Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 Posted by Jim Thacker

Thinkbox ships Deadline 5.1, Krakatoa MX 2.0


Krakatoa MX 2.0’s new fractal design tools in action.

Thinkbox Software has released a brace of updates in time for Christmas: Krakatoa MX 2.0 and Deadline 5.1.

Krakatoa MX 2.0, which was previewed at Siggraph earlier this year, significantly extends the capabilities of the 3ds Max particle renderer with additional support for hair, atmospheric effects and fractals.

Deadline 5.1 adds new tools to the render-management system, including increased integration with Shotgun – also announced earlier this year – and native Python support.

Behold the relevant bits of the press release:

Deadline 5.1
Deadline?’s hassle-free administration and rendering toolkit offers management options for render farms of all sizes, and the flexibility to run the software on a range of platforms and rendering packages.

Version 5.1 delivers significant performance improvements and new features including:

  • ?Shotgun production management integration
    For a seamless render and review data flow
  • Native Python support
    Native installation of Python 2.6 is bundled with Deadline; Python.NET integration allows Deadline to run native Python scripts and load CPython modules
  • New Thinkbox license server with built in auto-configuration
  • ?Multiple slaves on one machine
    Launch/configure a number of slaves on a single machine
  • ?Database statistics
    Users can now store Deadline stats in an existing Postgres database

Krakatoa MX 2.0
Krakatoa MX provides an efficient pipeline for particle acquisition, caching, modifying, deforming, shading and rendering inside Autodesk 3ds Max, enabling artists to recreate natural phenomena and solid objects or deliver abstract images in unparalleled detail. New features in V2.0 include:

  • ?Hair rendering support
    Conversion of 3ds Max Hair&Fur, Hair Farm and regular Bezier splines into particles
  • ?New atmospheric effect
    Allows the direct integration of voxel rendering in any renderer that supports native 3ds Max atmospherics
  • ?Chaos Group Phoenix FD particles rendering support
  • ?Faster, more powerful Magma system
    Thinkbox has completely re-factored Magma for V2.0
  • ?PRT Creator fractal designs generation
    Combined with Magma, this new object generates complex particle distributions and animations procedurally

Pricing and Availability
Deadline 5.1 is available as a no-cost software update to Deadline customers on active support contracts. Deadline software is priced per slave at an MSRP of $185.

Krakatoa MX 2.0 is available as a no-cost upgrade to Krakatoa customers on active support contracts. Krakatoa is priced at $1,000 per workstation licence and $495 per render licence.

Visit the Deadline product website

Visit the Krakatoa product website