Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/834195
m ay . j u n e 2 0 1 7 c g w 5 S P O T L I G H T DIGITAL DOMAIN VR SUITE DEBUTS Digital Domain has announced an end-to-end set of solutions for the creation, production and distribution of VR experiences, with new hardware, soware, and cloud services, including advanced livestreaming capabilities, new integration with postproduction suites, and a cloud- based VR distribution platform. The company also unveiled a portable spherical camera. Kronos provides 4 k, 60 fps video through a single cable for both power and data, allowing rapid setup and remote con- figuration. It offers 12-bit image processing, integrated 360 audio, sports gyro-stabilization, and is weather resistant. FRAMESTORE, FACEBOOK PARTNER ON SURROUND 360 CAMERA Framestore is an official creative and technology developer for the new additions to Facebook's Surround 360 family of 360 cameras: x24 and x6. x24, and its smaller counterpart, x6, are 6 DoF (degrees of freedom) cameras. The x24 captures full RGB and depth at every pixel in each of the 24 cameras. By oversampling 4x at every point in full 360, x24's depth-esti- mation algorithms produce best-in-class image quality and full-resolution 6 DoF point clouds that unlock new dimensions in storytelling. Framestore contributed its vast experience in spherical video, depth estimation, point cloud workflows, stitching, and data management to these latest Surround 360 soware and hardware developments. "The potential of Facebook's Surround 360 camera is incredible," says Johannes Saam. "Its point cloud based approach, paired with image overlap, blurs the lines between 2D and 3D in the production pipeline and opens up the opportunities for advanced volumetric capture." The Facebook camera ecosystem aims to place the tools to create high-quality VR content within easy reach of filmmakers. ADOBE UPDATES CC VIDEO APPS Adobe has added major new updates to the video apps in Adobe Creative Cloud, including new capabilities in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, Adobe Aer Effects CC, Adobe SpeedGrade CC, Adobe Prelude CC, Adobe Media Encoder CC, and Adobe Story CC Plus. Important updates will also be added to Adobe Anywhere for video, to enable a range of tasks from ingest and logging to visual effects collab- oration for large teams. A new Adobe Anywhere iPad app enables editors to browse shared pro- ductions and play media and sequences from the Adobe Anywhere Server on their iPads. The updates include a direct link color pipe- line between Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Adobe SpeedGrade CC, expanded native support for brilliant visuals, including 4 k high frame rate con- tent, a new mask tracker in Adobe Aer Effects, the Adobe Prelude CC Live Logger iPad app, and many other feature enhancements. Current Adobe Creative Cloud members receive all the innovations as part of their existing membership at no extra cost. AUTODESK SHOWCASES SOFTWARE UPDATES Autodesk has updated its various offerings. Autodesk Flame 2018 update 1 includes new action and batch paint improve- ments, such as 16-bit floating point (FP) depth support, scene detect, and conform enhancements. Autodesk Maya 2017 update 3 includes enhancements to character creation tools, such as interactive grooming with XGen, an all-new UV work- flow, and updates to the motion graphics tool set that includes a live link with Adobe Aer Effects and more. Arnold 5.0 delivers several significant updates, including better sampling, new standard surface, standard hair, and standard volume shaders, Open Shading Language (OSL) support, light path expressions, refactored shading API, and a VR camera. Shotgun updates accelerate multi-region performance and make media uploads and downloads faster, regardless of location. Autodesk 3ds Max 2018 offers Arnold 5.0 rendering via a new MAXtoA 1.0 plug-in, customizable workspaces, smart asset creation tools, Bézier motion path animation, and a cloud-based large model viewer (LMV) that integrates with Autodesk Forge. Flame Family 2018 update 1, Maya 2017 update 3, and 3ds Max 2018 are all available now via Autodesk e-stores and Autodesk resellers. Arnold 5.0 and Shotgun are both available via their respective websites.