J Dice releases Multiverse | USD 8.0 for Maya
Friday, February tenth, 2023 | Posted by Jim Thacker
J Dice has launched Multiverse | USD 8.0, the newest model of its USD-based Maya format, look growth, lighting and rendering toolset for manipulating massive VFX and animation knowledge units.
The replace provides help for CAD and BIM knowledge codecs, help for USDZ materials compounds, and efficiency enhancements of “100x” when loading massive USD hierarchies.
A USD-based answer for authoring and visualising massive scenes for VFX and have animation
Multiverse is designed to writer, play again and modify advanced scenes, resembling these generated throughout shot format and look growth in visible results or function animation.
Though the software program additionally reads Alembic information, since model 6.0, workflow has primarily been based mostly round USD, now broadly supported in DCC purposes.
In addition to studying and writing USD information, customers can writer USD hierarchies immediately inside Maya through the ‘MEOW’ person interface, pitched as “pleasing, logical and very quick”.
Though Maya itself helps USD through the Maya for USD plugin, included within the installer since Maya 2022, Multiverse | USD additionally works with older variations of Maya, throughout each Python 2.7 and three.7/3.9.
You’ll be able to learn extra about the way it differs from different USD options within the on-line documentation.
Assist for brand new DCC and CAD file codecs, and USDZ materials packages
Multiverse | USD 8.0 extends the vary of file codecs that the software program helps, now studying in and procedurally rendering OBJ and FBX information, and CAD and BIM knowledge in IFC, IGES, STEP and STL format
J Dice describes the change as “open[ing] up the utilization of Multiverse for visualization [of CAD] knowledge”.
The software program additionally now helps USDZ materials packages – pre-made supplies containing textures, resembling these from on-line asset library ambientCG – and may serialise Maya shading networks within the format.
Workflow and efficiency enhancements
Efficiency enhancements embrace lazy loading of primitives in MEOW, leading to “efficiency features of 100x” with “hierarchies with lots of of hundreds of things/prims [loading] with out UI delays”.
There are additionally extra choices to manage whether or not Multiverse reads in knowledge from exterior information by streaming it into Maya, or importing it within the typical manner: you could find particulars within the launch notes.
New cloud licences for groups the place artists make money working from home
As well as, J Dice has launched Multiverse Professional Cloud: a cloud-based licence system with “assured 99.95% uptime” through which licences are usually not tied to particular person person machines.
The brand new licences, which may co-exist with current offline licences, are supposed to allow groups through which artists make money working from home to licence Multiverse with out the necessity for VPN entry.
Pricing and availability
Multiverse | USD 8.0 is on the market for Maya 2018+ on Home windows, Linux and macOS. It’s suitable with Arnold 5.2+, 3Delight 2.0+, Redshift 3.0.67+, RenderMan 23.2+ and V-Ray 4.3+.
The software program is rental-only, with Professional Offline subscriptions beginning at $270/12 months for interactive floating licences and $90/12 months for render licences. Professional Cloud subscriptions value $30/month or $300/12 months.
J Dice additionally offers free Solo licences for indie artists, which require a everlasting web connection, however allow use in industrial initiatives. On the time of writing, they haven’t been up to date from model 7.1.
Learn extra about Multiverse | USD on J Dice’s web site
Learn a full checklist of recent options in Multiverse | USD 8.0 within the on-line launch notes
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