Luxion celebrates KeyShot 10

The latest release offers powerful new power over the content within and new.

Luxion rolls out Keyshot 10 with advanced support for 3D printing, new options for animation, content creation, more control over lighting, and even support for materials and geometry. The company says the update for KeyShot number 10 includes features and improvements within four areas: model and environment, workflow and user interface, materials and rendering, export and integration.

Do you want it easy or do you want it perfect?

People who need to render scenes or objects need to answer that question before they decide to create a render with their tool’s built-in 3D renderer or buy an add-on tool and decide which add on tool to buy. That’s not the only question designers have to answer—they have to answer what design software do you usually use? what is the final output of the render you want to make? So, sometimes the answers to those two questions add up to no answer for question number 1.

Keyshot’s mission is to make it easy. In its original incarnation, it was used in the engineering fields offering an easy option for visualizing designs. It was a software prototyping tool but not for long. The company has been expanding the range of software tools it works with and the options for output. It’s a leading virtual photography tool. It has crossed over into the content creation market to visualize scenes and characters. And most recently they’ve added on support for augmented reality applications and 3D print.

Keyshot’s mission has also been to deliver the most beautiful renders possible. With Keyshot 10, the company hopes that it offers ease of use and beautiful renders for more people than ever.

The company’s press release follows or can be found here on the Luxion site.

Tustin, California—Luxion, a leading developer of advanced rendering and lighting technology and maker of KeyShot, the first realtime ray tracing and global illumination program for 3D rendering and animation, today announced the release of KeyShot 10 and with it, the anniversary of a decade of defining how people create 3D visuals with ease.

KeyShot 10 builds on Luxion’s advancements in rendering technology introduced over the years to continue innovation in material creation, accurate lighting representation, and streamlining of the complete product visualization workflow, strengthening the foundation of visualization for designers, engineers, and 3D professionals around the world.

KeyShot 10 adds new Keyframe Animation and other animation capabilities, new Smart Export options for output to full-color 3D prints, AR/Web interaction, and more, a new Light Manager and new tools for greater control over geometry and model, RealCloth 2.0 and improved Caustics for more realistic material and lighting, as well as improved Denoise and Firefly Filter for faster visual creation.

KeyShot 10 continues to fuel the next generation of visualization, with powerful digital creation tools combined with unparalleled ease of use. With the new features, KeyShot provides the ability to take product experiences to new heights, introducing more ways to animate ideas, experience creations, and supercharge workflows to deliver visuals that captivate.

KeyShot 10 is focused on accelerating the visual creation process to fuel the next generation of visualization. Model: Cki Vang.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the new features in the release of KeyShot 10,” says Claus Wann Jensen, Co-founder and CEO of Luxion. “This release encapsulates a decade dedicated to providing 3D professionals the absolute best real-time rendering experience possible and sets the stage for the decade of 3D visualization to come.”

“We are continually amazed by the KeyShot community,” says Henrik Wann Jensen, Co-founder and Chief Scientist at Luxion. “They’ve helped define a decade of how people create and interact with 3D visuals. Looking ahead, we are committed to building KeyShot to be the tool for creating the best visuals in the decade to come.”

KeyShot 10 overview

KeyShot 10 includes features and improvements that are focused on four specific areas—model and environment, workflow and user interface, materials and rendering, export and integration. Within these four areas, KeyShot 10 introduces an array of enhanced capabilities to complement their current workflow with new tools to strengthen the 3D visual creation. Animation capabilities have been advanced with new ways to animate model, light, and camera. Smart Export introduces three new export options to prepare models for full-color 3D print and easily generate models for web, mobile, and AR. User interface features bring new light management capabilities and faster ways to work with models in the Real-time View. Increased realism and speed are brought together in new material capabilities featuring a new dimension of fiber accuracy in RealCloth 2.0, faster converging caustics, with denoiser improvements and firefly removal to decrease the time to final render. The new features in KeyShot 10 are tied together in the mission of accelerating the visual creation process to fuel the next generation of visualization, allowing 3D professionals around the world to take product experiences to new heights.

KeyShot 10 feature highlights

The following highlights the top features in KeyShot 10. More details and examples of the new capabilities in KeyShot 10 are available at keyshot.com/whats-new/. The entire list of features and improvements in KeyShot 10, along with information on how each feature works, is available in the KeyShot 10 What’s New Guide. Key features include:

More Ways to Animate Ideas
KeyShot 10 offers more motion for every idea with increased control to create more advanced visuals and industry-leading ease of use to keep companies moving. Learn more about the new animation capabilities here.

  • Keyframe Animation allows users to add and adjust keyframes exactly where needed, along with the option to record sequences of keyframes for fast, complex motion visual creation.
  • Sun & Sky Day Arch Animation puts full daylight control in a users’ hands with the ability to adjust date, start, and end time directly or apply keyframes for finer control.
  • Environment Rotation Animation offers rotation control of a KeyShot environment preset or custom environment created with the HDRI Editor to control how light moves across a product.
  • Twist Camera Animation adds the ability to animate the Twist parameter of any camera for as subtle or dramatic of an effect needed with control over angle and time.
KeyShot 10 introduces new animation capabilities that offer a wider array of part, environment, and camera animations.

A richer 3D Experience

KeyShot 10 includes more ways to experience visuals with the new Smart Export that uses sub-features such as UV Unwrapping and Baking for output to full-color 3D prints, VR/AR presentation and mobile/web interaction. Learn more about Smart Export here.

