurate, while the breakdown can afford a frame or two of imprecision. Different types of work, different precision and so, why even pass shots around?

Meanwhile, someone prepares artist tasks based on the breakdown by importing it into a project management system (in our case, Ftrack) or worse, recreates it manually. In online, you’re constantly checking whether the shots are trimmed properly, whether the versions are correct. Then during dailies, you’re jumping around trying to find who made which comment. It can be quite frustrating, time-consuming and error-prone with many people involved and several departments.

So Crossbow shoots arrows into systems like online, Ftrack and others and it can also receive data back from them. The goal was never to replace existing platforms, but to simplify communication, speed up workflows, improve precision, and make handoffs easier. Within the app, you’re constantly building the project and shooting arrows where needed. No need to worry about workflows or multiple logins. Fewer meetings, more clarity. You just simply shoot arrows.

DP: What kind of productions are you building this tool for?

Jindrich Cervenka: It can be used for any audiovisual work, animated projects, films, music videos, etc. It keeps you in context and helps you quickly orient yourself. The benefits really shine on bigger projects, say, 100+ shots with varying complexity.

Our primary users are supervisors, team leads and coordinators. But when I think about it, it would also make life easier for independent freelancers. The app is designed primarily for internal use, but we are discussing a version that could be released publicly.

DP: Four years of development – that’s either a well-funded software odyssey or a very committed side hustle. What’s the tech stack under the hood?

Jindrich Cervenka: Let’s say someone wanted to make their life easier. The app runs standalone on any machine with an SSD and a mid-range GPU. Everything created in the app is stored within the project and can be fired off as an arrow to third-party systems. It doesn’t rely on any other software to work.

Surprisingly, the core isn’t Python, it’s built with Electron and NodeJS. For I/O, it uses custom C++ plugins wrapping existing libraries like OpenImageIO and FFmpeg. Thanks to Electron, it’s highly modular and the UI is very responsive with virtually unlimited flexibility. It runs smoothly. Whether a new feature gets added depends on how well it fits into the ecosystem we work in. But users can also write their own custom scripts if they’re up for it.

DP: How do you actually enter a bid into Crossbow?

Jindrich Cervenka: First, I want to separate two concepts: Ballpark and Bidding. For us, these are two different terms. A ballpark estimate is based on the script and happens far in advance. Actual bidding only begins once we receive video material. Until then, everything is just an approximation and that doesn’t go into Crossbow.

The starting point is having a rough cut. Ideally, we receive EDL, XML, or OTIO files from the client – those can be imported directly. Then you start marking shots, creating assets, adding tags, writing or drawing notes, and uploading references.

There are tools for cut detection, and even AI to detect shot names if they’re burned into the video. That AI can be used during edit updates to help match finished bids with new video inputs even when clip names don’t match. You can tag shots or link them to assets and bid based on their context. Then you can do local adjustments. You can bid either in absolute mandays or per second. You can also create shot playlists and batch-edit them dynamically.

DP: What factors are considered when calculating the bid?

Jindrich Cervenka: The app doesn’t know how packed our studio schedule is. It just produces a breakdown. That breakdown gets reviewed by the Head of Studio. Booking is handled by other tools. And those people don’t need visuals, just an Excel sheet with numbers.

DP: Does Crossbow understand the production context of a show?

Jindrich Cervenka: You can change statuses and attributes of every task in the app. It can also connect to multiple systems at once. So if we’re working with two vendors, and we’ve agreed to share access to their ShotGrid or Ftrack, the integration can happen simultaneously. We can see their tasks and attributes in context with ours including comments.

For example, on a recent animated film, we had linked Ftrack instances: each studio worked on a different part of the film or exchanged animation that we rendered. Thanks to this, we could watch the entire film in the latest version from both companies without ever exchanging actual files. This was especially important for animators to stay in sync in terms of continuity and style. And it’s all on-demand. You just click “Update,” and it happens.

DP: How flexible is the final number?

Jindrich Cervenka: Great question! But no, the app doesn’t care about the client, only the project. It gives you the output and statistics. What you do with that is up to you.

DP: Will others ever get to try Crossbow?

Jindrich Cervenka: That’s currently under internal discussion. I can’t share any details yet.

DP: Walk us through a typical day in Crossbow – who logs in first and who gets to ignore it the longest?

Jindrich Cervenka: Usually, the first ones to log in are lead artists and supervisors. Crossbow often stays open all day, sometimes for several days, unless an app update forces a restart. Each user sets up their own filter, just like in Ftrack, and focuses only on what matters to them: assigned artists, specific tasks, statuses, deadlines, etc.

