As was announced today, the new, second beta of Podium 2 had just been released. This build represents a stable code base where all features are working, although some may need some modification before final release. There will be additional features as well. V2 uses a new, higher-quality render engine. As a result, scenes set up in V1.x will not look the same in V2.

Feature List

• Global material properties
• Physical sky
• Bump mapping
• True’ reflection – not fake specularity
• Refraction with presets
• Blurred reflection
• Blurred refraction for true translucency
• Light emitting materials
• Omni (point light sources)

You can download the new build on the Podium site.

Render Plus is launching a new IRender nXt rendering contest. It starts on Feb 15, 2010, and will run until March 15, 2010. Results will be announced on March 30, 2010. You do not need to own IRender nXt, Render Plus will provide a free copy during the contest.

This years contest is designed to highlight the features of their new Version 3.0 of IRender nXt. In particular:

1. The new Materials libraries of over 6,000 materials for you to use.
2. The low res Arroway texture library of 100 textures
3. The new library of 49 RpTreeMaker Plants
4. RpTreeMaker to create your own plants
5. ArchVision RPC Objects
6. HDRi Skies

Each entry will make use of at least 4 of the new features. There are great prizes such as

1. NetBook – Samsung NC10 or Toshiba NB205 – Value $334.00, or Render Plus Combo Pack, including IRender nXt – the premier rendering product for SketchUp – value $549.00;
2. Spyder 3 Pro mouse – value $139.00, or IRender nXt – the premier rendering product for SketchUp – Value $449.00;
3. Vis Tablet – value $100.00, or nXtRender – quality SketchUp rendering at an affordable price – Value $99.00.

For more details, please, visit the Contest page at Render Plus.

As developer Jernej Vidmar has just announced, a new version of Modelur, a revolutionary 3D application for parametric urban design, has been released. Version 0.2.2 brings some serious performance optimizations (i.e. 10-50 times faster opening of large models) and fixes some minor issues. It is also available in Chinese now, thank to Huaqiao Wang. Modelur is available for SkectHup 6 and 7, both for Windows and Mac OS.

Main features include:

• rapid design of built environment,
• quick response to changed conditions of planned site,
• automatic change of built environment,
• quick creation of different variants of urban design solution,
• avoiding mistakes issued by wrong building articulation and
• continuous supervision of achieved urban control values.

For more details and to download the application, visit their website.

A new version (1.8) of LighUp, the realtime rendering plugin for SketchUp, was released as developer Adam Billyard has just announced in the SketchUcation Community Forums. The  new version that introduces the first in a series of GPU-based features like adjusting Exposure, Contrast, Saturation and Temperature all inside SketchUp during realtime navigation.

Other features include:

• Realtime adjustment of image Bloom
• More controls over processing
• Improved performance
• Better motion blur handling
• A variety of bug fixes

See details and download the plugin (or its fully functional, 30-day trial version) on the LightUp website.

As Whaat (Dale Martens), author of the plugin announced, Skindigo 2.2 for the rendering application Indigo 2.2 has just been released. Usability has been greatly improved along with integration with the Indigo material database. Main features are

• Integrated Indigo Material Database Search
• Sun Position Override Tool
• New Color Picker Interface for Emitter Color
• Custom Light Layer Names
• Save Custom Defaults
• New Interface for Setting Absorption
• Select Camera Response Function
• Network Rendering Settings
• New Material Presets
• New Subdivision Settings
• Support for Surface Color (Absorption Layer Transmittance)
• Support for Preview Thumbnails on Mac
• Support for Back Face Export
• Scene Tab Object Animation Support
• Automatically Check for SkIndigo Updates
• Recalibrated Background Color Gain
• Many  bug-fixes and usability improvements

See the new features detailed on the “What’s New in SkIndigo 2.2” page and download the plugin here.

