Steve Holyhead has joined AJA as senior product manager for desktop products. He joins AJA from Fox Broadcasting Company where he was director of technical operations.
Holyhead recently moved to Grass Valley, where AJA is headquartered, from Los Angeles. In addition to working at Fox, his 20-plus years of industry experience includes developing professional digital video workflows with BloomCast, managing post operations at Discovery Communications and working as a technology evangelist, producer and technical marketing manager for both Discreet (now Autodesk) and Avid. He has also developed Avid and Adobe training courses for multiple partners, including Lynda.com.
“Steve brings a blend of real-world production and technology developer experience to AJA. His understanding of production, broadcast and post, together with his experience both designing enterprise scale workflows and as a master trainer for Adobe, Apple and Avid products, will make powerful contributions to the success of our customers,” says Nick Rashby, president of AJA.
This entry was posted in New Hire, News, post production and tagged Adobe, AJA Video, Autodesk, Avid, Fox Broadcasting, post production, product manager, Steve Holyhead on January 23, 2017 by Randi Altman.
Boxx Technologies has introduced Apexx workstations featuring the new seventh-generation Kaby Lake Intel Core i7 processors. The integration of these processors provides the Apexx 1 1202 a base clock speed of 4.2GHz with a turbo boost of 4.5GHz. The ultra-compact Apexx 1 also features advanced liquid cooling and professional graphics. Apexx 1 (pictured in our main image) is designed for users working in visualization, 3D animation, modeling and motion media.
The latest Intel Core i7 processor is also included in the new, compact, liquid-cooled Apexx 2 2203 workstation. Featuring the same base clock speed of 4.2GHz (and 4.5GHz turbo boost), Apexx 2 2203 is configurable with up to two full-size, pro GPUs and is optimized for software such as Autodesk’s 3ds Max and Maya and Maxon’s Cinema 4D, as well as other CAD and 3D design applications.
Pricing for these new models is not yet available. The company says both these units have non-overclocked processors and would typically be priced lower than models with overclocked processors.
This entry was posted in News, Workstations and tagged Autodesk, Boxx Technologies, Intel processors, Kaby Lake Intel Core i7 processors, Maxon, workstation on January 4, 2017 by Randi Altman.
Autodesk, via a press release on the BusinessWire, announced a restructuring plan intended to accelerate the company’s move to the cloud and its transition to a subscription-based business model. Through the restructuring, Autodesk seeks to reduce expenses, streamline the organization and reallocate resources to better serve its needs going forward. Part of this reduction of expenses means 10 percent of its workforce will be laid off — that’s about 925 positions — and certain leased facilities will be consolidated.
“As we progress through our business model transition, we continue to take a comprehensive look at our company to see where we can be more effective and efficient. To realize maximum value for both our customers and shareholders, and as a follow-on to previously discussed cost reduction actions, we are restructuring so we can focus resources on areas that will accelerate the move to the cloud and transition to a subscription-based business,” said Carl Bass, president/CEO of Autodesk.
Autodesk expects these actions will result in additional cost savings in fiscal 2017 and beyond, while reinvesting a portion of the savings in areas critical to its platform and business model transition. The company anticipates taking pre-tax charges of $85 million to $95 million in connection with the restructuring. Autodesk also expects to be at the high end or exceed its guidance ranges for billings, revenue, non-GAAP EPS, and net subscription additions for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.
Additional details regarding the company’s fourth quarter financial results and restructuring plan will be provided on the company’s regularly scheduled earnings conference call.
This entry was posted in News and tagged Autodesk, layoffs, M&E, media and entertainment on February 4, 2016 by Randi Altman.
For those of you who have longed to be able to own an Autodesk Flame system, but the cost to entry was out of your reach, well your time has come. Autodesk has announced a software-only version of Flame that comes with a new subscription model, allowing artists to use the software for a year for approximately $6,000.
The company, which in the past sold Flame as a turnkey hardware and software system, has now opened the tool up to the masses. For those of you who have bought a hardware-configured Flame running on Linux, don’t fret. Autodesk is allowing for a floating license via a Linux server. Also important to know is that early next year sales of Flame as a turnkey system will discontinue.
Those who buy the software-only Linux version it will be locked (one license, one computer) and they can choose their own qualified Linux hardware. Later this month, Flame on Mac will be released, with recommended configuration specifications from the company. For those who choose the software-only version of Flame, you will be locked into one system, with no floating license.
