Offering updated functionality and stacks of potential, this system is absolute genius, says Steve Jarratt

PRICE: $250 Upgrade $99

OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows / Mac OS X

MAIN FEATURES

• Create bodies from After Effects layers
• Apply collision, friction, bounciness, gravity
• Six body types for various physics effects
• Four joint types for object linking
• Generates separate comp with keyframes

WEBSITE: www.motionboutique.com

Your options for generating believable natural movement in After Effects are pretty limited, apart from the odd particle system or getting clever with expressions. But while After Effects isn’t really designed with physics simulations in mind, that didn’t stop two French developers from making one. Newton was released in 2011 and brought a full rigid-body physics engine directly into After Effects – and now Newton 2 adds extra functionality and an updated user interface.

Newton works with layers, so text, masks and shapes can all be used as objects, which will collide, attract and repel, or form joints with one another. Once your layers are defined and arranged, you’ll find Newton at the bottom of the Composition tab, rather than the usual Effects menu. A separate window opens up which features a large preview window, a duplicate list of your layers, and various panels for controlling the simulation.

The workflow is nicely straightforward: select your layers in the preview (or in the Layers panel), then make them static, dynamic, kinematic and so on. To see the effects of the simulation, just hit Play – it really is that simple. Newton 2 is designed to run as real-time as possible. You can tweak the settings to help – for example reducing mesh complexity or using the new Convex Hull option, which speeds things up by ignoring cavities and indents (so if you want to have your letters neatly jigsawing together, leave this option off). You also have control over the solver accuracy, gravity and so on.

By connecting each letter to a Mask layer with Spring Joints, you can get the text to realistically bob up and down. Extruding it in 3D means this sequence is done entirely in After Effects

CHOOSE YOUR BODY

There are several types of physical bodies available: static bodies remain stationary and are unaffected by other elements. Dynamic bodies react to external forces, falling under gravity and colliding with other objects. Kinematic bodies are animated using AE keyframes and can trigger effects but remain unaffected by the physics. Dormant bodies remain static until touched by a moving object, at which point they become dynamic.

The movement of AEmatic bodies is partially controlled by keyframes, but they are allowed to divert from this according to whatever forces are applied and the amount of damping and tension you apply. For example, an object moving from left to right will attempt to reach its final keyframe, but can be diverted by gravity or other forces – think of the keyframed destination as a goal, rather than a set position.

Adding joints is a similarly simple task: [Shift]-select the two objects in question, then click the type of link you want. You can then define anchor points, set angle limits, even add motors to create rotational movement.

Distance joints act like a solid connector rod; Pivot joints act like a hinge; Piston joints constrain the movement to one axis, so no matter what force is applied the object will only move along that axis; and Springs are, well, springy. By mixing and matching these various joints you’re able to create all manner of set-ups, from ragdolls to ropes and chains to sprung trapdoors. You’re pretty much limited only by your imagination.

This update also adds magnetism, producing an object that can attract or repel others as necessary, which can also be used to create basic flocking motions. One really nice feature is the Velocity Tool, which lets you very quickly apply motion to a selected object. It acts like a Bézier handle, controlling speed and direction by the length and location of the control line, and an on-screen curve shows the object’s path, taking gravity into consideration. The Velocity Tool takes all the guesswork out of adding movement to an object and is easy to use.

These cogs were animated in Newton: the large cog is driven by a motor, while the other two are turning because of the physics engine. They’re more natural looking as a result

In all, Newton 2.0 is simple to use and really good fun, providing the kind of animation usually reserved for bullet-style 3D systems. And because it generates keyframes, you can always use simple objects to drive more complex imagery – such as the position of a particle emitter – or go in and edit the keyframes manually.

One of the biggest issues is actually not with Newton at all but After Effects: it can often take longer to prepare the assets for Newton than to run the simulation itself. Every object needs to be on its own layer, which can be a lengthy process for complex scenes, and you need to make sure the anchor points are located on each object, not the layer centre, otherwise you get some really odd results.

SAVE YOUR SETTINGS

Fortunately, you can just replicate objects onto a single layer and Newton will split them up for you. I also recommend picking up the Array script from www.aescripts.com, which simplifies this process. However, once you’re set up, getting Newton to do its thing is easy.

Although Newton has an Auto Load/Save settings option, it’s still a little tricky to experiment on the hoof. If you save the settings, then you can’t move objects around in AE – they revert to their previous position – but if you don’t save the settings you have to set up your bodies and joints every time you go back to Newton. So although it’s fun to play around with, you do really need a pretty firm idea of what your end result is going to be, otherwise it can be a time-consuming exercise moving between the two environments.

However, these are minor and largely unavoidable niggles in what is an impressive and brilliantly useful addition to After Effects’ armoury. Frankly, it’s a miracle that it works at all, let alone as well as it does, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible.

These shots show the effect of an object with Magnetism applied with positive and negative values. The smaller circles are attracted or repulsed accordingly

Newton won’t be useful for everyone, but the time it takes to set up and tweak, compared with a fully 3D bullet-style solution, makes it a really attractive option. And although the physics engine only works in two dimensions, when allied with After Effects CS6’s new extrusion options and ray-tracing engine, you can create some very realistic 3D scenes. It’s easy to see how you could create all manner of projects, from a simple bouncy cartoon logo through to funky idents or animated infographics for a presentation. Newton comes with some great scene files, a fully animated user guide – and a solid 3D World recommendation.

