Caustic Visualizer 1.1 for Maya adds batch rendering
Updated 7 July 2014: Since this story was posted, Caustic Visualizer for Maya has been discontinued.
Imagination Technologies has released Caustic Visualizer 1.1 for Maya. The update adds support for batch-rendering animations to the plugin, which provides artists with real-time raytracing in the viewport.
The new functionality is compatible with render managers such as Autodesk’s Backburner and Thinkbox Software’s Deadline, and supports a range of standard output formats including OpenEXR.
Visualizer can also be set to emulate Maya’s built-in software and mental ray renderers – which seems a bizarre way of doing things, until you remember that it supports Imagination’s Series2 raytracing acceleration boards.
Imagination’s press material claims that “when machines equipped with Series2 cards are linked together in a farm, render times can be reduced by up to 500% per machine”.
The update also adds new ‘modeling modes’ showing models under standard and directional ambient occlusion, making it easier to inspect fine surface details.
Read more about Caustic Visualizer 1.1 for Maya on Imagination Technologies’ website
(Includes more demo videos)