The new subscription pricing for Flame starts at $750 per month and can be accessed annually for as low as $500 per month. Autodesk also announced Flame support for OS X as part of the Autodesk Flame Extension 2 release, available later this moth. Autodesk Flare and Autodesk Flame Assist software are now available as standalone products with monthly subscription prices, starting at around $400.
— New monthly, quarterly and annual subscription options for Flame, Flare, Flame Assist and Autodesk Lustre.
— Unrestricted ability to purchase Flare and Flame Assist licenses with no requirement to own Flame software already.
— Customers may source their own qualified Linux hardware for Flame Family products.
— New support for Flame on OS X in addition to Linux and the announcement of the Flame Family 2016 Extension 2 release available later in November.
With these changes, Autodesk is opening up its products to many more artists, including freelancers and smaller facilities. The new subscription offerings provide a lower cost for facilities expanding their creative capabilities and for smaller studios, including individual freelancers who work on a project basis. Autodesk plans to continue to sell perpetual licenses of Flame Family.
Autodesk has also announced the upcoming Flame Family 2016 Extension 2 release that will be available later this month. It brings new format support and performance gains in color grading workflows. Lustre Reactor brings new GPU acceleration to color grading workflows and improves performance when using blur, keying and softness controls for both preview and rendering operations.
Other enhancements in Lustre include 32-bit floating point GPU rendering locally via Shot Reactor and when using Autodesk background rendering software; performance enhancements when working with Open EXR source media with embedded mattes; UI support for high DPI monitors (4K); and new Print View and Print LUT support when using AJA SDI output. Across the Flame family of products, when importing media, artists can take advantage of new support for the full DNxHR media family by using either QuickTime or MXF containers, as well as updated support for R3D media files including R3D SDK 6.0.3, allowing Flame to directly support the new Dragon 6K sensor and Rec. 2020 color space. When exporting media, the extension supports Sony MPEG-4 Part 2 Simple Studio Profile (SStP) encoding in an MXF wrapper, supporting a variety of formats and presets.
The 2016 versions of Flame, Lustre, Flare and Flame Assist are now available for purchase as software subscription only.
This entry was posted in News, Uncategorized, VFX and tagged Autodesk, Flame on Mac, Flame software, Linux on November 5, 2015 by Randi Altman.
The weather this year during IBC might be the best I ever experienced in Amsterdam. Inside the RAI, IBC seemed quieter this year — the halls were less crowded and easy to navigate. I have to assume that everyone was enjoying the weather instead of being inside the RAI.
The theme of the 2015 show was “Content Everywhere.” This is a productization taking place to incorporate mobile and cloud technology into the production and post production process. Creative and collaborative applications are now running on tablets and smart phones in some innovative ways, from content bypassing traditional distribution to direct-to-mobile consumption.
After taking in the overall conference, I paid a visit to a few of our vendors to see what they were presenting at this year’s show.
FilmLight has continued to impress me with their focus on delivering a full-service product line, offering solutions from on-set all the way through the beginnings of a complete finishing toolset.
Autodesk has made some nice advancements to the latest release of Flame 2016 Premium. The latest workflow and UI improvements appear to have incorporated user feedback and will surely be welcomed by the Flame user community.
SGO Mistika has also listened to feedback from the community, with the beginnings of a new UI, and the media management UI has greatly improved.
Another bright spot is the work Henry Gu is performing in content delivery automation. Henry was at the Data Direct Networks booth, and I highly recommend paying him a visit to see his work.
This entry was posted in Blog and tagged Autodesk, Filmlight, IBC 2015, Nice Shoes, Robert Keske, SGO Mistika on September 14, 2015 by Randi Altman.
Autodesk will soon release Extension 1 for its Flame 2016 family of 3D VFX software, which includes Autodesk Flame, Autodesk Flare, Autodesk Lustre and Autodesk Flame Assist. Inspired by user feedback, Autodesk added workflow improvements, new creative tools and a performance boost. Flame 2016 Extension 1 will be available to subscription customers on September 23.
– Connected Conform: A new, unified media management approach to sharing, sorting and syncing media across different sequences for faster finishing in Flame Premium, Flame and Flare. New capabilities include shared sources, source sequence, shots sequence, shared segment syncing and smart replace.
– Advanced Performance: Realtime, GPU-accelerated debayering of Red and ArriRaw source media using high-performance Nvidia K6000 or M6000 graphics cards. The performance boost allows artist to begin work instantly in Flame Premium, Flame, Flare and Lustre.