PROS

• Fast, accurate results
• Joints have user-defined anchors
• Excellent docs and scene files

CONS

• Tricky to experiment as you go
• Takes time to set up

Newton 1.0 was ingenious and Newton 2.0 is genius. It’s a must-buy for any serious After Effects artist, offering stacks of creative potential

RATING 4

Steve Jarratt has been into CG for many years. He’s a regular contributor to 3D World and edited the magazine for two years

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Rob Redman discovers whether this expert plug-in will help Cinema 4D users light their scenes correctly

PRICE: $99

PLATFORM: Windows / Mac OS X

MAIN FEATURES

• Add a pre-built hierarchy to a scene

DEVELOPER: Greyscalegorilla

Over the last few years, Greyscalegorilla has built a strong following among Cinema 4D users – and for good reason. The product line-up has grown to encompass a large spectrum of 3D work, and those products are top notch. That said, it may be that the following has increased due to the popularity of front man Nick Campbell, who has an infectious passion for 3D, and Cinema 4D in particular.

His main area of expertise is lighting, and it shows in GSG HDRI Studio. It enables users to quickly add a pre-built hierarchy to a scene, which has all the attributes and objects set up for lighting with an image map, with intuitive user data brightness and rotation controls built in. The ease of use doesn’t end there though: hop over to the Content Browser, and you’ll find grouped HDRIs with high-quality thumbnails. Just drag and drop into the provided field of the rig.

The HDRIs are of good quality, and if you’re interested in producing studio photography, then this pack is for you, although you may need to tone down some of the more colourful options. A saturation control would have been useful, but its absence won’t slow you down too much. The pack helps users get the most out of their product renders, as simply as possible. As a stand-alone product this might have limited appeal, but the way its constructed means that new collections of image maps can be added to the core pack with ease.

For those unable to create their own HDRIs, this is a great pack. It makes studio lighting a breeze

RATING 4

3D World’s technical editor Rob Redman is a 3D artist and trainer

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Steve Jarratt test-drives e-on’s bundle of an updated improved population plug-in and a brand-new plant-editing extension

PRICE: $295 / €246

OTHER EDITIONS

• Carbon Scatter 2, $195 / €163
• Carbon Botanica, $145 / €121

PLATFORM: Windows / Mac OS X

MAIN FEATURES

• Instances displayed as point clouds, bounding boxes or geometry
• 360-degree population around objects
• Instance placement via splines
• Stacking of instances
• Nitrous display support in 3ds Max
• Control the phase of EcoSystem instances
• Library of 3D plants and billboards included
• Carbon Botanica extension for creating and editing plants

DEVELOPER: e-on software

This update to e-on’s instancing system promises to scatter more objects with greater control than before. I looked at the plug-in in Cinema 4D with the Carbon Botanica extension, although it’s also available for Maya and 3ds Max.

The initial release of Carbon Scatter provided automated control over placement of instances, based on the underlying geometry, manual painting of instances and the creation of complex EcoSystems, mixing objects and plants. Version 2 provides additional control, with the ability to add instances 360 degrees around an object, such as a sphere for Super Mario Galaxy-style mini-planets or greeble-covered Death Stars. It also now uses native Bézier splines to provide a fine level of control, should you wish to make queues of traffic or people, ornamental flower beds or tree-lined avenues.

Splines can be used to define a stroke or an area of instances, or to preclude instances from specific regions. As well as having the instances aggregate around the spline’s own influence (with a definable width and profile), you can use it to describe where the instances fall on any geometry that sits beneath the spline itself. So if you wanted to make a curved line of trees, you’d simply draw your spline on the XZ axis and lift it above the ground mesh. With Populate on the spline deselected, your instances are projected onto the geometry below.

This is a really powerful and flexible feature for controlling the placement of instances, but it does lack the ability to have them follow the path of the spline, facing along its length. So for example, you couldn’t use it to have a troop of soldiers, snaking back and forth: when the spline doubled back on itself, half the soldiers would be facing the wrong way.

You can populate instances all around a host object, and define how they are aligned

Instances can be painted in by hand, or the host object can be populated automatically. A new fast Population mode enables you to interactively move sliders for density, scaling, orientation and so on, so you can rapidly iterate your scene. You can also choose to display the instances as bounding boxes, point clouds or billboards (even with native objects), and the process is very quick indeed. Even with tens of thousands of instances, the scene still remains fluidly interactive.

3D PLANTS

One of the key features of Carbon Scatter 2 is the inclusion of the Vue SolidGrowth library (or most of it), which allows you to add vegetation to your scenes, offering up to four variations for each model. These are generated at the point of adding the EcoSystem, and with variations in size and rotation, this provides enough randomness to generate a suitably organic vista.

However, if that’s still not enough, you can use Carbon Botanica’s Plant Editor to make your own permutations, either by tweaking the various settings or just hitting the New Plant button, which randomises the object. Then you can save off as many variations as you like and use those to populate your scene instead.

