LOS ANGELES — Thinkbox Software has introduced Ember, a volumetric data manipulation toolkit that enables powerful workflows around the creation and post processing of simulations from various sources. Ember is currently being developed as a plug-in for Autodesk 3DS Max, and is planned as a standalone tool in the future.
The company will be showing an early version of the toolkit at the SIGGRAPH next week.
Ember is a set of tools for creating, loading, and processing volumetric data in the form of fields, voxel grids and point clouds. It integrates with a large number of third party simulation packages including Sitni Sati’s FumeFX, Chaos Group’s Phoenix FD, Next Limit’s RealFlow and Exotic Matter’s Naiad, in addition to Thinkbox Software’s suite of VFX tools. The toolkit lets the user combine volumetric data in creative ways, allowing for post-simulation reprocessing that offers higher artistic control over the final results and reduces the production time by reusing and repurposing simulation data assets.
“We are very excited about what Ember can do,” notes Chris Bond, president of Thinkbox Software. “It promises to both accelerate the creative process and open new possibilities for VFX artists, allowing them to employ completely new approaches to synthesizing, editing and changing their volumetric and simulation workflows. ”
Key features will include: scalar and vector fields creation from mathematical functions, texture maps, geometry level sets, particle systems and point clouds data; volumetric data input and output to/from various sources, including FumeFX and FXD files, Field3D files, Thinkbox PRT, RealFlow BIN and CSV files; and history-independent and history-dependent field processing, discretized or gridless advection of fields and particles using various solvers. Ember will made used of a node-based workflow.
Thinkbox will start beta-testing Ember in the second half of August. A beta application and related survey can be found
ONLINE.