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Continuum 2025.5 Boris FX began to add AI features to Continuum in its 2024 releases, beginning with machine learning-based filters for denoising, upresing and retiming video. In Continuum 2025.0, they were joined by machine-learning-based filters for generating motion blur, and obscuring car license plates in footage. To that, Continuum 2025.5 adds the new AI-based object masking and tracking toolset from Mocha, Boris FX’s planar tracking software, the core tech from which is integrated into Sapphire. The Object Brush ML feature makes it possible to isolate objects in a single frame of footage simply by clicking inside them, with Continuum automatically generating a corresponding mask. The selection can be refined by selecting extra parts of the image to include or exclude, or by painting areas in or out manually. The Matte Assist ML feature automatically propagates a mask throughout a shot, tracking the object selected and generating animated mattes matching its changing outline. The release also adds three other new AI tools: BCC+ Depth Map ML, BCC+ ST Map, and BCC+ Frame Fixer ML. BCC+ Depth Map ML automatically generates depth maps from video footage, based on objects’ distance from the camera, making it easier to add fog and haze, or fake rack focus. Users have a choice of two ML models, one tuned for performance, and one for detail. BCC+ ST Map generates ST Maps, often used to encode lens distortion data, making it easier to distort or undistort video footage, or to convert it from rectilinear to 360° formats. BCC+ Frame Fixer ML automatically fixes ‘bad’ frames in footage: for example, those with scratches or tape degradation, or with flash photography changing the lighting of the subject. You have to identify the bad frames manually, but processing is automatic. According to Boris FX, the filter can also be used to fix dropped frames, and even to hide jump cuts. Updates to existing AI tools include a Smoothing Level control for the BCC+ Witness Protection ML filter, used to obscure people’s faces automatically in source footage. BCC+ Retimer ML now supports retiming footage with variable frame rates, although only in Adobe host apps. The AI models used by the tools also now load faster on first use in a work session. Of the non-AI features, the FX Editor, for editing effects and presets, gets performance and workflow improvements, with “2x speed improvements” when playing back 4K footage. Particle generator Particle Illusion gets workflow improvements including the option to save camera animation presets, and an updated emitter library. The 8,000 x 8,000px limit in 3D titling plugin Title Studio has been removed, making it possible to work up to the maximum resolution supported by the host application. There are also over 100 new presets for filters, and support for a “full set” of blend modes in BCC+ Vignette. Continuum 2025.5 is compatible with a range of compositing and editing software, including After Effects, DaVinci Resolve and Nuke, on Windows 10+ or macOS 10.15+. It is priced according to host application, with new perpetual licences costing from $365 to $2,195. Subscriptions cost from $215/year to $765/year. https://borisfx.com/release-notes/continuum-2025-5-0-for-adobe-ae-premiere-release-note LuxCoreRender / BlendLuxCore 2.10 Formerly known as LuxRender, and rebooted in 2018, LuxCoreRender is an alternative to Blender’s native Cycles renderer, particularly for product and architectural visualization. It’s a physically based render engine with a range of production features and, as of LuxCoreRender 2.0, supports hybrid rendering on CPUs and GPUs. LuxCoreRender 2.10 is the first stable version of the software in over three years: while there have been some experimental updates, the last stable release was LuxCoreRender 2.6. Development then stalled after several of the original key developers left the project. According to the release announcement, the 2.10 release is mainly intended to put development “back on track”. While it doesn’t introduce major new features, it makes the software compatible with the current Blender 4.x releases, and makes it “ready for new development work”. LuxCore Python bindings are now available as wheels on PyPi, making it easier for third-party developers to integrate the renderer into their software. The update also makes LuxCoreRender available for a greater range of platforms: as well as Windows, Linux and Intel Macs, it now runs current Macs with Apple Silicon processors. For GPU acceleration, the software still uses CUDA on NVIDIA hardware, and OpenCL elsewhere: it doesn’t currently use Apple’s Metal API when running on macOS. LuxCoreRender 2.10 is available under an Apache 2.0 licence for Windows, Linux and macOS. BlendLuxCore 2.10 is compatible with Blender 4.2 and 4.3. The experimental 3ds Max integration plugin, MaxToLux, has not been updated, and is no longer available on the downloads page of the LuxCoreRender