Software developer Luxion released KeyShot 8, the latest version of its 3D rendering and animation application. KeyShot 8 adds several new tools and enhancements, with a focus on five key areas: materials and volume, lighting and optics, advanced geometry, image and output, and collaboration.
Here’s a rundown of the main enhancements in KeyShot 8:
- Cutaways: Users can now import their entire 3D CAD model and apply cutaways in KeyShot 8. Cutaways are applied like materials. Users can select how they want to cap the cut surfaces (e.g. color, material, or texture). Cutaways can also be animated.
- Geometry Nodes: KeyShot 8 adds three new types of geometry nodes (shaders) that can be applied to modify an object’s geometry. These are:
- Bubbles: Automatically add spherical cavities within an object with control over size, variation, density and limit.
- Displace: Users can use displacement maps (textures) to modify a material’s surface.
- Flakes: Users can add square or spherical flakes within or around a material (think glitter).
- Image Styles: In this new feature of KeyShot 8, users can make photographic adjustments to their scenes before or after rendering. These adjustments include background color override, color adjustments, curve control, tone-mapping and the ability to apply a Frontplate (an element between the camera and object).
- Scattering Media: In KeyShot 8, users can create scattering media to simulate particle scattering and volumetrics like smoke and fog. These can be used in conjunction with lights. Users can also use scattering media to create custom materials by applying a density texture. KeyShot 8 also offers full support for OpenVDB files to bring in volumetric data.
Other features included with KeyShot 8 are the relatively new KeyShot Viewer, integration of KeyShot Cloud, glTF/GLB file export, ability to use RGB hex color codes, new material types and much more.
“KeyShot 8 is a milestone release that expands the capabilities for KeyShot users and increases stability to both streamline the 3D-rendering process and the 3D-rendered results,” said Luxion CEO Claus Wann Jensen. “The involvement from hundreds of amazing KeyShot users has helped set the foundation for the new capabilities in KeyShot 8 and for the improvements to come.”
For more information on KeyShot 8, visit KeyShot.com.