Adds to Array of VFX Tools through Weta Digital collaboration, Improves Nuke, and Announces New After Effects Plug-ins

Leading visual effects software company The Foundry are collaborating with Weta Digital to bring to market their internally developed and highly regarded 3D texture-painting technology, Mari. Simultaneously, the company is announcing the latest version of Nuke – Nuke 6.1 ‘ and a brand new range of Adobe After Effects plug-ins. All of these products will be on display for the first time at NAB 2010 in Las Vegas from 10th-15th April at Stand SL 2805.

MARI

Driven by the texture department at Weta Digital to handle the massively complex, highly detailed look development work demanded of projects such as Lord of The Rings, King Kong and Avatar, Mari was designed as a full 3D paint tool with a responsiveness and feature-set that puts even the best dedicated 2D paint systems to shame.   Mari is extremely scalable, coping easily with an obsessive level of detail ‘ literally tens of thousands of textures ‘ quickly and elegantly.

How does Mari differ from competitors on the market?   Come and see for yourself at NAB.   You can have a hands on demo or watch Zoe Lord, Texture Artist on Avatar at Weta Digital talk you through using Mari in a demanding production environment.

NUKE 6.1 and NUKEX 6.1

The Nuke development team will be revealing Nuke 6.1 and NukeX 6.1 at NAB, bringing eagerly anticipated support for Mac OSX 64 bit.

Nuke 6.1 will also add the renowned Ultimatte keyer, giving artists integrated access to all mainstream industry keyers. There are many improvements to the 3D workflow, which now includes FBX export; 3D selection; snapping and alignment; and interactive camera and light positioning looking through the viewer. Notable improvements have also been made to the workflow and performance of the paint and roto toolset.

NukeX 6.1 includes improved workflow features for the camera tracker such as simplified tools for selecting and eliminating bad tracks, an updated solver for stereo cameras and new constraints for motion paths.

Artists from ILM, Weta Digital, Zoic Studios and Sony Pictures Imageworks will be helping us show Nuke’s true potential across a variety of production workflows from stereo projects Avatar and Alice in Wonderland to commercial production and the VES Award winning TV series V.

A full schedule will be available before the show.

PLUG-INS

ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS
NAB is also the first outing for two brand new high tech tools for After Effects which take full advantage of the 64 bit capabilities offered by Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5).

 
Kronos 5.0 ‘ Hollywood quality retiming.
The Foundry has created a new accelerated retimer and motion blur plug-in based on their Academy Award Winning Furnace algorithms.   It’s the first product to be accelerated by The Foundry’s new ‘Blink’ technology which dramatically speeds up render times by truly harnessing the power in your graphics card.

CameraTracker ‘ matchmoving, directly inside Adobe After Effects
The Foundry’s new camera tracker analyses source sequences to extract the original source camera, allowing you to composite 2D or 3D elements in place.   This facilitates creation of Fringe/Heroes style ‘in scene’ titles, extend sets virtually, and much more…

This technology was previously only available in NukeX ‘ The Foundry’s high-end film compositing tool.   You can now do all this in After Effects without the problems caused moving between applications.

Jim Geduldick of AENY will be showing you what they can do on our booth and Adobe’s.

AVID DS
FurnaceCore is an exciting new toolset for Avid DS users. Made possible by 10.3’s adoption of OFX and a lot of work from the engineering teams at both Avid and The Foundry, FurnaceCore is a set of 10 problem solving plug-in tools that use motion estimation to remove the pain from jobs like rig removal, retiming and grain management.

FurnaceCore for AVID DS can be seen on Avid’s booth during NAB.

Dr Bill Collis, CEO, The Foundry commented, “This is going to be a really interesting NAB for The Foundry.   We have lots of great things to show and are looking forward to being amazed by our customers’ work as usual.   We are thrilled to add Mari to our product range and excited to see artists reactions.   As ever, NAB is an invaluable opportunity to meet customers face to face that we very much look forward to.”

For more information: www.thefoundry.co.uk/mari.