website. https://forums.luxcorerender.org/viewtopic.php?t=6678 Xsens Animate 2025 Xsens Animate processes and exports raw motion-capture data generated by Movella’s inertial capture hardware: the Xsens Awinda and Xsens Awinda Starter systems, where the sensors are attached to an actor’s body with straps, and its Xsens Link mocap suit. The software is aimed at entertainment work – game development, animation and visual effects – and comes in four editions: Animate Export, Animate Live, Animate Pro and Animate Record. Animate Export is intended for offline recording, processing the motion of a single actor and exporting it in FBX or BVH format to DCC applications and game engines. Animate Live streams the motion of up to two actors to compatible applications, which include Blender, Maya, MotionBuilder, Unity and Unreal Engine, in real time. Animate Pro combines the feature sets of both Export and Live, plus further advanced features, and supports recording of up to four actors simultaneously. Animate Record is a free tool for recording and previewing data. The software used to be known as MVN Animate, but was rebranded last year, Xsens being the name of its original developer, acquired by Movella, then known as mCube, in 2017. Xsens Animate 2025 reworks the software’s motion engine, supplementing the legacy unisex profile with new male and female profiles. The latter use body proportions more typical for male and female subjects – primarily hip and shoulder widths, and placement of the center of mass. In addition, the curvature of the spine is now tracked more accurately. Both changes are intended to recreate the motion of an actor or stunt performer more accurately, reducing the time needed to clean up the raw data. The software’s user interface has also been reworked, simplifying navigation, making it possible to access key tools more quickly, and introducing a new dark UI mode. Users of Awinda systems get an experimental Auto Sensor Mapping feature which detects the sensors and attributes them to the correct parts of the body automatically. Xsens Animate is compatible with Windows 11 only. The software is rental-only, and priced on enquiry on Movella’s website. Movella told CG Channel that Animate Pro subscriptions cost $9,590/year, down $1,400/year since we last wrote about the products in late 2023. Animate Live subscriptions cost $3,990/year, while Animate Export subscriptions, which are not available in the US, cost €6,490/year. Animate Record is free. Movella also offers three- and six-month subscriptions. https://3446270.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/3446270/Xsens 2025.0 Release Notes.pdf Cavalry 2.4 Originally released in 2020, Cavalry is a procedural animation app “combining the power and flexibility of 3D with the ease of use of 2D”. Although currently a pure 2D animation tool, it supports workflows that will be familiar to 3D animators, including keyframing, curve editing, deformation, rigging, scattering and instancing. Scene Group’s background is also in 3D motion graphics: the firm is a spin-off from Mainframe North, which developed MASH, Maya’s motion graphics toolset. Once created, images may be exported in a range of file formats, including as JPEG, PNG or SVG sequences, as animated PNGs, as WEBM or QuickTime movies, or in Lottie format. It’s a sizeable update, adding the option to write custom image-manipulation filters in SkSL, and save them as third-party plugins. SkSL, the shading language used by open-source 2D graphics library Skia, is a variant of GLSL, so code from sites like Shadertoy should work with “minor modifications”. The update also adds a new SLA shader for creating a range of animatable noise types. Other changes include new styling options in the Text Shape, making it possible to apply apply effects like underline, strikethrough and superscript to text. It is also now possible to import Excel .xslx files. Users of the paid Pro edition also get the option to create 2D meshes to deform images or shaders by placing control vertices. When creating 2.5D animation, it is now possible to use a Camera Guide – a representation of the region of the scene visible to the camera – to drive its animation. For managing complex projects, a new Dependency Graph window provides an editable schematic view of a composition, replacing the old Flow Graph. Cavalry 2.4 is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 12.0+. The full software is available rental-only, with Pro subscriptions costing £192/year (around $255/year). The free edition caps renders at full HD resolution, and lacks the advanced features in this table https://docs.cavalry.scenegroup.co/tech-info/release-notes/2-2-0-release-notes/ Feather 1.2 The update restores the augmented reality workflow available in the original free version, with the new AR Viewer making it possible to view 3D sketches in real space. Feather 1.2 is compatible with iPadOS 16.0+. A perpetual license costs $14.99. https://support.feather.art/docs/releasenotes/officialservice

