Element 3D V2 will be available in 2 weeks on Dec 2!

Yeah! I know I'm 2 days pastmy November goal but we are really happy with the progressandwe needed the extra timetoget everything dialed in! This update is insane!

What can I say, we like to push the limits of technology and features, but at the end of the day it is important that we release a product that is high quality!

Stay tuned for even more announcements as wereveal otherbigfeatures!
(and you'll see why things took a little longer!)

Additional ProductAnnouncements:
We are also excited to announce the all newPro Shaders 2! Now with massive 2K Maps and physical shaders plus the new Motion Design 2 model packthat was designed for Element 3D V2

If you haven't watched our first look video, check it out Now!

In the mean time:

• Make sure your Graphics card driver is up to date!
• Maybe check out anew graphics cards to get the most out of E3D V2
• Think of all the cool things you will be able to create with V2!

PS: We are still tweaking the websiteand hope to have it dialed in this week too!

I'm not really sure how long it has been since we have redesignedthe website but we thought it was time!

The new design is focusedon content sowe finally made the pagewider. We've also updated the tutorial section so that you can watch the tutorial you click on with few clicks. The project file and related information is all in one place too. One of the bigger new features is the tutorial playlists. Right now, I've just created a few playlists of some of my favorite tutorials but what this mechanism will allow me to do is create more in depth training that has multiple parts and still fit into our typical system. Lots of important stuff behind the scenes!

NotedFeatures:

• Wider page width! (Dynamic sizes coming for mobile)
• Fewer clicks to access tutorials and content
• Tutorial Playlists
• Better resolution for embedded videos on blog

We are still transitioning so please give us time to get through all the small bugs, we're working on it!

Of the many new featuresannounced with Element 3D V2 (so far), there is one I am particularly excited about and that isthe new specular highlight model.

The new spec model takes advantage of the new physical shader system and featuresa natural light falloff helps create more realistic shaders! You can even get the specular to be much smaller and sharp or large and diffused. May seem like a small thing but it makes a big difference!

Now that we have released the first look at Element 3D V2, you can see that this is not a small update to our plug-in. It is a massive overhaul with many big features. So, I thought I would take a little time to answer a few technical questions.

NOTE: Pricing information and upgrade paths will be announced soon!

With all the amazing new features in Element 3D V2 (why,thank you!), do I need an insane Graphics Card?
Not at all.

Our render engineis actually more efficient than V1 but we also added many new features so we recommend having at least 512MBs of video memoryand1GBis even better.Certain features just use up memory, so you want to have enough memory to keep things running smoothly and allow more complex scenes. Plus if you are creating 4K stuff, you need to be able to have enough memory for large renders.

What graphics card should I get?
Nvidia and AMD cards have shown very niceperformance with E3D V2. Even the mid-range GeForce graphics cards have plenty of power to run V2 with great speed. If your card is more than 4 years old, you can REALLYspeed things up with a new graphics card! Adecent $150-250 graphics card will goa long way.

Intel cards are not officially supported, sorry. It's hard enough to get the AMD and Nvidia dialed in!

Of course the Titan cards will give you a nice boost, but wegetplenty of speed with thehigh-end AMD and GeForce cards at half the price.

What graphics card do I needforthe GPU Accelerated Ray Trace Shadows and Ambient Occlusion?

Both Nvidia and AMD (ATI) Graphics cards that supports OpenCL will allow you to use theRay Traced features in Element 3D V2. Most cards from the last 4 years support OpenCL and you can take a look at this page for more information.

Of course, the Ray Trace features are not required to use Element 3D since you can alwaysuse Shadow Maps and Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion for most cases. Shadow maps will always be faster than Ray-Tracing but when you need that extra accuracy, it's available!

What about DualGraphics Cards with SLI?
SinceElement 3D renders with OpenGL, it is not possible to use more than 1 GPU for rendering. Only Video Games that render full screen can use multiple graphics cards.

However: Cards with 2GPU's cores (Like the GeForce 690) will speed up OpenCL stuff like the Ray-Trace Shadows and Ambient Occlusion.

What Version of After Effects do I need?

Element 3D V2 will run on every version of After Effects from CS5 to the latest CC 2014. Basically all 64-bit versions of AE.
Mac users need to be running at least OSX 10.7 to use V2.

Will my older projects made with V1.6 open inside ofV2?
Yes for the most part but...

Element 3D V2 will replace V1.6 when you install. Projects created in V2 will not open in V1. (Of course, we will always make older versions of plug-ins available if you need them.)

We worked hard to get projects to convert properly but our goal was to modernize the internal system. So thenewcoordinate system and anchor points work better but if you changed the anchor point in a previous project, you may need to adjust it again. Same for SSAO, we improved the algorithm (and got rid of some nasty banding) but some cases might look a touch differentthan before.

Of course, be sure to back up your V1.6 projects before opening them in V2, that way you can at least install the older version if something doesn't look right.

With that said, be careful. If you don't need to convert the project, why risk it. Just finish it in V1 and then move on to the glorious V2!

Check out the new features coming toElement 3D V2 coming out this November!

Watch on Youtube in HD

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