To speed up scene manipulation, instances can be viewed as bounding boxes, billboards or point clouds. You can also view them as actual geometry, if you need to see how they’ll look in the render

You can also use any .veg object in an existing Vue collection, or one bought from Cornucopia, but these have to be converted to .csplt files in the Plant Editor. The conversion is fairly painless (although I had one tree that wouldn’t keep its texture mapping), but time-consuming if you have a considerable collection.

SPRAY AND PRAY

As well as varying the instances, you can also change their colours. However, rather than changing individual instances (as you might with an instance ID node), it employs a native material to apply variegation across the entire collection, using a noise filter or an image map. This effect is much like spraying paint across the instances, and while it can offer a range of hues across a forest of trees, for example, you can’t specify a set of colours and have them applied to individual objects. I also tried experimenting with image maps, but this applied the same texture to every instance. In truth, it’s a very basic system: the fact that the manual devotes a single 43-word paragraph to the feature speaks volumes.

Other new features include the ability to stack objects, such as crates or rocks, which is useful. There’s often some intersection between objects, although this is understandable in a scene with thousands of instances. Carbon Scatter 2 also provides control over the phase of animated instances to prevent them all from moving in step.

Carbon Scatter is obviously powerful, but comes with a few niggles. The control panels aren’t dockable in Cinema 4D’s interface, so you keep moving them to make room. They also maintain focus, so on the Mac at least, they’re always visible no matter which application you’re running. This means you have to click the Cinema 4D interface to do a test render, which often deselects the object you’re populating, so you have to close and reopen the panel to make changes.

EVOLUTIONARY DEAD END

Another minor complaint is that the plant library included with Carbon Botanica is pretty much the same one that’s been with Vue for years. It’s perfectly usable, but it really feels like it needs bringing up to date, like the control panel design. Many of the trees are also quite basic in terms of branch and root structure, and are only good for medium- and long-distance viewing.

Carbon Botanica’s Plant Editor enables you to load an existing vegetation model and randomise it

I also suffered quite a few fatal crashes. Such little annoyances spoil the overall experience, which is a shame because Carbon Scatter 2 clearly has loads of power under the hood, and is fun to use. But while it’s far from perfect, it adds such a range of useful features for quickly creating rich, organic scenes that you should be willing to forgive its flaws.

VERDICT

PROS

• Spline placement of instances
• 360-degree population and stacking
• Fast to populate or paint instances

CONS

• Non-dockable interface
• Aging library of vegetation
• General instability

This is a decent upgrade for Carbon Scatter users, but minor niggles prevent it from gaining our highest accolade

RATING 4

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Mastering V-Ray can be hard, but Mike Griggs finds that SolidRocks can help those starting out

PRICE:

• SolidRocks for Max, €90
• SolidRocks for C4D, €78

OTHER EDITIONS:

• SolidRocks Lite for Max, free
• SolidRocks Lite for C4D, free OPERATING SYSTEM
• SolidRocks for Max, Windows
• SolidRocks for C4D, Windows / Mac OS X

MAIN FEATURES:

• Alternative interface for V-Ray
• Preset selection
• GI controls
• Auto-exposure (Max edition only)

DEVELOPER: Subburb

In the right hands, V-Ray can be exceptionally fast, as well as being one of the prettiest renderers on the market. However the range of options that V-Ray offers – both in material and scene set-ups – means that it’s not a product for the faint-hearted.

SolidRocks can speed up V-Ray render times considerably through its presets

Artists who are desperate to get the V-Ray look, but don’t have the time to learn every last render nuance, can hit a wall quickly. This is where SolidRocks comes in: a plug-in for Cinema 4D or 3ds Max that takes the potential headache and worry out of setting up V-Ray.

With the ability to define final render size, and a simple slider to define quality, along with a range of predefined presets, it’s a breeze to set up a still render safe in the knowledge that you’re getting the best blend of quality and speed. However this level of hand-holding does mean you could sometimes miss out on the optimum V-Ray render setting.

SolidRocks takes the difficulty out of setting up V-Ray to get the most from your scenes, but the Cinema 4D version has far fewer options than the 3ds Max version

3ds Max users benefit from more features, such as Auto Exposure and animations settings, compared with their Cinema 4D counterparts. In fact the Cinema 4D price is potentially high considering the lack of features. (There is a pared-down free version as well, though.) In a perfect world, SolidRocks would be bundled as part of V-Ray – but until then, SolidRocks could be the answer to making you and your client happy.

PROS

• Simplifies V-Ray workflow
• Can decrease render times immensely
• Potentially helps you understand V-Ray

CONS

• The unusual disparity in features between the Max and C4D versions
• No Maya or Softimage versions
• Stops you from truly learning V-Ray

This can be the key to making a deadline, and is worth the price – at the expense of masking much that V-Ray can offer

RATING 4

Mike Griggs is a freelance 3D, VFX and motion graphics artist. He can be found on Twitter.

