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Electric Image Animation System Changelog

What's new in Electric Image Animation System 9.1

Aug 16, 2013
  • Animator v9.1 Key Items:
  • Faster and better Animator Preview - Re-written OpenGL hardware preview engine.
  • Preview uses hardware/OpenGL cache that significantly speeds up most of the preview modes (typically by several times).
  • Preview is drawn with anti-aliasing.
  • Eliminates the obsolete “software” preview mode. Version 9.1 always uses OpenGL.
  • New FACT files re-import - The “Import FACT files” option has been replaced with a new “Validated FACT” export option that validates existing geometry and automatically exports and reimports it.
  • Updated Bullet Engine - EIAS 9.1 uses the latest Bullet 2.81 engine. Two new Bullet options have been added to the Link Info window: rolling friction and convex decomposition style.
  • Renderama v9.1 Key Items - Render Management System:
  • Eliminated several 2Gb file barriers
  • Files larger than 2GB can be sent to render slaves.
  • Renderama can stitch files larger than 2GB.
  • Camera can create QuickTime movies larger than 2GB.
  • Windows platform: Camera can render QuickTime images at resolutions larger than 4096x4096 pixels.
  • Fixed Bugs:
  • Animator
  • Fixed bug in texture preview for Gouraud and Flat modes when 2 or more textures are displayed.
  • Fixed missed window redraw when a plugin processed a large amount of data and displayed a status indicator.
  • Fixed several bugs with IKHandle: it was not properly linked, undone, and stored in the project if it was not dragged after it was created.
  • Fixed crash when loading old projects that were saved before EIAS 9.0 with the “Store Display Data” option turned on.
  • Added: options in Group Dialog, Display Tab are now saved in the FACT file.
  • Fixed a crash with spherical/cylinder maps when models have vertex colors.
  • Fixed invalid path drawing in Hardware mode.
  • “Shade Lines” and “Line Size” options (Group Dialog, Shading Tab) are now previewed in Animator’s windows.
  • Fixed error in bones preview drawing.
  • Fixed “Reverse Normals” crash for groups with missing geometry (no polygons).
  • Fixed missing textures and ignored “Use UV space” preference for FACT files written by other apps (FZ for example).
  • Fixed bug: FACT files were not recognized for the “All Files” choice in the Import dialog.
  • Fixed “Align To Surface” tool in the Texture Info window.
  • Added undo support for Bullet settings in the Link Info window.
  • Camera
  • Fixed crash in 64-bit Camera with projects containing bones deformations.
  • Fixed miscellaneous GI render crashes and hangs.
  • Fixed crash when 2 or more lights are used with caustics.
  • Fixed crash when a group has active caustics and both: polygons and points or lines.
  • Fixed crash with rotoscopes + glows.
  • Fixed artifacts with RT Volume Transmission (when Amount = 1.0).
  • Fixed incorrect EIZ files stitching (Renderama).
  • Fixed bug in AdaptiveDicer plugin (default settings were used always for the 64-bit Camera).
  • Changed: now if a group has “Cast Shadow” = off, then it does not produce GI reverse illumination.
  • Fixed crash if count of photon maps in the project > 16.
  • Fixed significant slowdown in 64-bit Camera for plugins that read/write temp files intensively.
  • Fixed crash when rendering in layers.
  • Fixed Renderama error when rendering in layers (appeared as “File System error”).

New in Electric Image Animation System 9.0.1 (Dec 6, 2012)