As Simlab Soft has just announced, the new version of their 3D PDF Plugin for SketchUp is available. With the plugin, one can easily export a SketchUp model into 3D PDF that can be viewed on any computer without any additional software other than the free Adobe Reader. The new version includes an existing list of features:

Control over the PDF page:

• Size of the page
• Margins
• Back color (or image of the PDF page)

Control over the 3D Section:

• Default light to be used
• Render mode
• Navigation mode
• Back plate for the 3D section

Other, new features:

• Show or hide the 3D tool bar in the created 3D PDF
• Use the optional password parameter to protect your documents
• Merge with other PDF files, this allows you to append the generated 3D PDF file to the end of your project description file (generated using any PDF generation tool)
• Add background music to make your interactive 3D PDF more interesting
• Exporting the scenes from SketchUp. The new generated file will include all the scene views created by the user, so the recipient can navigate between the scenes easily. We also added automatic camera mode, which automatically switches between the different scenes
• More control over the header and footer text. Now you can select the appropriate fonts for the header and footer text, also you can select the appropriate font color and size
• Advanced users now have the ability to insert their own Java Scripts, for the document and the 3D sections

Read more details about the new plugin and download a free, fully functional trial on the plugin’s page linked above.

As Glare Technologies has just announced, the latest version of their photo-realistic rendering package: Indigo Renderer 2.2. has just been released.  Indigo 2.2 is at least 2 times faster than Indigo 2.0 on all scenes, and up to 10 times faster on scenes using environment maps.

Subsurface scattering (used for skin, candles and rubbery materials) has been improved to render faster and with less noise. Tone-mapping and Aperture Diffraction are now fully multi-threaded, allowing for more rapid tweaking of the scene’s mood.

The all-new Indigo Material Editor, introduced with Indigo 2.2 (see image above), allows fully featured creation and editing of materials in a graphical environment. All material functions are available in the Indigo Material Editor, with Indigo Shader Language able to control any attribute. The Indigo material editor also allows direct uploads to and downloads from the online Indigo Material Database.

Many small improvements have been made to the Indigo interface to make it more intuitive and responsive.

The specular material has had absorption layer transmittance added, to allow for stained glass-like effects and blemishes on materials like skin.

The Indigo exporters for Blender, Cinema4D, SketchUp, and 3ds Max, have all seen many improvements, making the Indigo workflow fast and easier.

See a more comprehensive presentation of the new Indigo features on their website.

Cadalog, Inc. has released SU Animate 3.1 for Google SketchUp 7 and 7.1. SU Animate is a Ruby based plug-in that automatically creates SketchUp scenes from camera and object paths. SU Animate automates the process of creating SketchUp animations.

New to SU Animate 3.1 is the ability to animate objects with two motions such as a rotating wheel that moves forward. Additionally, multiple camera targets can be allowed in each animation. This allows for complex walk-through presentations where the camera’s moves forward and focuses on one target to another. Another new feature is the ability to control the speed of the animation during a preview.

Upgrade to SU Animate 3.1 for existing customers is free. SU Animate works in Google SketchUp, Free or Pro, Windows or Mac. Combining SU Animate with SU Podium’s RenderAll feature allows for walk-through camera photo-realistic animations. For more detailed information including download of a free evaluation version and more video tutorials, please go to www.ohyeahcad.com/suanimate/

As developer Goh Chun Hee of 1001bit Tools posted in the forums, a new version; 1.1.7 of his plugin has just been released. There are new features in the toolset, such as:

Rectangular grille tools: convert edges into rectangular sections.

Circular grille tools: convert edges into circular sections.

Extrude while maintaining tapering effect.

Please, visit the website for more details about the other features or the SCF discussion about user feedback.

Related articles:

• Spotlight: Goh Chun Hee – Author of 1001bit Tools
• Spanish & German Language Packs for 1001bit Tools
• French Language Pack for 1001bit Tools

As it was announced on the SU Podium website, the Beta version of the new SU Podium plugin (an easy-to-use renderer working inside SketchUp) has just been released. We have been reading much of this coming version for long and this first, public Beta seems to be very exciting.

“This build represents a stable code base where as far as we are aware, all features are working, although some may need some modification before final release. There will be additional features as well. V2 uses a new, higher-quality render engine. As a result, scenes set up in V1.x will not look the same in V2.” says the announcement.

Feature List

1. Global material properties
2. Physical sky
3. Bump mapping
4. ‘True’ reflection – not fake specularity
5. Refraction with presets
6. Blurred reflection
7. Blurred refraction for true translucency
8. Light emitting materials
9. Omni (point light sources)

Read more on the Podium website linked above.