3ds Max 2026.1 The new feature in 3ds Max 2026.1 is the Attribute Transfer modifier, shown in the video above. It transfers attributes – vertex positions, normals and colors, plus up to two sets of UVs – from one model to another. According to Autodesk, it provides a “new, non-destructive modifier workflow” for tasks that were typically done through scripting. There are also updates to a couple of the existing modifiers, including the Push modifier, used to inflate or deflate 3D meshes. It gets a number of new options, including the option to use other objects in a scene to limit the result of the push operation. When the result collides with a control object, it stops moving in that direction in real time. A new Relax Iterations setting smooths the mesh in a similar way to the Relax modifier, helping to prevent issues with self-intersection. It is also now possible to limit push operations to specific axes. The XForm modifier, used to apply transformations non-destructively to objects, gets a choice of four transformation modes. As well as the previous default behavior, users can now transform objects in local space, world space, or relative to another object in the scene. There is also a self-explanatory new Preserve Normals checkbox. 3ds Max’s Universal Scene Description plugin has been updated, with USD for 3ds Max 0.11 adding a new Promote to 3ds Max Object option. It promotes USD geometry to a 3ds Max object, making it possible to work on it using native 3ds Max tools. In addition, the USD Exporter now supports the OpenPBR material, which has been 3ds Max’s default material since 3ds Max 2026. There are also a number of workflow improvements, and new Python functions for manipulating USD layers. 3ds Max’s integration plugin for Autodesk’s Arnold renderer has also been updated, with MAXtoA 5.8.2 supporting the changes in Arnold 7.4.2. They’re primarily performance improvements, especially to scene initialization times when rendering on machines with high numbers of CPU cores. 3ds Max 2026.1 is compatible with Windows 10+. It is rental-only. Subscriptions cost $255/month, up a further $10/month since 3ds Max 2026, or $2,010/year, up $65/year. In many countries, artists earning under $100,000/year and working on projects valued at under $100,000/year qualify for Indie subscriptions, which now cost $330/year. https://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2026/ENU/?guid=GUID-584026C2-5EAA-4F03-B676-0A4D0C2372AA MotionMaker Autodesk has released Maya 2026.1, the latest version of its 3D modeling and animation software for visual effects, games and motion graphics work. The release adds MotionMaker, a new AI-based system for generating movement animations for biped and quadruped characters, especially for previs and layout work. Other changes include a new modular character rigging framework inside Bifrost for Maya, plus updates to liquid simulation, OpenPBR support and USD workflows. Autodesk has also released Maya Creative 2026.1, the corresponding update to the cut-down edition of Maya for smaller studios. The headline feature in Maya 2026.1 is MotionMaker: a new generative animation system. It lets users “create natural character movements in minutes instead of hours”, using a workflow more “like giving stage directions to a digital actor” than traditional animation. Users set keys for a character’s start and end positions, or create a guide path in the viewport, and MotionMaker automatically generates the motion in between. At the minute, that mainly means locomotion cycles, for both bipeds and quadrupeds, plus a few other movements, like jumping or sitting. Although MotionMaker is designed for “anyone in the animation pipeline”, the main initial use cases seem to be layout and previs rather than hero animation. Its output is also intended to be refined manually – Autodesk’s promotional material describes it as getting users “80% of the way there” for “certain types of shots”. Accordingly, MotionMaker comes with its own Editor window, which provides access to standard Maya animation editing tools. Users can layer in animation from other sources, including motion capture or keyframe animation retargeted from other characters: to add upper body movements, for example. There are a few more MotionMaker-specific controls: the video above shows speed ramping, to control the