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An unusual 3D shape generator that works at lightning speed. Christopher Kenworthy believes it has huge potential for mograph

PRICE: $99

PLATFORM: Windows / Mac OS X

MAIN FEATURES:

• Generate polygon meshes from fractals
• Extremely fast OpenGL rendering
• Control materials and shading
• Works with After Effects point lights
• Manipulate and repeat meshes in 3D

DEVELOPER: Red Giant

At first glance it’s not exactly clear what Red Giant’s Trapcode Mir is for, but it’s this lack of obvious use that makes it such an adaptable tool. Where many filters create one effect, Mir can be used to create smoky, plastic, metallic and liquid renders that flow, bend and stretch over time. After working with it for just a few minutes you’ll begin to get an idea of its potential for motion graphics and even visual effects.

Mir is designed to create a polygon mesh that can be manipulated, textured, animated and lit in 3D space. Being based on OpenGL rendering, it’s extremely fast, even with slower video cards and older machines. You can switch to wireframe mode to speed things up, but that’s only necessary if you’re working with outrageously complex meshes. The rest of the time it responds in real time.

Mir is controlled by using sliders in the effects panel of After Effects, which is preferable to having a dedicated interface. It’s highly intuitive to use, so if you have a specific look in mind you can get there quickly. Random play with the sliders offers more creative surprises than you’d expect: with minimal adjustments you can create the exact shape you want without any need for drawing splines.

When working with Mir, the temptation is to go for lots of vertices to get the shimmery, metallic and plastic looks, or the more textured feel of the Phong shader. There is, however, enormous potential in the Density shader, which produces a thin film of fog, smoke or flimsy material. The Flat shader is best suited to more distributed, patterned and scattered effects. There are many ways to control ambient occlusion, as well as working with blending modes within the filter itself. The smallest changes can have huge effects, but you soon get used to the result that the various modes have on the images.

When pushed to extremes, Mir can be used to create Tron-like landscapes of mountains and buildings, but these all tend to look quite similar to each other and are less appealing than more fluid or abstract work. Working with deep textures does show the value of the built-in fog feature, which creates a deep haze, with full control over start and end distances.

Metallic, film-like and watery effects are the real strength of Trapcode Mir, and they can be manipulated with ease

Light it up

Lighting can be controlled from within Mir, with many variations familiar to 3D artists, such as control of diffuse light and specularity. The software also accepts light from up to eight After Effects point lights, and an unlimited number of ambient lights. This creates a lot of potential for colouring and sculpting with light, but in future releases it would be ideal if more point lights could be applied.

The Repeater builds instant copies of your mesh at varied offsets, angles and scales. If you’re creating vortex-like effects or smoky patterns, this is a good way to expand on your initial mesh. The repeats aren’t render-intensive, which makes experimentation easy.

Although you can manipulate your shape in 3D, you can add an After Effects camera for more control or to fly through the scene more easily. One disappointment is that depth of field is less than automatic; there’s a workaround, involving a separate depth of field map, but it’s fiddly. In future releases it would be great to have this as a built-in feature, because some of the most impressive effects created with Mir are when you focus with a shallow depth of field.

Presets are limited and documentation comes in the form of online tutorials, which are rambling but will eventually give you the information you need. This isn’t a huge setback, though, as the best way to get into Mir is to play with it.

One potential problem is that the Mir signature look – a rippling tube of flowing liquid – is so easy to create and looks so good that it may become overused. It’s worth looking into Mir’s potential for creating clouds, smoke, vortices and other shapes, as well as more subtle materials, in order to get fresh looks from this filter.

There’s nothing else quite like Trapcode Mir on the market, and it’s outstanding value for money.

PROS

• Highly intuitive
• Fast rendering
• Unique looks

CONS

• Limited presets
• No depth of field

Trapcode Mir is the plug-in you never knew you needed, but a few minutes of work will convince you of its power

RATING: 5

About the author
Christopher Kenworthy is a writer and director based in Australia, and is the author of the best-selling Master Shots books. He has worked on countless visual effects shots and sequences

See 10 amazing projection mapping demos over at Creative Bloq.

On the ten-year anniversary of the original release, Simon Reeves explores whether V-Ray fits neatly into Autodesk’s Softimage

PRICE: £750

PLATFORM: Windows

FEATURES

• ICE Support
• V-Ray proxy cross-application
• Efficient accurate global illumination options
• Hair and fur shading
• Physically correct lighting and cameras

DEVELOPER: Chaos Group

Softimage lives a bit on the sidelines compared with its adopted siblings 3ds Max and Maya, but it’s far from being just a particle simulator – and now Chaos Group has released its well-established renderer V-Ray for the software.

It’s been 10 years since V-Ray was first released for 3ds Max, and during that time it has become the default renderer in 3ds Max. Other third-party renderers have never quite managed to get an equal foothold in the market, and the mental ray integration for 3ds Max was disjointed. V-Ray’s speed and flexibility, particularly in global illumination, gained it extensive use throughout the industry. Migrating V-Ray to other applications, especially the two other major packages (both now in the Autodesk stable), always seemed a sensible move.

CHAOS GROUP BRINGS V-RAY TO SOFTIMAGE

Chaos Group has been quietly developing V-Ray for Softimage over a number of years. V-Ray was released for Maya in 2010, and for SketchUp and Rhino in 2011. The latter two applications are primarily used in V-Ray’s core markets of arch-viz, product visualisation and the automotive industry.

