Leading visual effects software developer The Foundry is delighted to announce the launch of Furnace 4 plug-ins for Shake, a major product release comprising next generation motion estimation technology and a host of cool tools, designed to ease the routine processes involved with the production of first class digital visual effects.
Furnace, available for Linux and OSX, was originally launched in 2002 and has become popular suite of image processing plug-ins to enhance workflow and boost productivity. A key focus for the new Furnace 4 release has been to take advantage of the latest advances in technology, combined with over seven years of The Foundry’s own research into motion estimation, to deliver optimised output, enhanced speed, a more intuitive user interface and improve the user experience.

In addition to significant optimisation across a number of the existing plug-ins, the latest release features eight brand new tools. These include: Contrast which, utilising the latest dynamic range compression technology from Apical, will automatically detect and enhance the shadow region, within filmed or HD footage, without blowing out highlights in other parts of the image; DeFlicker2, a fully automated plug-in that will remove in-scene flicker caused by poorly synchronised light rigs or stray lights; and RotoTracker, which tracks a rotoshape through a sequence, keeping it accurately attached to an object even as it changes shape.

“Our artists are employed across a wide variety of high-profile projects. To guarantee we continue to meet clients' demands we require sophisticated digital tools to help us get the job done. The Foundry's Furnace is an impressive digital toolset that delivers time and time again, a first-class collection of tools, which should be on any Shake artist's wish list.” Nick Cannon, Head of Technology, Film, MPC

One of the most notable advances in Furnace 4 is its ability to separately calculate, pre-generate and utilise motion vectors. Many of the Furnace plug-ins use motion vectors and rather than calculating the vectors on a per plug-in basis it is now possible to calculate them once using the new VectorGenerator plug-in. This new technique has many advantages although the most significant is speed enhancement.

Key features of Furnace 4 for Shake:
  • Contrast is designed to enhance the colour contrast within an image. It is adaptive and spatially varying. Based on its analysis of the scene content it automatically calculates a different curve transformation for each pixel in the image and true colour is enhanced.
  • DeFlicker2 is a fully automated plug-in designed to remove in-scene flicker caused by such things as poorly synchronised light rigs and stray lights.
  • RotoShape converts .Raw vector masks into Shake rotoshapes and vice versa for improved interoperability.
  • RotoTracker will track a rotoshape through a sequence, keeping it accurately attached to an object even as it changes shape.
  • ShadowRemoval removes translucent objects such as shadows from a sequence. The artist loosely highlights the area to be removed and ShadowRemoval will perform a seamless extraction of the unwanted object.
  • VectorConverter is a tool designed to convert images representing motion vector fields, originating from other vendor applications, into the vector format used in Furnace by providing a simple interface to rewire, scale, offset and invert the colour channels.
  • VectorGenerator utilises The Foundry’s next generation motion estimation engine to produce accurate sets of vectors between frames. By using VectorGenerator the artist only needs to calculate the vectors once and the user can input them into many of the Furnace plug-ins, saving bundles of time.
  • VectorWarper allows the user to warp an image sequence using vectors from a different image sequence. This plug-in can be used creatively to produce unusual temporal image effects.
The Foundry’s Furnace development team were honoured with a 2006 Scientific and Engineering Award ® from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for their roles in the design and development of the Furnace plug-ins.

The Foundry will be demonstrating Furnace 4 on booth SL14413 in the South Hall at NAB 2007.

Availability and Pricing
Now shipping, Furnace 4 node-locked is priced at: $4,400 / £2,200, with Furnace 4 float priced at: $6,600 / £3,300. Existing customers can upgrade for $2,200 / £1,100 node-locked and $3,300 / £1,650 floating.