time it takes the character to travel between two points. There is also a Character Scale setting, which determines how a character’s size and weight is expressed through the animation generated. You can read more about the design and aims of MotionMaker in a Q&A with Autodesk Senior Principal Research Scientist Evan Atherton on Autodesk’s blog. According to Atherton, the AI models were trained using motion capture data “specifically collected for this tool”. That includes source data from male and female human performers, plus wolf-style dogs, although the system is “designed to support additional [motion] styles” in future. RealityScan 2.0 RealityCapture 2.0 – or rather, RealityScan 2.0 – is a change of branding, with the desktop application taking its new name and logo from Epic Games’ existing mobile scanning app. First released in 2022, RealityScan was originally pitched as a way to make RealityCapture’s functionality accessible to hobbyists as well as pros. It’s a pure photogrammetry tool, turning photos captured on a mobile phone or tablet into textured 3D models for use in AR, game development or general 3D work. New features in RealityCapture 2.0 will include AI-powered masking, with the software automatically identifying and masking out the background of the source images. The change should remove the need to generate masks manually, either in RealityCapture itself or an external DCC app. In addition, the default settings have been updated to improve alignment of source images, particularly when scanning objects with smooth surfaces and few surface features. To help troubleshoot scans, a new Quality Analysis Tool displays heatmaps showing parts of the scan where more images may be needed to reconstruct the source object accurately. The update will also introduce support for aerial Lidar data, which may be used alongside aerial photography and terrestrial data to reconstruct environments more accurately. It isn’t clear which of those new features will be included in the mobile app, although it will presumably also be updated to version 2.0 at the same time, since Epic Games’ blog post announcing the changes describes its aim as to “unify the desktop and mobile versions”. RealityScan 2.0 is due in the “coming weeks”. Epic Games hasn’t announced an exact release date, or any changes to price or system requirements. The current version of the desktop software, RealityCapture 1.5, is available for Windows 7+ and Windows Server 2008+. It’s CUDA-based, so you need a CUDA 3.0-capable NVIDIA GPU. The desktop software is free to artists and studios with revenue under $1 million/year. For larger studios, subscriptions cost $1,250/seat/year. The current version of the mobile app, RealityScan 1.6, is compatible with Android 7.0+, iOS 16.0+ and iPadOS 16.0+. It’s free, including for commercial use. By default, its EULA gives Epic Games the right to use your scan data to train products and services, but you can opt out in the in-app settings. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/news/all-the-big-news-and-announcements-from-the-state-of-unreal-2025 Unreal Engine 5.6 Character artists get the “biggest update yet” to the in-editor animation tools, with major revamps of Motion Trails, the Tween Tools, and the Curve Editor, plus the option to sculpt morph targets in-editor, and built-in physics in the Control Rig. Lumen gets performance updates to Hardware Ray Tracing (HWRT) mode, intended to help games using the real-time global illumination system run more consistently at 60fps. There are also several completely new toolsets, including the Mocap Manager, a new “end-to-end solution” for recording and managing mocap data inside the Unreal Editor. In addition, MetaHuman Creator is now integrated directly inside Unreal Engine: part of a wide-ranging set of changes to the character-creation framework. The Unreal Engine 5.6 Editor is compatible with Windows 10+, macOS 14.0+ and RHEL/Rocky Linux 8+. For non-interactive content, the software is free to users with revenue under $1 million/year. For larger studios, subscriptions cost $1,850/seat/year, including Twinmotion and RealityCapture. For games developed with the engine, Epic takes 5% of the gross royalties after the first $1 million generated. https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/unreal-engine-5-6-release-notes