– GMask Tracer: New to Flame Premium, Flame and Flare, this feature simplifies VFX creation with spline-based shape functionality and a chroma-keying algorithm.
– User-Requested Features: Proxy workflow enhancements, new batch context views, refined cache status, full-screen views, redesigned tools page and more.
This entry was posted in IBC, News and tagged Autodesk, compositing, Flame 2016, IBC 2015, VFX on September 12, 2015 by Randi Altman.
At SIGGRAPH 2015 Autodesk announced its 2016 M&E extensions, designed to accelerate design, sharing, review and iteration of 3D content across every stage of the creative pipeline. The Maya 2016 extension is a new text tool for creating branding, flying logos, title sequences and other projects that require 3D text. The 3ds Max 2016 extension includes geodesic voxel and heat map solvers to help artists create better skin weighting faster. New Max Creation Graph (MCG) animation controls provide procedural animation capabilities.
Creative Market, an online content marketplace acquired by Autodesk last year, is expanding its offerings with the debut of 3D content. The marketplace is currently home to nearly 9,000 shops selling more than 250,000 design assets to a community of more than one million members. Artists can search, purchase and license high-quality 3D content created by designers around the world or upload and sell original 3D models on the site.
Shotgun Software has announced a new set of features and updates designed to make it easier for teams to review, share and provide feedback on creative projects. Also at SIGGRAPH 2015, Autodesk has announced the latest extension releases for its Maya 2016 and 3ds Max 2016 3D modeling, animation, VFX and rendering software and a new 3D marketplace on Creative Market, the company’s online platform for purchasing and selling custom content developed by artists.
Shotgun’s upcoming Shotgun 6.3 release will include new review and approval features and an updated Client Review Site to streamline collaboration and communication within teams, across sites and with clients. Shotgun’s Pipeline Toolkit is also being updated with the Shotgun Panel, which will let artists communicate directly with other artists and see only the information relevant to their tasks directly inside creative tools like Autodesk Maya and The Foundry’s Nuke, along with a refreshed Workfiles tool to find and navigate to relevant files more quickly.
Shotgun 6.3 includes a new global view that allows users to easily access and manage media across all of a studio’s projects from a central location in Shotgun. Other improvements include new browsing options, playlists and a preference to launch media in RV, the desktop image/movie player.
This entry was posted in News and tagged Autodesk, Shotgun Software, Siggraph on August 11, 2015 by Amy.
Autodesk’s new Stingray game engine will be available to game developers worldwide beginning August 19. Later this summer, Autodesk will also offer Autodesk Maya LT desktop subscription customers access to Autodesk Stingray as part of their subscription.
Built on the data-driven architecture of the Bitsquid engine, which Autodesk acquired in 2014, Stingray is a new platform for making 3D games. The engine supports a host of industry-standard game development workflows and includes powerful connectivity to Autodesk 3D animation software that simplifies game development across a wide range of platforms.
Highlights of the new Stingray engine include a seamless art-to-engine workflow, allowing users to import, create, iterate, test and review 3D assets and gameplay faster using a one-click workflow and live link between Stingray and Autodesk 3D animation software.
In addition, a lightweight code base allows game developers to make significant changes to the engine and renderer without requiring source code access. A rendering pipeline, physically-based shading, advanced particle effects, post processed visual effects, lightmap baking and a high-performance reflection system help make the games look high end.
Stingray includes solutions such as Beast, HumanIK, Navigation, Scaleform Studio (UI technology built on Scaleform), FBX, Audiokinetic Wwise and Nvidia PhysX. At the same time, a wide range of development tools — including visual node-based-scripting and Lua scripting — make game creation more accessible for game makers with varying levels of experience. C++ source code will also be available as an additional purchase upon request.
Among Stingray’s other features is the ability to make and apply changes to gameplay and visuals across supported platforms: Apple iOS, Google Android, Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows 8, Oculus Rift DevKit 2, Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One. Autodesk previewed Stingray at GDC 2015 earlier this year in San Francisco. Since then, game developers around the world have signed up for Autodesk’s beta program and shipped games using this technology.
The Stingray engine can also be used in design environments and is an informative next step to further understand design data before anything is physically built. The engine’s realtime digital environment is programmed to look and feel like the physical world. Through the high-end development tools and visual scripting system, customers can program objects, light effects, environmental elements, materials and entourage elements to behave and react as they would in the physical world.
This entry was posted in News, Uncategorized and tagged 3ds Max, Autodesk, Siggraph, Stingray game engine on August 6, 2015 by Randi Altman.