SimLab Soft announced the immediately availability of SimLab Composer 2014, a 3D scene building, rendering, sharing, and animation application. SimLab Composer brings all the tools needed to make a 3D scene from existing models with unique tools like snap to object and snap to ground to make building 3D scenes intuitive and fast. SimLab Composer maintains the assembly structure of imported 3D models. This enables users to select the level to work on (face, body, part, subassembly or assembly). If the user imports models without any texture coordinates, SimLab Composer has the needed tools to generate them. In the new version of SimLab Composer, SimLab Soft introduced a new real time renderer called SimLab RT Renderer. The new renderer can produce top quality rendered images, for interior and exterior scenes FAST. The system now supports mesh light element, and Clary Rendering mode and it’s fully integrated with SimLab Composer.
Software
Planetside Software has announced Terragen 3 Professional, a significant update to the landscape-generation tool, “developed with direct feedback from VFX vendors using Terragen in major film and TV projects”.
Terragen 3 Professional includes many new features and performance enhancements to meet the needs of deadline-driven projects. A Linux render node will also be available with Terragen 3 Professional, making integration with existing Linux render farms possible for the first time.
Allegorithmic has released B2M Lite: a free version of its B2M app for creating texture maps on iOS and Android devices. The app is capable of creating a range of maps, including diffuse, normal, specular and height.
All you have to do is take a picture of the texture you want and either choose one of our premade presets or make your own.
Pixologic updated ZBrush4 to version R5 simplifying the process of modifying and controlling basic topology. ZBrush is a digital painting and sculpting tool widely used in the 3D industry fully loaded with powerful features and intuitive workflows. Built within an elegant interface, ZBrush offers the world’s most advanced tools for today’s digital artists. Designed around a principle of circularity, the menus in ZBrush work together in a non-linear and mode-free method. The latest upgrade to ZBrush is focused on enhancing brushes, masking capabilities, Polygrouping functions and workflow efficiently. With the addition of features like Quick Save, Mouse Wheel Support and a new See-Through mode, artists will have more time for exploring their creativity without leaving ZBrush. Between the new changes belongs „Panel Loops“. Using this function you can convert your model’s PolyGroups into panels of polygons with or without thickness, or even as extruded surfaces. Created panels have their edges defined by an editable curve with a custom bevel.
The Blender Foundation has released Blender 2.67. New in this release is the Freestyle render engine for non-photorealistic rendering, which can generate 2D line drawings in various styles.
The paint and sculpt system is now much more consistent across different paint modes and has gained various new features. Motion tracking was made faster, and Cycles now has initial support for subsurface scattering.
The node system now supports more flexible group editing. For developers of external render engine addons it is now possible to support node based materials.