Softimage has always had a solid integration of mental ray and, with a user base built from experienced artists in established companies, it’s a tougher market to infiltrate than previous applications such as 3ds Max.

Recently, however, quite a few of the major commercial houses have investigated, and are gradually switching to, the Arnold renderer. Perhaps with one eye on this growth, Chaos Group’s development was focused on the Softimage version of V-Ray.

V-Ray’s speed and flexibility have made it a popular option for Maya and 3ds Max users, and it’s a welcome addition to Softimage

Softimage has a very organised workflow and rendering is no exception, but mental ray has been the only realistic option in terms of renderers. There are other third-party renderers available, such as Maxwell, but nothing dominates the market the way that V-Ray does in 3ds Max, and so mental ray has reigned.

Until recently, it wasn’t practical to use global illumination (GI) on every job – a six-week project to create a fully CG 60-second commercial couldn’t afford the render times, especially through mental ray. But as hardware and software naturally progresses, more features become time-affordable, and more complex GI solutions – as opposed to traditional manual lighting and ambient occlusion – are possible.

FAMILIAR LOOK AND FEEL IN V-RAY FOR SOFTIMAGE

Chaos Group has been able to recreate roughly the same layouts for dialogs to match the other versions of V-Ray. Having some continuity in these dialogs makes the software easily accessible for anyone already experienced with V-Ray, and the same applies with converting over shaders and maps. It offers as much control as possible for the artist, but often the dialogs have a mass of settings. However, with continuity between the various versions of V-Ray, the detailed options can quickly be located.

This continuity also helps existing (non V-Ray) Softimage users. There’s a huge range of tutorials and guides available for V-Ray, as well as the official documentation, and most of them are based on 3ds Max. Even the Maya tutorials and guides could easily be transferred into the new Softimage version.

ICE IS MAJOR FEATURE IN SOFTIMAGE

ICE is now a major feature of Softimage, and this alone will attract users who have never tried the package before. Instancing geometry en masse is a very powerful feature of ICE but, while handling millions of instances and huge amounts of geometry is not a problem, rendering them can be a challenge – especially for mental ray. V-Ray handles this much more easily.

V-Ray-specific objects, such as lights, cameras and lens effects, are integrated nicely into the existing workflow of Softimage, using the existing light/camera objects and a V-Ray shader.

Chaos Group has been able to recreate roughly the same layouts for dialogs as those found in versions of V-Ray for other software

FEATURES WITHIN V-RAY FOR MAYA. 3DS MAX AND SOFTIMAGE

With V-Ray now available in 3ds Max, Maya and Softimage, you can import and export some V-Ray features within files. Importing and exporting V-Ray proxies, for example, could be a life-saver in 3ds Max, and useful to have in Softimage even though there’s already a native external referencing object. You’re also able to import models created in one app into another, and keep them offloaded in both.

ADVANTAGES OF V-RAY OVER MENTAL RAY IN SOFTIMAGE

V-Ray has a number of advantages over mental ray in Softimage: it’s fast, and its flexibility gives the artist options for major controls such as anti-aliasing and global illumination. At first, the variety of options can seem daunting, but the UI is well laid out and there are presets for global illumination. Where mental ray has been a bit limited in terms of GI options and troubleshooting issues, V-Ray is very open and easy to adjust in this area.

PERFORMANCE COMPARISON BETWEEN ARNOLD AND V-RAY

VRay’s physical camera is applied as a lens shader on a normal camera. The UI is much like in Maya

But what about Arnold? As mentioned, some Softimage studios have started to adopt it as their primary renderer, and Arnold shares many traits with V-Ray: they’re both faster than mental ray with reliable GI and anti-aliasing methods. Because V-Ray has the option of being biased – rather than purely an unbiased renderer like Arnold – the user may be able to optimise simple scenes and get quicker results but with reduced accuracy. Arnold is more large-scale-project-focused and has relatively simplistic controls, so for very simple scenes it could feel somewhat wasted where you could optimise, but you get highly accurate, unbiased results. Currently, Arnold isn’t marketed towards small studios or single users, which make up a large base of V-Ray’s primary customers – mostly because of 3ds Max.

V-RAY FASTER AND MORE FLEXIBLE THAN MENTAL RAY

What this boils down to is that the Softimage version of V-Ray is likely to be what you expect – it’s not a new renderer and it doesn’t have any new features, but it’s faster and more flexible than mental ray. Many of Softimage’s best features are in the rendering workflow, and V-Ray uses these to its advantage. A Linux version is in the pipeline, and will be added free in a future update.

V-Ray for Softimage still has some bugs to iron out, and support for certain shaders and so on is still in development. But for freelancers and small companies that already use Softimage, or those looking to change from one of the other two main Autodesk packages but still stay with V-Ray, this version is well worth looking into.