  • Animator v9 Key Items:
  • New Import System - The 3D import system has been rewritten and new file formats added. The system provides advanced model diagnostics reporting for all imported formats. The user can create custom presets for each format
  • Adobe Illustrator .ai and .eps file support
  • GoZ ZBrush® files - imports the GoZ files with UV and texture maps
  • Updated support for Alias WaveFront .obj and .mtl files - Alias/Wavefront .obj files are now imported with UV coordinates and textures from .mtl file
  • Updated Support for LightWave models .lwo and scenes .lws
  • Bullet Hard Body Dynamics Engine - The Bullet physics engine, bulletphysics.org is now built-in to Animator
  • Bullet Simulations - Easy to use. Just configure the simulation session and run a preview in any Animator Window
  • Bullet Constrains & Forces - New “Force” objects (project element) affect objects dynamically in the simulation process
  • Bullet Motor & Vehicle Automatic Rig - Rigging vehicles and cars with million of polygons can be driven automatically
  • Smart IBL - Configure your outdoor light environment in a fast and efficient way. You can use .ibl files from hdrlabs.com or create your own
  • New preview improvements - Re-written OpenGL hardware preview engine supports many more textures and texture modifiers
  • Animator Performance Optimizations - Principal speedup for workflow operations like loading and saving projects, massive group deletion and many others when Animator works with thousands of objects
  • UI re-design and updates - EIAS v9 workflow easier and more effective while maintaining the interface that is familiar to its current users
  • New built-in Tools
  • Automatic Search Paths - Saves time for “Locate..” procedure at project loading
  • Vert Cross batch conversion - Converts EI environment renders into popular Vertical Cross environment format
  • Vertex color conversion - Converts strength maps into vertex color and vice versa
  • More Plug-ins added to host - EXR2Mesh, MDD, Mouse Tracker
  • Camera Render Engine v9 Key Items:
  • Multi-threaded Rendering - Render operations are now multi-threaded for faster renders
  • 64-bit Architecture - The 64-bit version of Camera can use all the RAM installed on your machine
  • New GI engine - The GI engine has been completely re-written not only for multi-threading and 64-bit but also for better performance and quality
  • New Render features:
  • GI Glossy - Alternate blurred reflections, known also as a “dull reflections”
  • Sun Light - Parallel light with soft shadows, like the Sun and the Moon
  • Blurred Refractions - In EI9 raytrace refraction can be blurred as well, similar to RT reflections
  • Reactive Masks - Installs a separate alpha masks for procedurals and bitmap textures
  • Locked Camera Maps - Fixes Camera Maps at specified position to create “sticky” camera maps
  • Additional Raytrace reflection options - Allows the user to customize raytrace reflections in different ways
  • Background and Foreground layers - Camera Rotoscope maps are now added automatically to layered PSD files
  • Caustics Rainbow - Also known as “chromatic aberration”, option to create prism rainbows
  • TGA frames render - Camera can now render to sequential TGA files
  • More Shaders added to host - RLimit, SuperLines, Texture Filter
  • 64 bit versions of your favorite plug-ins and shaders and much more...
  • Renderama v9 Key Items - Render Management System:
  • Enhanced stability and error recovery for network rendering
  • Network Render with frame sequence formats (PNG, TGA, PICT)
  • Faster Files transfer

New in Electric Image Animation System 8.0.0 (Dec 6, 2012)

