Los Angeles, CA (April 14, 2014) -
Thinkbox Software today launched Krakatoa C4D, the first version of its high-volume particle renderer for
MAXON
CINEMA 4D, which is compatible with R14 and R15 running on OSX and Windows operating systems.Also available forAutodesk® Maya® and Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Krakatoa provides a powerful pipeline for quickly acquiring, caching, transforming, modifying, shading and rendering billions of particles.
Krakatoa C4D key features include:
- Point or voxel representation of particle data with various filter modes, motion blur and depth of field camera effects, and HDRI render passes output to OpenEXR files.
- Concurrent support for additive and volumetric shading models, with per-particle control over data including color, emission, absorption, density and more.
- Support for various light scattering algorithms, high quality self-shadowing and occlusions from geometry objects.
- Integration with the native particle systems of CINEMA 4D as well as with third party products like X-Particles by Insydium Ltd. and TurbulenceFD by Jawset Visual Computing.
- Dedicated objects for quick conversion of mesh volumes and surfaces to point clouds.
- Particle loader objects to read Krakatoa’s native .PRT file format as well as NextLimit RealFlow particle .BIN files and .CSV text files.
- Tools for saving particles to disk and support for saving multiple variations of the same simulation with different initial seeding using Batch rendering or via network rendering with Thinkbox Deadline to achieve higher particle counts.
- A powerful render-time particle repopulation option to produce high-density particle clouds from low count base simulations.
- Dedicated tools for creating "sticky" Camera Projection mapping for advanced dissolving effects.
Krakatoa C4D originated as an external effort by Ugly Kids artist Daniel Hennies, who collaborated with a developer to program a bridge to the stand-alone version of Krakatoa (SR) via the C++ API. Upon acquiring the code, Thinkbox refined the Krakatoa C4D feature set for off-the-shelf functionality. Hennies noted, “I was quite overwhelmed by Thinkbox’s positive response to what we created. The tremendous enthusiasm and dedication from Thinkbox was spectacular; the new plug-in will enhance the whole experience for CINEMA 4D users and enable particle enthusiasts to take final quality to a new level.”
“Artists have loved Krakatoa for years so we’re thrilled to extend its functionality to new animation software applications,” said Chris Bond, founder, Thinkbox Software. “CINEMA 4D has a storied history in motion graphics and is a rising star in the creation of feature film VFX; we’re excited to introduce ourselves to CINEMA 4D users and can’t wait to see how Krakatoa is leveraged by talent.”
“We recognize success for digital artists today depends on integrated solutions with the industry’s best tools,” said Harald Egel,“Krakatoa is widely recognized as a leader in robust volumetric particle manipulation and rendering. The availability of Krakatoa for CINEMA 4D brings profound artistic freedom to VFX creatives.”
For more information about Thinkbox products, including pricing, please visit
www.thinkboxsoftware.com/sales or call 1-866-419-0283.
About Thinkbox Software
Founded by Chris Bond in 2010, Thinkbox Software develops production-proven tools for visual artists and backs each product with highly responsive support. Used across entertainment, engineering and design, Thinkbox’s products include Deadline high-volume data management software used to render or process files and several other artist-driven software tools to create, visualize and modify datasets for visual effects, animation and digital simulations. For more information, visit
www.thinkboxsoftware.com or follow @thinkboxsoft on Twitter.
Contact:
Fran Ratliff
RazPR for Thinkbox Software
310-450-1482