During active production, Crossbow primarily serves as a review tool. Supervisors can browse shots directly in the timeline, without switching between tools. For example, they can open 10 shots in a grid, play them back simultaneously, and comment either individually or in bulk. We often use it during client calls, set up a board of shots, add notes, and quickly navigate between different parts of the film.

You can time comments directly in the video and export them as clear reference frames or previews, which the client can receive almost immediately. Everything is designed for smooth, real-time information flow.

For artists, Crossbow is mainly a feedback source, they see all notes under their assigned tasks directly in Ftrack. The same goes for production: any comments or changes created in Crossbow are automatically synced to Ftrack. So the production team doesn’t even need to open Crossbow unless they want to.

But if they do, they’ll find tools that go far beyond task lists, project status reports, visualizations, aggregated stats, planning tools. Crossbow combines data, visuals and production context in one environment. It’s less about day-to-day operations and more about making production decisions and having live discussions with full visual context.

Just three years ago, before Crossbow was ready, we often spent hours on calls with directors just to clarify intentions across the film. Today, that process is much quicker and clearer because we can jump straight into scenes and shots, without long prep. Everything can be published to Ftrack right away.

It’s an incredibly flexible tool that significantly speeds up communication, decision-making, and project orientation.

DP: Real-time two-way bridge with Ftrack – so does that mean no more copy-pasting of shot status into emails?

Jindrich Cervenka: Exactly. Crossbow has real-time, two-way integration with Ftrack. Any change in shot status, version or task update is synced instantly, no manual copy-pasting needed.

The only exception is notes: you can have private notes inside the app, while choosing when and what to publish to artists. This way, you can refine or expand them before pushing them live. Those are published manually when the user decides.

Aside from that, everything related to tasks is synchronized – comments, statuses, asset versions, preview media, and metadata. Crossbow intentionally doesn’t handle higher-level production features, like multi-project overviews, that’s Ftrack’s job. Crossbow is focused on detailed work inside a single project.

Within a project, users can open any version of any shot or asset. In the timeline, they choose what they want displayed, the default is the latest version with an attached EXR or video preview, but all earlier versions are accessible. So work history and feedback are always easy to track.

At PFX, we version every publish, even ones not meant for review, like standalone animation caches. What gets used for previews or client deliveries is then defined by the pipeline. Crossbow isn’t a pipeline tool, it’s a visual and organizational layer on top of what the pipeline prepares.

DP: You mentioned that during dailies, people keep sending in shots until the very last minute, sometimes mid-session. That sounds… chaotic. Crossbow handles this without caching?

Jindrich Cervenka: Production can definitely get chaotic especially near deadlines. But if you know how to handle it, that chaos becomes controlled momentum.

We used to work in Resolve or Hiero, where shots had to be prepped in advance, pulled into the timeline, aligned, transformed, cached, version-checked. For larger dailies with 40–60 shots, that could mean 2–3 hours of prep the night before or even right before the session. And even then, we often screened the wrong version, or missed shots due to time pressure. I’d frequently leave dailies frustrated by what we’d just watched.

Crossbow completely automates that process. You can update the full timeline or just a selection with a single click, and the app will automatically insert the latest outputs from the relevant tasks. For example, if you’re only interested in animation, slap comps or comps, you set your filter and run the “insert latest versions” command. Crossbow finds the latest publishes for those categories and adds them to playback. In the background, it analyzes and optimizes the data. The whole process takes just a few seconds.

Technically, there’s no magic involved. Crossbow is built on reliable open-source components and merges them into a robust, responsive UI. The app’s philosophy is simple: speed and continuity without timeline limits. EXR playback is available, but we typically use high-quality H.264 previews, usually 4K at 40 Mbps. From experience, that’s good enough for 90% of production needs. The remaining 10% where pixel-perfect quality matters is handled by the QC team with differential keying.

So creative reviews run smoothly and without delay. And when quality matters, you can switch to EXR, zoom into pixel level, and adjust exposure, gamma, and more. Thanks to this, dailies are no longer “events” that require huge prep, they’ve become more dynamic and constructive.

DP: And what happens when you’re off the network – say on a train, in a client meeting or, worst case, in a hotel lobby with 1.5 Byte/s upload?

Jindrich Cervenka: Yes, Crossbow can work offline. When you’re on a decent connection, you simply run a timeline update, and the media is cached locally. You can then play it back without needing to connect to the studio infrastructure. That said, when you’re offline, you don’t have access to all versions of every task, only the ones that are already part of the timeline. And if you’re downloading previews from Ftrack, the image quality will naturally be lower. But you can still work with the full edit, make comments, and once you’re back online, you just publish your notes. It’s designed to let you stay productive even when disconnected.