Yes I popped the new segments in with Edge Cut. CBR

It bridged fine when I enabled the Reverse option and set Spin Steps to -1.

Thanks for that. Did you bridge it with theStitch and Sew, then add the other subdivisions in with the knife tool? The S&S tool just makes one giant bridge for me, or 2 if I press CTRL.

So Autograph is an AE competitor. Maxon collaborates with Adobe through Cinewere for AE and a bit with Vector Import from PS/IL. (Not mentioning Red Giant, Universe and how often VFX&Chill uses AE in their live shows) Maxon aquires the competotor of Adobe. How will that be seen from Adobe ? Now that I think of it... it doesn't mean much... Red Giant and Universe are plugins, it's not a colaboration. But the Cinewere thing I don't know... I really wasn't expecting an aquisition of that kind. Wasn't Magic Bullet Looks supposed to fill the missing compositing component ? I think they will try to use Autograph's code to enhance Magic Bullet Looks...

I wonder if this is going to be a Redshift RT standalone!

It felt like it was trying to be a more advanced AE with the timeline of AE, but some of the more advanced 3D features you find in other compositing software. For instance, you could bring in USD/GLTF assets and assign or create PBR materials. I tried it and was more frustrated than anything. This guy explains some of the features. Many of the comments echo what others have said, which is bad UX/UI and a lot of this stuff you can do in other software already.

I just posted the news article in our work chat, not one of us had ever heard of them before

Highly doubt that will happen Same here, not my industry and I must have been living under the rock since I did not hear about them before : )

The perceived high price on their initial launch seemed to get it off to a shaky start which never recovered. Wish them the best with Maxon.

Interesting! I never tried Autograph; their Logo and website were looking so old, I was not convinced of the 'new tech!' claims. But it's surely a smart move by Maxon to acquire the talent behind it. If I had a wish free? A Redshift one-click-solution to render typical AOVs directly into an AfterEffects-Project, beauty perfectly rebuilt, Color-Setup correct, everything just ready-to-go. (For other comping apps too, of course) Thanks! 🙂

I guess we'll see a $200 increase in Maxon One subscriptions coming later this year. :[ It'll be interesting to see when Red Giant tools get integrated and if C4D will one day render directly in whatever Autograph is morphed into.

https://www.maxon.net/en/article/autograph-acquisition A Message from Left Angle June 5, 2025 Left Angle, the maker of Autograph, was created with a bold vision: to rethink compositing from the ground up and build a modern toolset for motion designers and visual effects artists. We’ve been incredibly proud of what we accomplished — and deeply grateful to the artists, studios, and partners who joined us on that journey. As of today, our business is winding down in its entirety and our team is beginning a new chapter. With this transition, our website and all related channels will go offline. While this chapter is ending, we’re hopeful about what’s ahead and what we can create. We’re working on a path forward and expect to share more in the future. Thank you for your support! – Left Angle For questions, email: leftanglesupport@maxon.net

Yep, Bridge can do that... Settings thusly However in the precise example you gave, then yes it can do it, but you can see below, it currently breaks if we try and connect offset pieces. There we are actually crossing polys half way down it, which is obviously useless, which I will report as a bug, because I think it should be able to do that ! You can see it's got the right idea, but has failed to execute. And so we must instead delete the end faces and do it with Stitch n sew instead. I used the shift modifier for that, which, interestingly, failed in exactly the same way the bridge tool did, so I had to use Ctrl modifier instead - not ideal, but it worked ! This can't put the sexy curvature in tho, and although it is relatively trivial to pop that in manually, but with Bridge tool working as intended we shouldn't have to ! However, to pop that curvature in in a semi-automatic way, we can can always just select the top and bottom edges in that section and Set Flow them, which does OK... So yes, Cinema can do it, but few more steps than a single tool. CBR

Someone posted this on reddit and I was wondering how to get this done without remaking it as a spline, can this be done in C4D with a bridge command or similar?

Ah... had to look it up... 🙂 https://conferenceonarchitecture.com/

Zero sales, everyone was busy playing Mario kart.

@Jakobwagner There is a known issue where that node is not working correctly with modifiers. The reason is that it is meant to be used in object generation, not modification. If you use a spline capsule (which is a generator), then it works properly, see attached scene test add point to spline_0001.c4d

I think Maxon is trying to get into the market of Arch viz and compete with Chaos. Look at AutoDesk - best I can tell from unvetted sources on the internet - there are around 15,000 Maya subscribers vs. 7,5000,000 AutoCAD subscribers. Archviz seems like a good market to go after. Also - Nemetscheck, which owns Maxon, owns Vectorworks, so there is a natural fit there, though it seems they want this new tech to eventually open up to all BIM software. Only time will tell - we should know more at the end of this week after AIA demos. e.

It's early days on this still - they are just marketing and building hype. The first demos will happen June 6th. They just sent emails today looking for potential beta testers. I would guess that the actual product is still a ways off for delivery.

Better move this to Technical -> Nodes Topic.

Looks nice but is there any technical information reguarding the type of features supported ? I see grass but is it polygonal or hair ? I saw smoke but I thing it's post. I saw subsurface scattering but it could be just a luminance texture. What types of GPUs are supported or what types of GPUs support which features.

Maxon just posted their Arch Viz reel. It seems like some of the work in the reel bleeds into interior design and product vis too. Very elegant.