Creative software developer Foundry has entered into an exclusive agreement with software R&D company J Cube to provide the Multiverse Studio toolset as a unified ecosystem for Katana and Maya.
As part of Foundry’s commitment to driving creativity, this new collaboration will allow artists to significantly reduce the time it takes to transport files between 3D applications–including Maya and Katana–freeing up more time to deliver creative work.
Berj Bannayan, partner and VFX supervisor at Soho VFX, said: “We’ve been using Multiverse here at Soho VFX for over a year, for our Alembic pipeline that incorporates Maya, Houdini and 3Delight. It’s been transformative for us, being used in everything from The Shallows to Ben Hur and Logan. The integration into our existing pipeline has been straightforward and we’ve been outputting some positively giant Alembic caches that we’re now handling easily. It’s great stuff!”
Multiverse Studio customers will have access to a commercially supported set of MaterialX, Alembic and USD tools unified in all Katana and Maya versions, on all platforms. This will help make customers’ investments work better for longer, without the need to develop in-house or upgrade due to incompatible versions.
Multiverse’s innovative toolset also solves wider industry problems. It allows for fast and memory efficient I/O, provides dynamic management of hierarchies in Maya and procedural geometry rendering, facilitating accurate motion blur for varying topology simulation caches in Maya and Katana. It also offers new functionality that allows retiming of geometry caches at render time, without the need to re-export geometry caches with adjusted motion samples.
Foundry will resell Multiverse Studio for Katana and Maya as interactive and batch licenses. The pricing scheme includes the first year of maintenance for each license type and activates Maya, Katana, plus any future DCC app implementations.
Jody Madden, chief product and customer officer at Foundry, commented: “We are excited to offer artists the opportunity to add Multiverse Studio to their Katana and Maya pipelines, helping to relieve the immense pressure to deliver better, faster and cheaper work. As well as supporting Pixar’s open source project and the industry demand for USD tools, we wanted to have a commercially supported ecosystem around Katana that simplifies the creative process. Ensuring that Katana is easily integrated into more pipelines is an important contribution to the VFX and animation industries, and we’re proud to be part of this exciting collaboration.”
Paolo Berto Durante, chief technical officer at J Cube Inc, commented: “Foundry has always been skilled at identifying innovative software solutions that improve the production experience and change the industry for the better. We are delighted Foundry’s attention is now focused on Multiverse, with this collaboration providing our tools to a larger audience, worldwide. We can’t wait to see what artists are going to create with it.”
“Heretic” and “Maria” Set As Red Carpet Premieres At AFI Fest
The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced that Heretic, the psychological thriller starring Hugh Grant, and Maria, based on the life of opera singer Maria Callas starring Angelina Jolie, will round out the Red Carpet Premieres section at this year’s AFI Fest. The Heretic Gala Screening will take place on Thursday, October 24, and the Maria Gala Screening will be held on Saturday, October 26. The complete Red Carpet Premieres section includes the world premieres of Music By John Williams, Robert Zemeckis’ Here, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2. All Red Carpet Premieres will take place at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre. The full lineup for AFI Fest 2024 will be unveiled on October 1.
“At the heart of AFI Fest is an unwavering dedication to celebrating the best in global cinema--together,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO. “We look forward to uniting artists and audiences once again to be inspired by the art form in a powerful sense of community.”
Heretic follows two young missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) who are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (portrayed by Grant), becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse. The film is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and produced by Stacey Sher, Beck, Woods, Julia Glausi and Jeanette Volturno. The film will be released nationwide by A24 on November 8.
Directed by Pablo Larraín, Maria presents a tumultuous and beautiful depiction of one of the world’s most renowned artists and reimagines the legendary soprano in her final days in Paris, as Callas (Jolie)... Read More