Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/9706
The Foundry Launches New Nuke Leading visual effects software develop- er, The Foundry, has rolled out the much- awaited Nuke and NukeX 6.0, following feedback from artists and production analysis by an in-house research team. Offering VFX users two different Nuke products enables facilities of all sizes to implement a Nuke solution to fi t a range of artist and customer needs. Nuke contin- ues to be an evolving, fl exible solution for a multitude of visual effects tasks, while NukeX brings previously inaccessible tools and workfl ow options to composit- ing artists, saving time and increasing the quality of their work. Nuke and NukeX are fully script compatible, with Nuke capable of viewing and rendering nodes created using the extended NukeX tool set. Nuke 6.0 incorporates a new shape rotoscope and paint tool set based on a rewritten core curve library and new Roto- Paint node. The release introduces a fl ex- ible, non-destructive, layer-based paint hierarchy integrated with Nuke’s anima- tion and tracking capabilities, and support for per-object attributes, such as blending modes and motion blur. Additionally, The Foundry’s Keylight blue/green screen PRODUCT: COMPOSITING Graphics Card Growth Exceeds Expectations Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry’s research and consult- ing fi rm for graphics and multimedia, found that fi gures for esti- mated graphics chip shipments and suppliers’ market shares for the fourth quarter of 2009 came in above expectations, with a 14 percent year-to-year growth—an amazing comeback in this year of retrenching and recession. Intel was the leader in fourth-quarter 2009, elevat- ed by Atom sales for netbooks, as well as strong growth in the desktop segment. AMD, meanwhile, gained in the notebook integrated segment but lost some market share in discrete sales in both the desktop and notebook segments due to constraints in 40nm supply. Nvidia picked up a little share overall. Nvidia’s increases came primarily in desktop discretes, while slipping in desktop and notebook integrated. AMD reported revenue of $427 million from its graphics segment for the quarter, up 40 percent sequentially. AMD’s graphics segment reported an operating income of $53 million, a substantial improvement from the prior quarter. Intel reported revenue from chipset and other Graphics Chips: Percentage Growth Annual Total Fourth-quarter 2009 saw the fi rst shipments of a new cate- gory, CPU-integrated graphics (CIG). With the advent of new CPUs with integrated or embedded graphics, we will see a rapid decline in shipments of traditional chipset graphics, or IGPs (integrated graphics processors). 2002 2003 2004 2005 180.6 217.1 239.0 269.4 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 316.5 351.7 373.0 425.4 544.0 600.1 20.6% 20.2% 10.1% 12.7% 17.5% 11.1% 6.1% 14.0% 27.9% 10.3% Growth rates from 2002 to 2011. Vendor AMD Intel Nvidia Matrox SiS VIA/S3 Total revenue of $1.877 billion in the quarter. Nvidia’s quarter, which straddles the calendar quarters, report- ed revenues of $903 million for its fi scal Q3, which is from August to the end of October. The fi rm’s next quarter ended in January. 6 NEWS: GRAPHICS CARDS April 2010 This Quarter Market Share 19.9% 55.2% 24.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.6% 100.0% Last Quarter Market Share 20.1% 53.6% 25.3% 0.0% 0.3% 0.7% 100.0% Quarter to Quarter 13.6% 17.9% 10.2% 66.7% -81.8% -3.9% 14.7% Recent market growth. The fourth-quarter 2009 edition of Jon Peddie Research’s “Market Watch” is available now in both electronic and hard- copy editions, and can be purchased for $995. Visit JPR’s Web site at www.jonpeddie.com. Unit Growth This Quarter Last Year Market Share 19.3% 47.7% 30.6% 0.1% 1.1% 1.2% 100.0% Year to Year 91.5% 114.7% 47.3% -16.7% -92.5% -9.5% 85.7% Growth keyer—especially tuned for tackling refl ec- tions, semi-transparent areas, and hair—is now a standard feature in Nuke 6.0. NukeX 6.0, meanwhile, extends the range of tools usually found in the compositing environment, adding an integrated 3D camera tracker, automated and manual lens distortion tools, FurnaceCore (The Foundry’s re-engineered set of the Furnace plug-ins), and a DepthGenerator plug-in. Both Nuke 6.0 and NukeX 6.0 are now available for $3500 and $6000, respectively.