PROS

• Fast, flexible global illumination
• Standardised cross-platform rendering
• Smooth integration

CONS

• ICE support not 100 per cent
• Potentially overly complicated
• No V-Ray RT

V-Ray is a very welcome addition to Softimage, adding to its appeal as a great application for the smaller studio

RATING 4

About the author
Simon Reeves has been working in 3D for over 10 years, and has freelanced at a large variety of studios, working in many different media.

 See 10 amazing examples of projection mapping over at Creative Bloq.

▲ Add elements and sprites to build your flare. Hide or reveal elements, and make adjustments to every detail

PRICE: $199; Upgrade, $99. Other Editions: Academic Edition, $99; Effects Suite 11, $899

PLATFORM: Windows/Mac OS X

MAIN FEATURES:

• Dedicated flare-editing interface
• Automated animation behaviours
• Realistic luminance and edge reaction
• Lens flares without banding
• Use After Effects’ 3D lights as source

DEVELOPER: Red Giant

The original Knoll Light Factory was a gift to users, giving desktop access to a Hollywood effect that’s never off our screens. Imitators never produced anything with the same fluid, realistic look, until GenArts released an advanced Lens Flare as part of its Sapphire plug-ins last year.

Knoll Light Factory has been updated, but rather than introducing anything new, this seems to be a release designed to catch up with the Sapphire plug-in.

Knoll is used to create realistic lens flares in CG environments, add extra atmosphere to live action, or generate plasma bolts and other science-fiction effects. It’s long been considered one of the VFX artist’s most essential tools.

Knoll’s previous interface looked like something designed for programmers (which it probably was), so the new, dedicated full-screen interface is welcome. You can select one of 104 presets, create a flare from scratch, or edit a preset to create your own.

Your work takes place over a black background or your Composition Image, and it’s easy to toggle between these options. The interface control panels aren’t visible until you hover your mouse over small arrows at either side of the screen. Given that space isn’t at a premium, it would be easier to have all the editing controls available at launch.

▲ Looping light behaviours can be offset and randomised, with Edge Reaction causing flares to brighten as they animate off screen

BUILDING FLARES

When building or editing flares, you have a wide range of elements and sprites to choose from, with elements being similar to real-world reflections, while the sprites are more stylised static lines, stars and shapes. Combining these – by dragging and dropping then adjusting intensities and offsets – makes different flares easy to achieve. There’s even the option to bring in custom bitmap images as sprites to make truly unique flares.

Each element or sprite has its own controls, for Brightness, Size and so on, and these are fiddly. It’s far too easy to click the slider accidentally when you’re trying to scroll over the numbers. Unless you’re running a fast machine, it’ll feel a bit sluggish when you make adjustments.

Knoll is integrated with After Effects lights, meaning you can add lights to your composition in 3D space, and Knoll will attach a flare to each light.

The colour and brightness of your lights can drive the colour and brightness of Knoll flares. Tick the Depth Scale box, and your flare changes size according to how far it is from the camera. This addition is long overdue, but has enormous potential for visual effects and motion graphics.

The most welcome feature is the automation of looping light behaviours, with Strobe, Pulse, Flicker and Blink. The parameters, such as Fade, Brightness, Minimum and Duration, are easily editable. By using randomisation, offsets and delays you can create a huge range of different effects. All parameters can be keyframed, making it easy to create intuitively.

Edge Reaction animates a flare to increase or decrease in brightness automatically as it approaches the edge of the screen, as with the Sapphire Lens Blur. Obscuration now works with the After Effects 3D space, making it easier to get flares to vanish when necessary.

With 32-bit colour depth to reduce banding effects, render times are much slower – but it’s worth the toll it takes on the processor as colour banding can make a strong lighting effect look cheap.

If you already own Sapphire plug-ins, there’s probably no need to get Knoll Light Factory. If you’re looking for a standalone flare-building filter, this will do everything you want for a reasonable price.

VERDICT

PROS
Advanced lens editor
Intuitive behaviour animation
Realistic rendering

CONS
Fiddly controls
Slow rendering
Limited presets

With new editing features and behaviours, this release is as good as the best, but it’s far from revolutionary

RATING 3

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher Kenworthy is a writer and director based in Australia, and is the author of the best-selling Master Shots books. He has worked on countless visual effects shots and sequences

▲ Element 3D provides good quality shaders plus high-res texture maps. With the right lighting and depth-of-field, beautiful motion graphics sequences are a doddle

PRICE: $150. Other editions: Element 3D plus Pro Shaders, $196; Element 3D plus Pro Shaders and Motion Design Pack, $250; Complete Studio
Bundle, $496

PLATFORM:
Windows / Mac OS X

MAIN FEATURES:

• Import and animation of OBJ and C4D files
• Extensive texture mapping support
• Multi-part object animations
• Morph object
• groups from one
• state to another

DEVELOPER: Video Copilot

The brainchild of Video Copilot’s Andrew Kramer, Element 3D is a particle-based After Effects plug-in that relies on OpenGL for its output.

The key feature of the program is that instead of point particles or 2D imagery, it can replicate 3D objects: either OBJs or native C4D files. It can handle objects consisting of millions of polygons, along with high‑resolution UV textures, so it’s possible to generate some extremely complex and realistic scenes – and because it uses OpenGL, manipulation and final output is generally pretty fast.

