Model: Cki Vang
Version 10 of Luxion’s KeyShot visualisation renderer and 3D animation software focusses on material creation, lighting representation and the product visualisation workflow for 3D artists, designers and engineers. In particular, version 10 expands keyframing and other animation capabilities. New Smart Export options for output to full-colour 3D prints, AR/Web interaction and similar destinations have been added.
A new Light Manager and tools for greater control over geometry and models, RealCloth 2.0 and improved Caustics produce more realistic material and lighting. The Denoise and Firefly Filter are enhanced for faster finishing.
These updates are especially interesting for creators working in product and architectural visualisations and experiences, and concept art – including 3D printing and augmented reality.
Animation Controls
Keyframe aimation controls
Keyshot’s Animation capabilities now include more ways to animate models, light and cameras. Artists can use keyframing to add and adjust keyframes precisely where necessary, with the option to record sequences of keyframes when visualising fast, complex motion.
Sun & Sky Day Arc animation allows full daylight control with the ability to adjust date, start and end time directly, or to apply keyframes for finer control. With Environment Rotation Animation you can control the rotation of a KeyShot environment preset, or a custom environment created with the HDRI Editor, to control how light moves across a product. Twist Camera Animation adds the ability to animate the Twist parameter of any camera. This results in subtle or dramatic effects and allows control over angle and time.
Jet Cooper, Creative Director at Makinarium UK, said, “As concept artists working in the film industry, our deadlines are extreme and the requests are always maximum resolution. It’s a huge challenge to deliver a portfolio of designs and 360 turntable in 4K resolution. With KeyShot 10 GPU rendering, I was able to go from 100 minutes a frame to only three minutes.”
Sun & Sky Day Arc animation
3D Experience - Smart Export
Smart Export, supporting the creation of visuals experiences, applies sub-features like UV unwrapping and baking for outputting to full-colour 3D prints, VR/AR presentation and mobile or web interaction.
Luxion worked with Stratasys to implement 3MF (3D Manufacturing Format), which was designed to improve on traditional STL, OBJ and VRML files used for 3D printing. With 3MF and Smart Export, users can go from a digital prototype in KeyShot to a physical 3D printed prototype and include support for full colour, texture and transparent materials.
GLB/glTF Export adds KeyShot Smart Export capabilities to generate more visually accurate open standard 3D web visuals directly from KeyShot. GLB is the binary file format representation of 3D models saved in the GL Transmission Format.
Light Gizmos
USDZ Export is available for transferring rich 3D assets or an interactive, mobile viewing experience. USDZ is a portable 3D file format that displays 3D and AR content on iOS devices without having to download special apps. Developers can share the format, and exchange it between applications in their pipeline. By exporting USDZ, KeyShot can be used for AR export to applications that support Apple ARKit.
User Interface Upgrade
Scene setup is faster in KeyShot 10 due to user interface improvements and new tools for light management, physical lighting creation, moving models in the Real-time Viewport and accessing parts within the scene tree. Light Manager is a dockable panel that allows you to control all scene lighting from one place. It includes environment lighting selection and adjustment along with control over the visibility, colour, power and size of any physical light.
Light Manager
Light Gizmos speed up light exploration and adjustment within the Real-time View or Geometry View for all Spotlights, IES Lights or Point Lights. The Move Tool – for X,Y,Z settings and pivot, axis and snap-to adjustments – has been redesigned to improve access to it and allow placement and docking anywhere in the Real-time Viewport, or outside it. Solo Mode makes existing workflows a little more flexible by allowing one or more parts to be isolated without having to lock parts or disrupt the hierarchy of any other hidden parts.
Materials and Rendering
Updates to KeyShot’s material capabilities increase realism. For example, Luxion’s own RealCloth 2.0 system can now achieve dimensionally accurate woven and knit cloth and greater fibre-level detail for an extremely accurate, realistic representation of individual threading.
Image Style updates help produce faster results that are ready for rendering. The improved Caustics converge very fast for both CPU and GPU rendering. The result is less dependence on the scene size and more distinct effects when taking advantage of the new multiple scattering for KeyShot 10 Interior Mode, which is an optimisation for enclosed spaces within models.
RealCloth 2.0
The Denoiser introduces albedo, or diffuse, and normal information to give consistent results between the Real-time Viewport and the render output, again with improved results for Interior Mode. Firefly Filter is a new Image Style slider in Denoiser that removes persistent specks of unwanted light from the scene. The Toon material now allows finer control of contour lines to achieve outline behaviour that is closer to line art illustration.
KeyShot 10 also has locked Camera Mapping for projecting a texture onto a model from a fixed camera position, and a new Geometry tool called Flip Normals that reverses the direction of the normals on an object by selecting its faces, automatically or manually. This saves a great deal of time when preparing assets for Smart Export.
The highlights above are the main features in KeyShot 10. The entire list of features and improvements in KeyShot 10 with information on how they work, is available in the KeyShot 10 What’s New Guide. KeyShot 10 is available for download and purchase online, and through KeyShot resellers. www.keyshot.com