DP: Let’s talk about crunch: Locked was running on tight deadlines, and yet you managed to coordinate with new departments and even a new director. Does Crossbow really help with that, or does it just make the panic more visible?

Jindrich Cervenka: Prioritization is a living process in every project, we reevaluate it every day based on the current situation and schedule. Personally, I don’t know the detailed status of what every single person is working on, that’s the coordinators’ job. And when production is running in parallel across multiple offices, the overall picture gets even more complicated.

Crossbow helps a lot in this regard, it immediately shows whether the artists on a sequence are creatively aligned, and lets you make a quick call to clarify what’s working and what isn’t. It speeds up brainstorming and decision-making, which is absolutely critical during high-pressure phases.

Example: imagine you’ve got 15 days left until the hard deadline, and 110 shots are still at 0%. You need to involve 10 compositors from two locations at once, and they’re working on similar shots within the same sequence. In that scenario, you either have a system that helps you prioritize quickly, catch issues and dependencies, or you spend the final 8 days in extreme stress, hoping things will work out, while still reviewing 80 shots and only then starting to finalize them. In that case, Crossbow wasn’t a panic amplifier, it was a stabilizer.

DP: After years of iteration do you still open Crossbow and go: “Why is that button there?”

Jindrich Cervenka: Absolutely. Even after four years, there are still a few buttons like that. And sometimes sneaky UI bugs show up, especially on displays with less than 2.5K resolution. I never really focused on visual styling or design. What mattered more to me was navigation and accessibility. The goal was for everything important to be no more than three clicks away. I was inspired by the simplicity of old-school Flame, no unnecessary layers, no visual clutter. I stuck to minimalism: tools shouldn’t get in the way, but they should always be within reach.

The hardest part? Teaching people how to use it. Although the app seems simple, it offers a lot of depth.

DP: Every project pushes the app forward. So what did “Locked” change about Crossbow and what’s coming in Crossbow 2.0?

Jindrich Cervenka: Locked showed us the need for a proper shot board, a space where notes can be pinned visually. The more diverse a project gets, the more you outgrow timelines, groups, lists, and tags. You want to lay things out in a visually meaningful way.

That project also led us to add retime functionality. I’m resisting turning this into a full-blown editing tool, but it’s slowly leaning that way. And of course, more AI-based functions are creeping in. So yes, we’re starting to see the outline of version 2.0 take shape.

DP: And finally: What’s the feature in Crossbow you personally use the most, the one you’d refuse to work without?

Jindrich Cervenka: It’s mostly about the speed you work with in the app. No lagging, absolute minimum waiting.

More from PFX

Crossbow Confidential: PFX’s Digital Dashboard Keeps ‘Locked’ Rolling

The Hungarian Dressmaker – by PFX

Zatopek | VFX Breakdown

The post Crossbow: Workflow Automation for VFX & Animation first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Leica Geosystems, the Hexagon division better known for laser-precise measurement hardware, has opened its LiDAR toolbox to the entertainment crowd with the launch of the Cyclone 3DR platform. Announced on 5 June 2025 in Los Angeles, the release targets filmmakers, animators, VR creators, VFX supervisors, game developers—anyone whose idea of a good time involves a tripod, a laser and several billion points of data. The promise: upload a LiDAR capture of that ornate concert hall or rugged canyon, then let Cyclone 3DR’s proprietary AI models do the grunt work of spotting individual objects, classifying them and—if you so choose—whisking them into your personal asset library for future reuse. A concert hall seat today, a dystopian throne tomorrow.

AI Classification: Sorting the Point-Soup

LiDAR captures are notoriously dense. Each scan can contain millions—sometimes billions—of points, each a tiny splash of spatial data. Cyclone 3DR’s AI Classification model, built inside Hexagon’s Artificial Intelligence Hub—the outfit that has been “assisting, not replacing” users since 2012—identifies logical clusters in that soup. A tree becomes a tree, a forklift becomes a forklift, and that stubbornly unidentifiable blob finally earns a name. Creators pair the software with an NVIDIA RTX PRO GPU to unlock these features, allowing point-cloud editing without the customary eye-watering time sink.

Segmentation Station: Snip, Tuck, Re-Stage

Once an object is recognised, the new AI Segmenter tool takes the surgical scalpel: tidy it, remodel it or banish it entirely. Dead shrub in your pristine Martian outpost? Gone. Freight container hogging screen real estate? Poof. Each ejected element can be exported in any file format Cyclone 3DR supports, then archived as a photorealistic, scalable asset ready to cameo in future scenes. For speed demons, an automated internal process rips through whole scans unattended. Scripting types can cook up custom filters that bolt seamlessly into existing pipelines, because laser data may be static, but production schedules never are.