  • LIGHT PACK:
  • Fast soft shadows - The soft shadow system has been completely rewritten. Fast soft shadows can be enabled for all types of lights. This new method utilizes GI engine to sample soft shadows and it is several times faster than before. The old optimization ("Optimize shadow generation") has been rewritten to have more controls.
  • Area lights - Area lights are a fundamental requirement for most indoor and room scenes. EIAS 8 includes them as a built-in light type. Area lights can be equipped with HDRI textures (e.g. to replace a series of small lights with only one textured Area light). They can be also used in the role of tube light with real soft shadows.
  • Luminance Light Objects - This variation of Area Lights uses real geometry (polygons) instead of an abstract light shape. You an create lights with any arbitrary luminance shapes. There is also a special "hidden" option for Light Objects that allows them to have bouncing illumination for sky light and outdoor scenes.
  • Photon Mapping - Photon mapping is a popular and effective way to calculate indirect illumination and light bouncing. Photon maps can be stored and reused, thus allowing fly-through animations to be rendered much more quickly. Their illumination can also be baked, that is to say, transformed into illumination maps.
  • Quadratic light drop-off - Quadratic falloff is a new kind of light drop-off. It provides a physical light-model that corresponds more realistically to real-world lighting. An example of this type of drop-off can be found in a simple household light-bulb. Its intensity is huge when you hold your hand close to it (you can even see light transmitting through your hand), but, as you move your hand away, this intensity drops-off very quickly.
  • Light Customize Tool - This new graph tool is a flexible modifier of a light's behavior. Unlike the GI Diffuse and Luminance multipliers, the Customize Tool changes illumination selectively. For example, you can increase the illumination in dark areas only, but leave the brighter areas of the scene unchanged.
  • New GI Saturation Option - This new option decreases the GI reverse illumination saturation providing more color bleeding control.
  • TEXTURES PACK:
  • EXR and 16bit image input support - Animator and Camera are now both capable of reading and using both EXR and 16 bit QuickTime files for any use. EXR textures can be used in the role of HDRI files(with or without alpha channel).
  • Rotoscope textures and Backdrop options
  • Backdrops - Backdrop options have been moved from the World Dialog to the Camera Dialog, this is because, functionally, they are the same as Rotoscopes.
  • Rotoscopes - You can now edit rotoscopes as if they were normal textures - that is to say, double clicking on them will open the standard Texture Info window. Two or more rotoscope textures are combined according to their blend modes, just as material textures. Procedurals can be used as well.
  • In EIAS 8, a rotoscope can have any mapping type, just like reflection maps (Spherical, LightProbe, Vert Cross etc.). The result will be that your camera will seem to be inside a surrounding infinite sphere with the rotoscope applied to the inside of it. As you move the camera, you will see different parts of this environment.
  • This feature can be previewed in Animator's View windows.
  • Reflection maps - Reflection maps are now combined according to their blend modes. A procedural applied in the reflection maps list now is treated as a real reflection (in EIAS 7 it was a reflectivity multiplier).
  • Sky maps - All sky maps lists (GI Sky maps, world RT reflections and refractions) can have any number of textures that are combined in Camera. Procedurals can be used as well. The only exception is "Adaptive sky map" GI mode. It requires a single texture that should be a LDR/HDR image.
  • Normal maps - Normal maps (a kind of bump map) are moved to tangent space because now it's a more popular and usable kind of normal maps that allows the use of UVs and others kinds of mapping.
  • Displacement Sea Level - This new additional control adds/subtracts a constant value to the applied displacement. It's useful for organic shapes such as those coming from ZBrush.
  • Light maps - Instead of a single light projection map, EIAS 8 offers a standard texture list of light maps supporting all types of reflection mapping and procedurals.
  • USER PACK:
  • New Strength map tools.
  • Save/Load strength map to re-assign it from a low-res model to a higher-res one or vice versa.
  • Strength maps blur/contrast tool.
  • Strength map mirror tool.
  • Strength map unfold tool saves a map as a .img texture by using the model's UVs.
  • Renderama improvements.
  • Renderama now displays the output file name of the job being rendered.
  • You can now re-order jobs inside the Renderama interface.
  • Whenever you enable or disable a job or a slave, this is now instantly saved to the preferences to aid in crash recovery.
  • Renderama can now see and use folders nested inside the EI Shaders and EI Sockets folders.
  • Animator improvements.
  • "Remove from selection set" is added to contextual menu.
  • Enable/Disable channels animation ("green triangle") was added to the preferences.
  • Exported FACT can be automatically re-imported and added to the project.
  • Imported series of FACT files (for cycle groups) are now added in order sorted by their file names.
  • When you right click on the title bar of the Camera View window, the pop-up menu shows label color and a light/camera icons next to the respective items in the list.
  • Bump normals map are now supported for camera maps.
  • A new contextual menu was added for the textures in the Material Info window. Procedurals interfaces also can be opened by selecting the procedural in the list and pressing the 'P' key.
  • Layers shaders can be collected in a separate folder (but located inside "EI Shaders" folder).
  • In the Texture Info window for Flat, Cubic and Procedural mapping, a new "AutoEdit" pop-up was added to constrain XY(Z) scales.
  • A new feature, "Fill Velocities", was added to the Function Curve Editor.
  • Rendering to PNG format.
  • EIAS 8 can now render sequences natively to the .png format (millions and millions+). This was added to overcome the resolution limitation experienced with QuickTime files (like PICT).
  • New Plug-Ins and Shaders:
  • Note: These all require EIAS 8.0 and will not function in earlier versions.
  • EI Shaders API improvement
  • Starting with EIAS 8.0, procedural shaders can read geometry at render time; similar to model plug-ins.
  • It gives shader developers the ability to create advanced silhouette and cartoon effects.
  • ShadeBevel Shader
  • This new shader creates a bump to fake bevels/champhers along the unshared edges of a group. This creates Instant and flexible results even for very low-detailed models.
  • Parametric Surface Plug-In - This new plug-in creates shapes and surfaces analytically by using formulas. It works together with XPressionist. It includes a library of formulas so you can use it without any math skills. You can create your own formulas and design UIs for them.
  • AdaptiveDicer Plug-In - This new plug-in provides a more robust and more featured triangulation that can be selective, depending on an applied weight map or on vertices/facets colors. The plug-in can be also used as a "filter" to remove unwanted non-planar geometry, redundant vertices and double-sided polygons.
  • FIXED BUGS:
  • Pressing both mouse buttons at the same time on a pop-up no longer crashes Animator.
  • Undo works properly when a FACT file is added to the project.
  • Undo works properly when a group with strength maps is deleted.
  • Undo stack now resets when a project is closed and a new one is opened.
  • Crashes when switching frame rate in project window fixed.
  • Replace button in the Material Info window, Transmission tab didn't work.
  • Real time deformations now work if two or more objects are dragged together.
  • Adding non-image files will no longer crash the strength map system.
  • Camera no longer crashes if a greyscale .mov file is used.
  • Animator no longer freezes if Blur Frames is set to 2 and the Go button is pressed.
  • Rotoscopes being shown in the View windows are redrawn if their projection type is changed.
  • The preview speed in the Camera View window should now work as documented for Drop frames.
  • Edit text operators (like @*2) are supported in the Render Resolution X.Y (Camera Info window).
  • We added more code to prevent Animator from crashing after a preview rendering.
  • Lensflare and Lightflares will no longer be causing out of memory errors.

New in Electric Image Animation System 7.0.1 (Dec 6, 2012)

  • Renderama now works with Leopard
  • Renderama again renders properly from Mac to PC
  • .hdr files not passed to PC slaves by Rama
  • RT reflection/refraction sky map crash
  • RPF_Saver shader not working in UB
  • Drag and drop of textures not working on PC
  • Motion blur not working on frames 2 and on for Rama projects
  • Multi-layer not handling polygon outlines properly
  • EI_Layers wasn't handling the shadow layer properly
  • Fixed problem with EI_Layers shader and clip maps
  • Multi-file texture system not working properly
  • GI glossy and transparent objects not working correctly
  • PSD file numbering conventions now agree with AE's conventions
  • Fixed dragging left/right bug in Texture Info window and Link Info window
  • Fixed problems with GI Bump/Displacement