New CG software you may have missed: 13 September 2026

A floating eyeball added to footage of a mug of coffee by SwitchX 2, the new version of Beeble’s video-to-video AI model – one of the updated VFX tools featured in this week’s round-up.

While CG Channel tries to write about the major new versions of CG software released each week, sometimes there are smaller updates or useful plugins that we don’t manage to cover.

Rather then letting those releases slip past unnoticed, we’ve put together a round-up of updates to VFX, animation, game art and visualization tools that didn’t get full stories last week.

Below, you can find summaries of what’s new in real-time lighting tool HDR Light Studio, GPU renderer Maverick Render, and open-source Maya character rigging toolset mGear.

The round-up also covers two AI tools: SwitchX, Beeble’s video-to-video generative AI model, and the Chaos Cosmos asset library, which gets support for AI 3D model generation.

HDR Light Studio for Blender

Overview
The Blender integration for the real-time lighting design tool for visualization, motion graphics and VFX work now supports the V-Ray renderer.

V-Ray itself has became properly available for Blender again last year.

New features

• Now supports V-Ray for Blender
• Now supports Blender 5.2
• No longer supports the legacy ‘custom-build’ version of OctaneRender for Blender
• Now supports OctaneRender via the new add-on for the standard version of Blender

Price and system requirements
No changes since our story on the HDR Light Studio 9.5.

Read more about V-Ray support in HDR Light Studio for Blender on Lightmap’s blog

Maverick Render’s existing and new denoiser modes, recorded on a system with an eight-year-old NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPU. The start of the video shows the older mode.

Maverick Render 2026.3

Overview
RandomControl’s GPU-accelerated production renderers – Maverick Studio for visualization and Maverick Indie for entertainment work – now supports the OptiX 9.1 denoiser.

Maverick also supports the new OptiX DEN2x model, which combines render denoising with 2x image upscaling, improving interactive rendering, and making final renders “up to 4x faster”.

New features

• OptiX 9.1 support
• New OptiX DEN2x render denoising mode
• DEN2x makes final-quality rendering “up to 4x faster”
• New independent Navigation US and Render US controls for faster interactive rendering

Price and system requirements
No changes since our story on the Maverick Render 2026.2.

Read more about Maverick Render 2026.3 on RandomControl’s blog and the release notes

mGear 5.3.4 and 5.3.5

Overview
The open-source character rigging framework for Maya introduces Anim Picker 2.0, the latest version of its animation picking tool.

It’s a complete rewrite of the original picker, introducing vector (SVG) shapes, interactive widgets, viewport pins, conditional visibility, mirroring and a heads-up display mode.

New features

• Opacity passthrough setting turns the transparent floating picker into a click-through HUD
• Pin items to the viewport: maintains screen position and size while panning or zooming
• Vector shapes from SVG: a picker item can be a real curved vector shape
• Richer shape library with 16 new template
• High-DPI text and handle scaling
• Mirror relationships: link two items as a real-time-mirrored pair about a symmetry axis
• Interactive widgets
• Master toggle for item groups
• Undo/Redo and Autosave system
• Other UI and workflow improvements

Price and system requirements
No changes since our story on the mGear 5.3.

Read a full list of new features in mGear in the online changelog

SwitchX 2.0

Overview
Rolled out earlier this year, Beeble’s video-to-video AI model is pitched as a “breakthrough generative video capability” for VFX work.

Rather than generating new video from scratch, it modifies existing video letting users change the lighting, background, props or costumes while keeping the subject “consistent … and intact”.

SwitchX 2.0 lifts some of the restrictions of the original model, making it possible to generate up to 20 seconds of 4K, 10-bit video at a time.

New features

• Generates longer shots: maximum duration is now 20 seconds at 24fps
• Native 4K output: increased from 1080p
• 10-bit color depth: up from 8-bit
• Improved camera tracking
• Improved performance on fast-moving shots
• New upres workflow: iterate a shot at 720p, then upscale to 4K for final output

Price and system requirements
SwitchX is available in Beeble’s cloud app, which runs in a standard web browser.

It includes a range of other tools, including node-based AI compositor Canvas, and AI-based relighting, VFX pass generation, background removal, upscaling and SDR-to-HDR conversion.

Processing is credit-based: you can see how many credits each service consumes here.

Creator subscriptions cost $19/month or $192/year and get 540 credits per month; Professional subscriptions cost $75/month or $720/year, and get 2,400 credits per month.

Read more about SwitchX 2.0 in Beeble’s blog post

Chaos Cosmos: new AI model generation features

Overview
Chaos has introduced AI 3D model generation and image-based search in Chaos Cosmos, its online 3D asset library.

The AI model-generation system, still in early beta, makes it possible to generate a 3D model from a single reference image, using third-party AI models.

Two are currently available: Tencent’s HY 3D, also due in the upcoming iPad edition of Cinema 4D, and Microsoft’s Trellis.2.

New features

• Generate 3D assets from single source images
• Search for assets in the library that visually match a reference image

Price and system requirements
Chaos Cosmos is available as part of Chaos’s product subscriptions, including Corona and V-Ray subscriptions and the new Chaos suites. You can find current pricing here.

AI 3D Model Generation is currently available for V-Ray, Corona, Vantage and Envision. It is free to use during the beta, and does not consume any Chaos Credits.

Read more about AI 3D model generation in Chaos Cosmos on Chaos’s blog

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