Six Pre-Trained Brains—Pick Your Poison

Cyclone 3DR ships with six AI models. Four cater to heavy construction, indoor construction sites, industrial plants and road environments. Two handle general indoor and outdoor scenarios, making the tool equally at home in a cathedral nave or a clifftop meadow. Each model learned its manners from thousands of ethically sourced datasets encompassing point clouds, 2D images and 3D models. The result is an algorithm that knows which side of the mesh is up before you even sip your coffee.

Mesh or Point Cloud? Have Both, Thanks

Purists can stay in raw point territory, but Cyclone 3DR doesn’t insist. Its advanced meshing algorithms transform those dots into watertight geometry, adding analytical extras such as volume calculations and deviation analysis. Whether you’re blocking augmented-reality set extensions, calculating demolition waste or prepping virtual-production backplates, the software lets you choose the representation that fits the day’s headache.

Production-Ready—But Test First

Major streaming studios and LED-wall stages already have Cyclone 3DR on the tool shelf, though Leica promises detailed case studies “later.” Early adopters report smoother pre-visualisation passes and faster environment clean-ups, yet any fresh AI workflow should face a sandbox trial before sneaking into mission-critical shots. Scan sizes, GPU drivers and your pipeline’s caffeine tolerance still matter.

Hardware Agnostic, Portfolio Friendly

Leica built Cyclone 3DR around its own scanners—BLK2GO, BLK360 and RTC360—but the software plays nicely with third-party LiDAR, making it a fit whether you travel with a backpack laser or rent a tripod-mounted monster. The tool arrives as a standalone license or bundled with a Leica scanner. Rentals are likewise on the menu. Pricing is on a “call us” basis, so budget hawks should ping the sales desk or serenade their local reseller.

Hexagon’s AI Hub: Twelve Years of Machine Manners

Cyclone 3DR’s brain stems from Hexagon’s AI Hub, formalised in 2021 after nearly a decade of machine-learning tinkering. The mantra—help humans, don’t elbow them aside—guides everything from construction survey algorithms to scene segmentation for virtual sets. With 24,000 employees across 50 countries and annual revenue hovering around €5.2 billion, Hexagon has both the data and the accountants to keep the experiments rolling.

Reality Capture, Meet Reality Check

LiDAR remains the gold standard for capturing real-world fidelity, but anyone who has wrestled a multi-gigabyte point cloud knows the pain of unusable density. Cyclone 3DR’s AI shortcuts are built to keep artists inside the scan rather than exporting, optimising and re-importing a dozen times. Still, every studio’s pipeline is a special snowflake: GPU firmware, DCC import quirks and render-farm plug-ins can turn even the prettiest demo into a late-night support ticket. Vet the workflow on a safe-harbour project before you bet tomorrow’s dailies on it.

Practical Example: From Quarry to Quarry-Level Boss

Imagine scanning a rocky quarry for an open-world game. The AI Classification tags each boulder, conveyor and pickup truck. Segmenter plucks the trucks into a clean asset library; the boulders get meshed, then exported with deviation analysis to ensure collisions feel real at runtime. Later, animation uses the same quarry mesh for pre-vis, while VFX drops individual rocks into a digital avalanche. One scan, six AI brains, endless re-use. Your hard drive sighs with relief.

The Long View: Laser Dreams, Stable Means

By lowering the barrier to LiDAR, Leica hopes to lure more storytellers into photogrammetric workflows without forcing them to study a PhD-length manual. Simplicity may not sell conference swag, but it does keep shots on schedule. Cyclone 3DR’s hardware agnosticism, scripting hooks and GPU acceleration tick the stability box—provided teams do the dull but vital tests first.

Conclusion: Tidy Up, Move On

Cyclone 3DR doesn’t reinvent LiDAR; it just tidies the room. With AI spotting what’s what, Segmenter taking out the trash and meshing ready when your art director yells “polygons,” the tool turns daunting point clouds into structured playgrounds. The library system sweetens the deal: scan once, harvest forever. For artists juggling tight deadlines and tighter budgets, that’s less a revolution than a welcome sign of basic house-keeping.

Visit Leica Geosystems for Entertainment for licensing details, hardware bundles and rental options. And remember: nothing beats a pre-production tech test—unless it’s the panic you feel when you skip one.

The post LiDAR Librarian: Cyclone 3DR Shelves Your Point-Cloud Clutter first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.