TUSTIN, CA — Luxion has announced the release of KeyShot 8 (keyshot.com). The company is a developer of advanced rendering and lighting technology. KeyShot is a realtime ray-tracing and global illumination program for 3D rendering and animation. The latest release adds advanced technology and features such as displacement mapping, materials with embedded flakes and bubbles, volumetric materials, including volume caustics, liquid interfaces, interactive cutaways, interactive image color and intensity curve adjustments, and material ways for advanced product configurations.
“KeyShot 8 is a milestone release that expands the capabilities for KeyShot users and increases stability to both streamline the 3D rendering process and the 3D rendered results,” says Claus Wann Jensen, co-founder and CEO of Luxion. “The involvement from hundreds of amazing KeyShot users has helped set the foundation for the new capabilities in KeyShot 8 and for the improvements to come.”
KeyShot 8 includes features and updates specific to five areas - materials and volume, lighting and optics, advanced geometry, image and output, and collaboration. Within these five areas KeyShot 8 has five primary features, along with other updates, that hold to the focus on maintaining a workflow within KeyShot.
Image styles allow users to add and adjust appearances in realtime within KeyShot. Cutaway is a new simplified approach to creating cutaway views. Scattering Medium creates new options for scene and material appearance. New geometry shaders add displacement, bubble, and flake capabilities. And, the KeyShot Viewer with KeyShot Configurator and glTF/GLB output offer new collaboration capabilities.
Other features users can find in KeyShot 8 include an all-new Migration Assistant to migrate custom resources from KeyShot 7. KeyShot Cloud is now also fully integrated into the KeyShot interface with no login required to browse resources. A new Spotlight Material Type offers advanced light control with gobo (stencil) support. The new spectral Multi-layer Optics Material introduces a physically-based simulation the appearance of one or more thin-film coatings on glass and metallic surfaces. Liquid Interfaces now eliminates the need to separate liquid geometry into different surfaces. Choosing colors is now enhanced by the ability to use and reveal RGB hex color codes. The Bloom effect now has a Bloom Threshold parameter to control the amount of bloom (glow) around highlights. An update to the screenshot capability allows users to include Alpha transparency with screenshot output and save metadata in an easy to read format. The new glTF/GLB export option allows sharing of interactive KeyShot scenes to platforms like Facebook or added to PowerPoint presentations. Additional 3D file format support has also been added for Rhino 6 (Mac and Windows) and Autodesk Inventor 2019 (Windows).
KeyShot 8 is available immediately for download and purchase at keyshot.com and through all certified KeyShot resellers. All customers who purchased KeyShot on or after August 15th, as well as all customers who purchased KeyShot for Education or KeyShot for ZBrush, will receive the upgrade to KeyShot 8 free of charge.