Particles (which I’ll use here to mean 3D objects) can be arrayed using planes, spheres, rings and so on, or using the points of another object; this means you could place a sphere on every vertex of a car, or – just as easily – place a model car on every point in the sphere.

▲ Here a human head object is used to array spheres at every vertex. A noise field displaces the spheres, which is animated to a zero value, gradually forming the head

The feature also works on masks or text on a separate layer. Particles can be offset from the replicator and a noise field used to displace the particles into some wonderfully organic flowing forms as shapes are created out of chaos (or vice versa).

Particle objects can be animated in terms of position, rotation and scale, all with a degree of randomisation (although you can’t scale objects on a specific axis, which would be useful).

But Element is much cleverer than that: object parts can be split into groups and animated separately – such as the wheels on a car or the limbs on a robot – although Element doesn’t yet support pre-baked animation.

Element’s multi-object feature takes into account objects composed of individual pieces. This is especially useful with pre‑fractured objects, which can be made to explode, shatter or fall apart on command. However, the plug-in seems to be finicky about its OBJs; when displaced, some fractured objects were separated from their surfaces, while others wouldn’t displace at all. Unsurprisingly, C4D objects worked fine. Although Element can cope with high-poly models, very heavily fractured objects are slow to load into the Element workspace.

The plug-in also has the ability to animate between one group of objects and another. This operates on a fairly basic level and is more of a crossfade than a morph, so is only used to animate between position, scale and rotation states, where each group is comprised of the same object type and amount.

However, it does dissolve between shaders, so you can smoothly transition from a ring of red particles to a grid of blue ones. It operates on multi-objects too, so you can create some pretty funky effects as objects seem to shatter or coalesce from one form to another.

Element does have some limitations: it’s not raytracing the scene, so objects don’t reflect neighbouring objects or cast shadows. There are some workarounds for the latter, but it’s surely only a matter of time before this becomes a standard feature.

And even though the OpenGL output is quick to work with, if you crank up the levels of anti-aliasing, with high-quality motion blur and depth of field, render times can escalate and manipulation slows down. A quick-toggle low-res preview or bounding box mode would be a welcome addition.

▲ Element 3D has a workspace where you import and texture objects. It takes a few seconds to load a million-poly-plus mesh, but after that it’s quick and smooth

WORKING WITH OBJECTS

The plug-in comes with a range of primitives and a few bundled objects to play with, but creating your own is easy, and can be done with any app that exports OBJ files. However, despite being a decades-old standard, a lot of the objects appeared with randomly flipped polys, which is impossible to rectify within Element.

If you’ve created UVs, the plug-in respects these so you can replicate just how the object looked in your app – but there is the option to use cubic and spherical mapping as well for quick results. It supports bump and normal mapping, independent reflection/refraction maps, and utilises the alpha channel in diffuse maps to create semi‑transparent areas, or in clip maps, which can be used to create the illusion of much more complex shapes.

Element’s texturing capabilities are extensive and although there is some legwork involved in recreating your objects, there are enough controls to get it looking just right. Cinema 4D users get preferential treatment with support for C4D files, and although materials aren’t carried over, it’s a relatively simple matter of using Cinema 4D’s baking tools, and reapplying your UV maps in Element.

One of the less glamorous features is Element’s ability to make extruded forms from a layer containing text or a mask. Although it takes something of a back seat, this functionality is brilliantly implemented and makes it ludicrously easy to generate great-looking logos and abstract objects with just a few clicks.

Element 3D is obviously a complex beast, and it’s not without its issues. A serious caching bug delayed this review, but since that was eradicated the plug-in has run flawlessly, and with some massively complex scenes (including one with around five million polys). For a version 1.0 piece of software, it’s extremely well featured and I can’t wait to see what future revisions bring.

Certainly the addition of real-time shadows will be a huge step forward and is really its only major shortcoming. However, by the same token, you wouldn’t want to see it become bloated and unresponsive; there are already plenty of apps that can render scenes and take their time about it.

Element 3D completely alters the way you interact with After Effects, and genuinely opens up new avenues of creative possibilities. It also happens to be one of those apps that’s loads of fun to use. It is without doubt a five-star product.

VERDICT

PROS

• Capable of handling dense objects
• Extensive texturing toolset
• Excellent results with the built-in shaders

CONS

• Various issues with OBJ format
• Objects don’t cast shadows
• Doesn’t support baked animation

Element 3D is a game-changer. It offers terrific results quickly and easily, which for time-starved artists is a real benefit

RATING 5

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve Jarratt has been into CG for many years. He’s a regular contributor to 3D World and edited the magazine for two years

Price: £309 / $495 / €342 | Developer: Thinkbox Software Platform: Windows

Frost is able to get quick and great-looking mesh results out of any particle data

Main features:
• Choice of meshing algorithms
• Multi-threaded support
• Integrates with Krakatoa
• Imports external particle data

Frost is a plug-in for 3ds Max designed for the purpose of creating solid meshes fromparticle simulations.

These can be generated inside 3ds Max itself, or from external programs such as RealFlow.

Frost can handle more than just particle data, though, and you have the option of meshing spline and object vertices as well as any kind of point cloud, including older particle systems, from Max.

