Thursday, May 17th, 2012 Posted by Jim Thacker

Imagination kills off Brazil r/s 2 for 3ds Max



The old Brazil r/s for 3ds Max banner. New owner Imagination Technologies has ceased development on both version 2.0 of the software and its free Rio learning edition, and the future of version 3.0 looks uncertain.

Imagination Technologies has ceased development on the Brazil r/s 2 and Rio for 3ds Max renderers.

In an announcement in the user forum, Imagination announced that it was no longer accepting new purchases of the software, and that the forum itself would be retired after 31 July, along with the SplutterFish website.

License transfers will be available until December 2012, though the developer “will do its best” to help users wishing to transfer Brazil from one computer to another after that.

The news does not apply to the Rhino edition of the renderer. Users of Brazil r/s for Rhino can now receive support directly from Rhino developer Robert McNeel & Associates.

The end of the line?
The announcement seems to mark the end of the line for a product that, for over a decade, was a staple of 3ds Max visual effects and visualisation work.

Originally created by former Blur Studio staff Scott Kirvan and Steve Blackmon, SplutterFish was acquired by OpenRL developer Caustic Graphics in 2008. Caustic, since renamed Caustic Professional, was itself acquired by Imagination Technologies in 2010.

Throughout the period, announcements about Brazil’s future were sporadic. Imagination released an update for 3ds Max 2012, but work on a version for 3ds Max 2013 has also been discontinued.

Imagination is currently advising existing users to look for other rendering solutions:

“We suggest that Brazil for 3ds Max users look at other rendering engines because there are no products currently available from Imagination Technologies that match the features and functionality of Brazil 2.”

The developer is still “actively developing products for Maya, 3ds Max and Rhino”, but we’d imagine that this refers to a new range of rendering plugins based on the new PowerVR Brazil SDK, the first of which was announced last month.

Edited 18 May: We’ve spoken to Imagination Technologies, who confirm that they will not be shipping any future versions of Brazil r/s for 3ds Max. The Brazil 3.0 beta unveiled at Siggraph last year, and mentioned in the first version of this story, is the original name of the PowerVR Brazil SDK, not the basis of a future release in the original product family.

Read the full announcement on the SplutterFish forum