  • 3MF Export—Luxion teamed with Stratasys to implement 3MF (3D Manufacturing Format), a significant improvement over traditional STL, OBJ, and VRML files used for 3D Printing. With Smart Export, users can go from digital prototype in KeyShot to physical 3D printed prototype with support for full color, texture, and transparent materials.
  • GLB/glTF Export adds KeyShot Smart Export capabilities to easily generate more visually accurate open standard 3D web visuals right from KeyShot.
  • USDz Export is available when you need to transfer rich 3D assets or an interactive, mobile viewing experience, KeyShot provides export of USD, USDA, USDC, and USDZ which is perfect for AR export to applications that support Apple’s ARKit.
KeyShot 10 export options include 3MF output for full-color 3D prints as well as USD, USDz, GLB, and glTF for 3D model viewing and interaction on web, mobile, and in AR/VR applications.

Supercharged Workflow Capabilities

KeyShot 10 allows faster scene setup with user interface improvements and tool additions for light management, physical lighting creation, moving models in the Real-time View, and accessing parts within your scene tree. Learn more about new user interface features here.

  • Light Manager allows control of all scene lighting from one location. The dockable panel includes environment lighting selection and adjustment along with control over the visibility, color, power, and size of any physical light.
  • Light Gizmos offer faster, more intuitive light exploration and adjustment within the Real-time View or Geometry View for all Spotlights, IES Lights, or Point Lights.
  • Move Tool has been completely redesigned for improved accessibility and to allow placement and docking anywhere in the Real-time View or beyond.
  • Solo Mode supplements current workflows to allow one or more parts to be isolated without the need to lock parts or disrupt the hierarchy of any other hidden parts.
The new KeyShot 10 Light Manager allows control of all lighting from one location.

Visuals that captivate

New updates to KeyShot exclusive material capabilities bring an unmatched level of realism while new Image Style capabilities improve Denoise capabilities and adds a new Firefly Filter to help produce results faster. Learn more about Material and Rendering improvements here.

  • RealCloth 2.0, a patent-pending technology developed by Luxion, introduces a level of realism not yet seen with dimensionally accurate woven and knit cloth and increased fiber-level detail for the most realistic representation of individual threading ever.
  • Improved Caustics converge even faster for both CPU and GPU with less dependence on the scene size and more distinct effects when taking advantage of the new multiple scattering for KeyShot 10 Interior Mode (CPU).
  • Improved Denoise introduces albedo and normal information for consistent results between the Real-time View and your render output along with improved results for Interior Mode.
  • Firefly Filter is a new Image Style, Denoise slider that allows users to quickly remove and smooth away specks of unwanted light from the scene.
  • Improved Toon material now allows finer control of contour lines to achieve outline behavior that is more consistent with line art illustration techniques.
KeyShot 10 improves RealCloth 2.0 with its new 3D Ply capability for more realistic woven and knit fabrics.

Additional features

Other features users will find in KeyShot 10 include:

  • Locked Camera Mapping for projection of a texture onto a model from a fixed camera position.
  • Flip Normals is a new Geometry Tool to automatically or manually reverse the direction of the normals on an object by selecting its faces which is a tremendous time-saving tool for preparing assets for Smart Export.
  • Save Scene Performance Mode allows users to save a scene in Performance Mode and re-open it in Performance Mode for faster scene startup.
  • Name Templates now support Image Style and Image Size with the added option to Include Always Visible Model Sets.
  • Sub-Material Save to Library is now available to save sub-materials from a Multi-Material to your KeyShot Material Library.
  • FBX Import now includes import with textures while respecting alpha (transparency). Additionally, Sketchup import respects hidden layers and hierarchy.

A thorough overview of all new feature highlights is available here.

What customers are saying

“As someone who works in the film industry as a concept artist, our deadlines are crazy and the requests are always maximum resolution. It’s a common request – and a huge challenge – to deliver a portfolio of designs and 360 turntable in 4K resolution. With KeyShot 10 GPU rendering, I was able to go from 100 minutes a frame to only 3 minutes! I will be using KeyShot’s GPU rendering solution for everything from now on.”—Jet Cooper, Creative Director, Makinarium UK

“KeyShot is probably the best rendering program I have used in my, more than 30 year, long career as an Architect and 3D designer. The new keyframe animation especially is a big step up, as is the beauty and the quality of every picture rendered. Everything from flyaway fibers to wood veneer direction brings my designs to life.”—Mr. Carsten Buhl, Architect, Designer and CEO, Carsten Buhl ApS, Denmark

“The new features of KeyShot 10 are fantastic for speeding up my workflow. The new Light Manager, the improved Light Gizmos, and a dozen other enhancements just make the software that much easier to use.”—Matt Gerard, Senior 3d Designer, Banner Engineering

“With KeyShot 10, the ability to easily export USDz files allows us to create stunning AR demonstrations of our products, saving us time and money. Our customers love the results and we love KeyShot.”—Jerry Pettersson, CTO, Kuarpay AB

“KeyShot 10 handles interior renderings faster than ever. The new improved caustics adds that final touch of realism to every interior without compromising rendering times at all!”—Nicolas Robertson, Industrial Designer, nicolasrobertson.com

Availability

KeyShot 10 is available immediately for download and purchase at keyshot.com and through all certified KeyShot resellers. All customers who purchased KeyShot on or after October 19th, 2020, as well as all customers who purchased KeyShot for Education or KeyShot for ZBrush, will receive the upgrade to KeyShot 10 free of charge. All KeyShot customers with active annual maintenance will automatically receive the upgrade to KeyShot 10. All other customers may upgrade to KeyShot 10 for an incremental fee. For more details on pricing, please contact [email protected]. For information and examples about the new features in KeyShot 10, please visit keyshot.com/whats-new/ and follow Luxion on Facebook or Twitter.