The core strength of the software lies in its speed and the flexibility of control it offers. It also integrates well with Krakatoa,

Frost can also be used to meld vertex data from other meshes

rrrrrrThinkbox’s volumetric particle toolkit, making use of some aspects to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

For example, one tutorial on the Thinkbox website shows how you can use the pair to create a model of any geometry that looks like it’s constructed from Lego.

The user interface is well laid out, and the speed of the meshing enables you to get quick feedback when tweaking values.

Frost uses the same preset system found in the Krakatoa PRT Loader, allowing the user to load and set presets globally or on a per-parameter basis.

There are four main meshing options: Union of Spheres, Metaballs, Zhu/Bridson and Anisotropic.

Each can be useful depending on the situation, and they all
behave differently, but the key algorithms are Zhu/Bridson and Anisotropic.

The former is good for general smooth fluids and sand, since that’s what it was originally developed to do.

Anisotropic has great controls to allow one particle to stretch to another, but is more computationally expensive.

Fine mesh control means you can create realistic fluids from Particle Flow

Frost can also be used to replace each point with primitives of custom geometry.

What’s more, it gives you the ability to have particles facing the camera and the custom geometry animated, plus there’s also the option to output a vertex cloud that can be used by other programs.

By keeping the meshing as a separate action to simulation, the speed of the latter can be greatly increased.

This enables you to focus on particle motion and refinement in the first instance, and then address the issues of meshing using a second pass inside of Frost.

One of the difficulties of meshing is keeping the mesh intact while animating: Frost performs very well in this respect compared to other products.

Jittering and disappearing particles are greatly reduced by using the software.

Frost also has internal support for motion blur, integrating well with popular engines.

It takes into account the changing topology of the mesh during sub-frame sampling for accurate results.

Frost is a robust and feature-rich alternative to standard meshing tools, with hidden depths that are yet to be fully explored.

Its speed alone makes it valuable: add this to quality mesh results, and it becomes a must-have tool for anyone who’s serious about meshing.

Verdict:

PROS
• Fast, multi-threaded meshing
• Plethora of options
• Solid meshing with reduced jitter

CONS
• Frost really shines when used with additional software
• Solid core, but still early in development

A powerful meshing tool that’s able to get quality results quickly, Frost is a valuable addition to any fluid artisan’s toolkit

Price: £122 / $199 / €140 | Platform: Windows / Mac | Developer: Eric Soulvie

recoil can be used for stills as well as animations by stacking objects realistically

Main features:

• Simple-to-use plug-in
• Rigid body dynamics
• Spring and motor effects

Luxology’s road map for modo is a long and winding one.

Many users expected modo 501 to be the big animation release, integrating dynamics and other bells and whistles that would make true character animation a reality.

While this didn’t come to pass, I for one applauded 501 for what it did provide. Now, several months on, we have recoil, a plug-in that gives modo some basic dynamics tools.

recoil is essentially a modo-specific retooling of the open-source Bullet physics engine, but only offers rigid body dynamics, at least for now.

Installation is simple; once complete, recoil is accessed from a new menu that appears along the top of the main window.

Various attributes, such as bounce and friction, can be edited on all dynamic objects, passive or active

From here you have the option to assign recoil-specific parameters to your models, the most basic being active or passive rigid body.

On top of this, various fall-offs, constraints and forces, as well as motor and spring parameters, can be used independently or combined for more complex animations.

There are also caching options that enable you to bake out one or all of the elements in your scene to keyframes.

This all sounds like a fantastic addition to modo–and it is, to a degree – but there are a few issues that prevent it being essential.

Firstly, in the time I’ve been testing recoil, it’s proven to be quite crash-happy; on occasion, these crashes have caused recoil-enabled elements to become completely corrupt and uneditable.

recoil, but without true emitters, the process is rather clumsy Particle effects can be faked with

Even when it’s running smoothly, the behaviour of certain dynamic objects has, at times, been just plain random.

In all, the reliability and stability of recoil is a little disappointing, especially when modo has been showing such great improvements in this area.

The odd crash is forgivable, but using recoil’s particular implementation of Bullet is more akin to playing Russian roulette.

Service packs and updates are no doubt planned, and these could improve the stability of the plug-in, but there’s one other major issue that remains.

I can understand that modo 501 shipped without dynamics, and there are many who’ll be happy that recoil has appeared to add the beginnings of this functionality.

recoil produces convincing simulations, so long as the scene isn’t too complex

However, I think releasing something as a plug-in that would benefit from heavy integration with the core app at a root level is not only risky, but also worrying for the future development of modo.

I can only hope that when modo 601 comes around, recoil is integrated into the main application, because the fragmentation of the code base when essential modules are released independent of the core app could prove catastrophic.

I can’t help but feel that recoil would be a lot more production- ready if it was as integrated a part of modo as the modeller or render engine.

Verdict

PROS
• Simple to use
• Nice rigid body simulation
• Useful caching options

CONS
• Stability is an issue
• Complex objects cause problems

recoil is a fun and ambitious add-on, but stability issues (possibly stemming from its plug-in status) prevent it from being wholeheartedly recommended