Products - 5/03
Digital Video
Win Video Toaster, NewTek's venerable broadcast production suite, has been updated with new features including real-time, multi-format editing with spline control, 3D positioning, and better integration with other production tools. Other new features in Video Toaster [3] include enhanced digital video support, over 100 new ToasterScript commands, and batch capture with frame-accurate capture. The product's price is to be announced.
NewTek; www.newtek.com
Modeling and Animation
WinMac Release 8.1 of Maxon Computer's Cinema 4D modeling and animation software incorporates support for HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imagery) in its Advanced Render module. The new feature enables users to take advantage of 96-bit HDRI photographs to produce lighting that is far more natural and realistic. Cinema 4D 8.1 also comes with new particle effects, including the Blurp operator, which can fragment an object and rebuild it into a new shape, and MatterWaves, which gives users the ability to control particle emissions using lighting or textures. The update is available free to owners of Cinema 4D Release 8.
Maxon Computer; www.maxon.net
AlterEgo from face2face is an engine that enables game developers to incorporate facial animation into a variety of game platforms. The latest version of AlterEgo allows the creation of more lifelike characters with subtler facial movements, and will support the recently announced NDL Gamebryo 3D graphics toolkit and engine. AlterEgo is designed to save game developers working on the PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Game-Cube platforms time and money by enabling the rapid conversion of digital video source material into realistic facial characters. Pricing was unavailable.
face2face animation; www.f2fanimation.com
HARDWARE
Digital Video
Win Matrox RT.X10 is a video editing hardware and software bundle that combines Adobe Systems' Premiere 6.5 software with Matrox's RT.X10 PCI card. The package is designed to provide fast video capture, real-time editing, and the ability to deliver the finished videos on tape, VCD, SVCD, DVD, and the Web. Users can combine up to 11 effects in real time on two layers of video and two layers of graphics. The Matrox RT.X10 also provides real-time color correction, real-time broadcast-quality titles, and 3D effects such as page curls and organic wipes. The price is $599.
Matrox; www.matrox.com
Web
WinMac Panorama Technologies, a developer of virtual tour software, has announced Version 3.0 of Panoweaver, a package that allows users to create panoramas from "fisheye" photographic images. With Panoweaver, users stitch together images to create a spherical or cubic panoramic image that can be viewed with Web-based viewers such as PTViewer, QuickTime VR, Real time VR, and VRML. Panoweaver is licensed on a per-computer basis.
Panorama Technologies; www.easypano.com