nVidia Gelato e Alias Maya

[Staff]

<br><blockquote><i>LONDON — NOVEMBER 2ND, 2004 — NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, today announced that NVIDIA® Gelato TM 1.1, the latest version of its hardware-accelerated, final-frame renderer, is now available for sale directly from NVIDIA and through its global network of resellers. The Gelato 1.1 renderer features a new version of its Mango TM plug-in for Alias® Maya® and introduces an innovative new feature called Preview Mode that allows for ultra-high speed rendering of an image with user-defined image quality and fidelity to preview the final render.<p>

“The new features found in Gelato 1.1 are the first of many that address the needs of our customers and their digital production pipelines,” stated Beth Loughney, general manager of the Digital Film Group at NVIDIA. “We’re moving towards a truly interactive rendering pipeline which doesn’t require compromises in the quality of the images, tools, or experience of creating content.”<p>

Mango, which is included free with the purchase of Gelato, now provides translations of most of the Maya Hypershade nodes that ship with Maya, seamlessly rendering images through Gelato shaded with these nodes. The packaged Hypershade nodes can also be layered with shaders written specifically for Gelato for the ultimate in flexibility and control over the effects.<p>

Preview Mode allows the artist to make decisions on lights, geometry, and shaders, selectively trading time for quality on features such as motion blur and anti-aliasing, enabling artists to see an approximation of the final image in seconds, instead of minutes or even hours. Best of all, since the image viewed in Preview Mode doesn’t require a different set of shaders or other assets, no additional prep work or changes to the production pipeline are necessary.<p>

“NVIDIA’s drive to accelerate all aspects of film rendering with the combination of Gelato and NVIDIA Quadro FX is leading the way toward high-quality, interactive rendering,” said Joshua Kolden, CEO of Crack Creative. “Gelato incorporates the features and performance required in a demanding studio production environment and is a vital tool in our continued success.”<p>

Other new features in Gelato 1.1 include:<br>
· Depth of field creates realistic blurring effects for objects at varying distance from the ‘lens’ simulating the focal plane of a camera;<br>
· Network parallel rendering permits multiple servers to work in concert to render a single frame;<br>
· OpenEXR plug-in for reading and writing data in the OpenEXR high dynamic-range (HDR) image file input/output format developed by Industrial Light & Magic;<br>
· Performance enhancements allow Gelato to run faster and more efficiently than version 1.0. In particular, improved speed and image quality in curves (hair), points, and shadows are implemented, plus improved speed for multi-threaded CPUs.<p>

Gelato 1.1 is currently shipping for both Windows XP and Linux, priced at $2,750 per workstation or server node and an annual fee of $525 for maintenance and support. An evaluation version and additional product details, including a list of Gelato’s resellers, are available at http://film.nvidia.com.