New CG software you may have missed: 28 September 2026

Portrait Studio Pro, Haele 3D’s new Unreal Engine-based app, lets you pose and apply facial expressions to 3D heads for use as anatomy reference for sketching and 3D modeling.

While CG Channel tries to write about the major new versions of CG software released each week, sometimes there are smaller updates or useful tools 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 and visualization tools that didn’t get full stories last week.

Below, you can discover what’s new in VR modeling app Shapelab Lite, free hair grooming tool Sisir, reference image organizer FrameRef, and online rendering platform Felix Render.

We also cover the new Tripo P2.0 AI model for generative modeling, the new Pro features in real-time camera mocap app VirtuCamera, and anatomy reference tool Portrait Studio Pro.

Felix Render (September 2026 update)

Overview
Online architectural rendering service Felix Render has been updated steadily this year, getting performance updates and workflow improvements.

Our previous story on Felix Render is now out of date, but gives you a feel for what the service can do. The list of new features below is taken from Felix Render’s email newsletter.

New features

• Scene loading and Live Session loading are now ’10x faster’
• Maximum geometry count for scenes raised to 100 million unique polygons
• Now supports displacement maps
• New AI noise reduction tool (shown above)
• Toggle lights on and off from the UI
• Create mixed materials directly from the Layer list
• Hide groups from the 3D View to speed up scene navigation

Price and system requirements
Felix Render’s desktop client is compatible with Windows only.

Free accounts are limited to 30 minutes per day of interactive rendering and five render credits – enough for over two 2K renders – per day. Extra credits cost €20 for 20.

Pro accounts cost €30/month (around $40/month) and include 50 credits per month.

Visit the Felix Render website

FrameRef 1.1

Overview
Polygonflow’s new standalone reference image organizer – based on the built-in image board inside Dash, its world-building plugin for Unreal Engine – gets its first major update.

The update adds a new set of AI features, paid for separately on a credit basis. You can see the current pricing for each AI model used on Polygonflow’s AI services website.

Non-AI new features include the option to link related reference assets to create a ‘mind map’, and portal navigation to make it easier to move around large image boards.

New features

• AI image generation
• AI video generation
• AI image editing
• AI image upscaling
• AI image tagging
• Mind Map Edges
• Portals
• Record voice memos directly in FrameRef

Price and system requirements
FrameRef is available for Windows and macOS. A perpetual individual license costs $19. You can find current pricing for the AI features on Polygonflow’s new AI services website.

Read a full list of new features in FrameRef 1.1 in the online changelog

Portrait Studio Pro

Overview
Haele 3D – aka 3D artist and tools developer Ige Olwen – has released Portrait Studio Pro, a new virtual anatomy reference app for sketching, painting and sculpting.

As with Haele 3D’s existing Hand Poses, it’s based on Unreal Engine 5, but doesn’t export 3D models: it’s purely for generating anatomy reference images.

Features

• Pose 3D character heads to generate facial anatomy references
• Pick preset facial expressions and blend between them
• Built-in lighting toolset
• Readymade realistic male and female faces
• Anatomical modes featuring muscular and skeletal systems

Price and system requirements
Portrait Studio Pro is compatible with Windows 10+ only. It has a MSRP of $29.99. The existing Lite edition has a MSRP of $17.99, but a smaller feature set.

Read more about Portrait Studio Pro in the software’s Steam listing

Shapelab Lite 2026 2.0 (September 2026 update)

Overview
Shapelab Lite, the lower-cost edition of Leopoly’s VR sculpting software for users of Meta Quest 3 and 3S headsets, gets a workflow and performance update.

New features

• Unified window system for all world-space floating panels
• Single, consistent Symmetry Reference Space used across the entire toolset
• Reworked alpha pattern library
• Document Outline is now undockable
• Support for importing PSD files as images
• Load and save times ‘significantly reduced’

Price and system requirements
Shapelab Lite is compatible with Meta Quest 3 and 3S headsets. It costs $34.99.

Read a full list of new features in Shapelab Lite 2026 2.0 in the online changelog

Sisir 1.2

Overview
Promising free standalone guide-based hair grooming tool Sisir gets the option to create card-based, as well as strand-based, hair for game and real-time characters.

New features

• New Cards module for creating hair cards
• Multi-guide Edit renamed Brush mode, and usable on a single guide or card
• ‘Up to 5x improvement’ in hair generation speed

Price and system requirements
No changes since our story on the original public release.

Read a full list of new features in Sisir on the product’s Discord server

Tripo P2.0

Overview
Tripo AI has officially released Tripo P2.0, its latest AI model for generating 3D assets from 2D reference images or text prompts, having previewed it last month.

The AI model is available inside the Tripo Studio web app, and is currently aimed primarily at generating assets for games and real-time applications.

New features

• Generates quad meshes, as well as triangle meshes
• Maximum poly count raised from 20K to 50K for triangle meshes
• Automatically generates a 3D character, clothing and accessories as independent pieces
• Multi-Variant Generation: generates four variants of a 3D model at different face counts, for the same credit cost
• Mesh Edit: regenerate part of a model, without regenerating the entire asset

Price and system requirements
Tripo Studio is browser-based, and should work in most modern web browsers. Usage is credit-based.

Free accounts, which generate 3D models licensed only for personal use, get 200 credits per month, roughly equivalent to 13 models per month.

Paid subscriptions, which generate 3D models licensed for commercial use, start at $240/year.

Read a feature comparision between Tripo P1.0 and Tripo P2.0 on Tripo AI’s blog

VirtuCamera 2 Pro

Overview
The Weird Byte has rolled out new Pro features for VirtuCamera 2, its real-time 3D camera mocap tool for layout and previs artists.

The app, available for Android and iOS, makes it possible to use a mobile phone to control the motion of a virtual camera inside linked DCC applications.

The existing Standard edition is a one-time purchase; the Pro features are available via additional paid subscription plans.

New features

• Revert camera status
• Create new cameras
• Change sequentially between cameras
• Slider presets for common settings
• Support for custom Python scripts
• Support for joystick-based PTZ camera control
• Dolly-zoom effect inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo

Price and system requirements
VirtuCamera 2.0 is compatible with Android 7.0+ and iOS 16.0+. Plugins are available for 3ds Max 2026+, Blender 4.5+, Cinema 4D 2026, Houdini 20.5+, Maya 2026+ and Nuke 16+.

The Standard edition costs $19.99 for a perpetual license, and can be used commercially by indie artists with revenue under $50,000/year.

Pro subscriptions raise the earnings cap, or remove it entirely, and start at $9.99/month.

Read an overview of the new Pro features in VirtuCamera 2 on the product website

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