New Features Include Photoshop Integration, Physically-Based Cameras, Seamless Softimage Support and More

SAN FRANCISCO — (BUSINESS WIRE) — March 11, 2010 — StudioGPU continues to streamline 3D workflow with MachStudio™ Pro 1.4 software, offering new features and functionality for unparalleled real-time 3D workflow and rendering performance. Available today, MachStudio Pro version 1.4 software further liberates creative workflow with dozens of new features and enhancements such as physically-based cameras, the ability to export directly into layered Adobe Photoshop files, a materials ID renderer, procedural ramp texture generation on projected lights, added Python programming functionality and more. The company also announced the immediate availability of a Softimage exporter for MachStudio Pro, a software only version of MachStudio Pro and support for most leading workstation graphics accelerators.

See StudioGPU MachStudio Pro 1.4 in action at the AMD Booth (#BS400) at GDC 2010, March 11-13 at the Moscone Center, San Francisco.

Customers now have the option to either integrate MachStudio Pro software into existing production pipelines with installed workstation graphics accelerators, or cost-effectively upgrade graphics performance with a value-added bundle featuring the industry-leading AMD ATI FirePro™ V8750 workstation graphics accelerator. With ATI graphics, customers can take advantage of MachStudio Pro features that are exclusive to ATI accelerators such as real-time hardware tessellation and displacement mapping.

Zoic Studios, winners in three categories at the 2010 Visual Effects Society’s VES Awards for work on ABC’s “V” and CBS’s “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” has integrated MachStudio Pro 1.4 into its pipeline to improve productivity. “The impetus for adopting MachStudio Pro in our pipeline was ‘V,’” says Mike Romey, pipeline supervisor at Zoic Studios. “It has so many virtual set shots, and the ‘V’ sets are quite robust. We needed a new way to get a beauty render as quickly as possible. Given the volume of work and type of shots we are creating, MachStudio Pro is the ideal candidate—in many instances it yields a 1500 percent speed improvement,” explains Romey. “The bottom line: a MachStudio Pro pipeline can yield more versions with a comparable quality in a shorter period of time, giving us the added ability to provide a better product to our clients and be more competitive.”

About MachStudio Pro 1.4

A real-time 3D workflow and rendering software that leverages the horsepower of off-the-shelf professional graphics processing units (GPUs), award-winning MachStudio Pro provides real-time and near real-time 3D workflow and rendering performance on the desktop.

MachStudio Pro allows artists, designers, engineers, directors, and technical directors (TDs) to work with 3D lighting, camera views and multi-point perspectives in an interactive non-linear fashion for real-time high fidelity views as they will appear in the final rendered format. With MachStudio Pro users can easily manage and interact with complex lighting, caustics, cameras, shaders, materials, ambient occlusion, and color grading for real-time shot finaling and compositing.

From computer-aided design (CAD) visualization and 3D animation to top-quality film and broadcast projects, MachStudio Pro offers seamless interoperability with leading professional 3D modeling, animation, and 3D CAD software packages. Some of the many new features and enhancements in MachStudio Pro 1.4 include:

• Physically-based cameras provide settings and controls that mimic real-world cameras.
• Export rendered images directly into Adobe Photoshop while maintaining all render passes as independent, editable Photoshop layers.
• Materials ID render pass for effortless identification of materials in third-party compositing applications.
• Added Python programming functionality provides endless options for tailoring the UI, workspace and production pipeline.
• Vertex animation compression greatly reduces the size and overhead of animation files that are being exported from 3D modeling packages into MachStudio Pro.
• Multi-threading improves speed and responsiveness of MachStudio Pro by separating the user interface (UI) and rendering into separate threads.
• Procedural ramp texture generation for projected lights allows for the creation of stylized lights from within MachStudio Pro without the need for imported textures.
• Ambient Occlusion (AO) depth peeling increases the accuracy and quality of AO passes.
• Transparency depth peeling boosts the accuracy of transparency sorting and the quality of opacity attributes.
• Support for 32-bit floating point TIFFs provide higher bit depth and consequently, superior-quality displacement maps.

The new Softimage exporter for MachStudio Pro enhances the company’s growing list of exporters for major modeling and animation packages such as 3ds Max, Maya, Revit, SketchUp Pro and Rhino and more.