The Foundry Introduces Two New Tools For Adobe

An innovator of visual effects and image processing technologies have now introduced CameraTracker and Kronos 5.0.
The Foundry's new camera tracker analyses source sequences to extract the original camera's lens and motion parameters, allowing you to composite 2D or 3D correctly with reference to the camera used to film the shot. You can now match camera moves within the Adobe After Effects 2.5D environment, opening up new, robust options for the placement of composite elements. Create Fringe/Heroes style 'in scene' titles, extend virtual sets, integrate motion graphics elements into a scene, and more.
This technology was previously only available in NukeX, The Foundry’s high-end film compositing tool but you can now do all this in Adobe After Effects without exiting your application.
"It’s amazing having this ability right in the After Effects environment that so many artists are used to", said Danny Princz – Motion Graphics-VFX Artist and Prof at FXPHD.
Michael Coleman, Senior Product Manager for Adobe After Effects at Adobe, added: "These new 64-bit plug-ins from The Foundry will help artists who use Adobe After Effects CS5 to create high-impact motion graphics and handle the trickiest compositing tasks more easily."
Kronos 5.0 is a new accelerated retimer and motion blur plug-in set based on The Foundry's Academy Award Winning Furnace algorithms.
Kronos 5.0 is the first product to be accelerated by The Foundry's new 'Blink' technology, dramatically speeding up render times and taking retiming to a whole new level. BlinkTM runs software on CPUs and supported NVidia CUDA GPUs allowing the extraction of peak performance from hardware. Qualified hardware matches that are supported by Adobe Premiere Pro's Mercury Playback Engine, including the GeForce GTX285 and the Quadro FX4800.
Kronos 5.0 produces far superior results by creating brand new frames using optical flow information. This avoids the poor quality output usually encountered when repeating frames such as blurring and stuttering, and is much faster than other pixel flow based techniques. Clever maths is employed to look at every pixel on each frame, and see where it moves to on the next. By comparing the two it can make a very good guess at what would come in-between allowing the creation of additional frames and a super smooth slow motion result.
Michael Auerswald, AE User commented: "The results are very impressive. I slowed down a car and the result was very close to real slow motion. Nice!".
Jack Binks, Plug-ins’ Product Manager at The Foundry, added:
"We are really excited to bring these new tools to the After Effects platform and can’t wait to see how artists employ their power and flexibility. We look forward to seeing the results."
(BMcN)