Monday, December 23rd, 2024Posted by Jim ThackerRandomControl releases Maverick Indie and Maverick Studio 2024html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"RandomControl has begun its 2024 updates to Maverick Studio and Maverick Indie, its physically based GPU renderers for industrial designers and entertainment artists.Maverick Studio 2024.1 and Maverick Indie 2024.1 introduced a complete new animation system, letting users create technical animations via either keyframing or a system of Motion Controllers.The 2024.2 and 2024.3 updates refine animation workflows, and add initial USD support.Streamlined GPU renderers for visualization and entertainment workDeveloped by Arion renderer creator RandomControl and launched in 2019, Maverick Studio is a streamlined renderer aimed at product and automotive visualisation.It provides a drag-and-drop workflow for assigning PBR materials, and for setting up lighting and a render camera, plus a physically accurate spectral render engine with built-in denoising.The software is CUDA-based, and supports out-of-core rendering.It was later joined by Maverick Indie, a lower-priced edition aimed at entertainment work, which lacks support for CAD file formats, plus features like NURBS and cross-section rendering.Now features a complete new animation system tailored to marketing visualsOn their release late last month, Maverick Studio 2024.1 and Maverick Indie 2024.1 became the first updates to either application in more than a year.That gap the longest in their respective release histories is explained by the scale of the new features: the 2024.1 releases add a complete animation toolset to the software.In a blog post, RandomControl described its aim as making everything animatable, enabling users to animate every floating point attribute in every node inside the software, including object and camera positions, lights, materials and the background environment.As well as a conventional keyframe animation workflow, artists can create animations using Motion Controllers: a set of readymade templates for creating common animation types.RandomControl describes the workflow as being targeted at marketing visualization, making it possible to create short ad-like clips without external video-editing software.Other new features in the 2024.1 updatesAs well as the animation toolset, new features in the 2024.1 releases include a tonemap frontplate for adding animatable logos or watermarks to renders.In addition, the maximum resolution when baking textures has been increased from 4K to 8K, and the Scatter modifier now supports up to eight sources.There are also performance improvements, particularly to interactive preview rendering (IPR), and when working on heavy scenes.Pipeline integration changes include better support for materials in Substance .sbsar format, and the option to export animated GIFs as well as video.Initial support for USD added in the 2024.2 updatesThis month, RandomControl has released two further pairs of updates, Maverick Studio 2024.2 and 2024.3, and Maverick Indie 2024.2 and 2024.3.Both are primarily workflow updates to the new animation toolset, but they do include one significant new feature for entertainment artists: USD support.Users can now import data in .usd, .usda, .usdc and .usdz formats, although RandomControl describes the functionality as still very preliminary.Pricing and system requirementsMaverick Indie and Maverick Studio are available for 64-bit Windows only. Both are CUDA-based, and require a RTX-compatible NVIDIA GPU. You can see a feature comparison table for the two editions here.Perpetual licences of Maverick Indie cost 249.99 (around $260); rental starts at 19.99/month ($21/month). Perpetual licences of Maverick Studio cost 499.99 ($520); rental starts at 39.99/month ($42/month).Read more about animation support in the Maverick renderers on RandomControls blogRead a full list of new features in the online changelogHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.Latest NewsRandomControl releases Maverick Indie and Maverick Studio 2024Check out the new features in the GPU renderers, including initial USD support and a complete new animation system.Monday, December 23rd, 2024Pilgway releases 3DCoat 2024.30Check out the new features in the sculpting and retopology app, including integration with RealityCapture for photogrammetry.Monday, December 23rd, 2024Terragen Sky now lets you paint clouds into the sky directlyCheck out the neat new Sky Paint tools in the December 2024 update to the sky-creation tool for VFX, visualization and games work.Friday, December 20th, 2024Planetside Software releases Terragen 4.8Environment generation software gets highly multithreaded rendering, plus heightfield export to 16-bit TIFFs for Unity and Unreal Engine.Friday, December 20th, 2024Photoshop users can now create filters in Substance 3D DesignerCurrent beta build of the image-editing app lets users create and import custom image-stylization filters as Substance 3D .sbsar files.Thursday, December 19th, 2024Pixar releases RenderMan 26.3Check out the new features in the production renderer, including tiled denoising, and support for the new versions of Maya and Houdini.Thursday, December 19th, 2024More NewsCreate game characters with CC Auto Setup for 3ds Max and V-RayLeopoly releases Shapelab 2025 and Shapelab LiteAdobe releases Photoshop 26.2Check out Blender's experimental anime rendering buildsCell Fluids 2.0 for Blender is outUnigine 2.19.1 can now import and export USD filesBoris FX releases Mocha Pro 2025Master Designing Sci-Fi Props for FilmAdobe releases Substance 3D Stager 3.1 in betaNekki releases Cascadeur Mobile 1.2ukasz Czy releases UVPackmaster 3 for MayaBlender add-on ClayPencil turns 2D animation into 3D 'claymation'Older Posts