Press Release from The Foundry
The Foundry’s new camera tracker analyses source sequences to extract the original camera’s lens and motion parameters, allowing you to composite 2D or 3D correctly with reference to the camera used to film the shot. You can now match camera moves within the Adobe After Effects 2.5D environment, opening up new, robust options for the placement of composite elements. Create Fringe/Heroes style ‘in scene’ titles, extend virtual sets, integrate motion graphics elements into a scene, and much more…
This technology was previously only available in NukeX, The Foundry’s high-end film compositing tool but you can now do all this in Adobe After Effects without exiting your application.
“It’s amazing having this ability right in the After Effects environment that so many artists are used to. Thank you The Foundry!”, said Danny Princz – Motion Graphics-VFX artist and Prof at FXPHD
“These new 64-bit plug-ins from The Foundry will help artists who use Adobe After Effects CS5 to create high-impact motion graphics and handle the trickiest compositing tasks more easily,” said Michael Coleman, senior product manager for Adobe After Effects at Adobe.
Kronos 5.0 is a new accelerated retimer and motion blur plug-in set based on The Foundry’s Academy Award Winning Furnace algorithms.
Kronos 5.0 is the first product to be accelerated by The Foundry’s new ‘Blink’ technology, dramatically speeding up render times and taking retiming to a whole new level. BlinkTM runs our software on CPUs and supported NVidia CUDA GPUs allowing the extraction of peak performance from your hardware. Qualified hardware matches that are supported by Adobe Premiere Pro's Mercury Playback Engine, including the GeForce GTX285 and the Quadro FX4800.
Kronos 5.0 produces far superior results by creating brand new frames using optical flow information. This avoids the poor quality output usually encountered when repeating frames such as blurring and stuttering, and is much faster than other pixel flow based techniques. Clever maths is employed to look at every pixel on each frame, and see where it moves to on the next. By comparing the two it can make a very good guess at what would come in-between allowing the creation of additional frames and a super smooth slow motion result.
“The results are very impressive. I slowed down a car and the result was very close to real slow motion. Nice!”, said Michael Auerswald, AE User.
Jack Binks, Plug-ins’ Product Manager at The Foundry, commented:
“We are really excited to bring these new tools to the After Effects platform and can’t wait to see how artists employ their power and flexibility. We look forward to seeing the results.”
About The Foundry
The Foundry is a world-leading innovator of visual effects and image processing technologies that boost productivity in motion picture and video post-production.
The Foundry has a well-established client base that includes leading visual effects facilities worldwide, such as Warner Bros, The Moving Picture Company, Weta Digital, Framestore, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Digital Domain. It is at the cutting edge of software development, marketing and sales for visual effects compositing.
In June 2009 The Foundry announced a management buyout for an undisclosed sum led by Advent Venture Partners. Advent backed The Foundry’s management team, led by CEO Dr Bill Collis and the original founders.
The Foundry is highly profitable and has more than doubled in size in the past two years.
The Foundry’s products support a wide range of award-winning host platforms including After Effects, Autodesk Media and Entertainment Systems, Avid DS, Nuke, Shake and Final Cut Pro. In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded a Sci-Tech Award to The Foundry’s development team for the Furnace image processing suite – and the company now holds two products with AMPAS Sci-Tech Award winning technology including high-end compositing system Nuke.
The Foundry is headquartered in London, and has offices in Los Angeles. For more information please visit: www.thefoundry.co.uk [1]
Links:
[1] http://www.thefoundry.co.uk