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The second beta update for DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Studio 14 provides improved performance and fixes. Download it at blackmagicdesign.com.

The NVS-30 is a small and portable video streaming encoder and recorder. This device is designed specifically for simultaneous encoded video streaming and high quality video recording. The NVS-30 accepts any HDMI input source (such as camera or switcher) and streams the input video directly for broadcast to YouTube, Facebook, and other live streaming platforms.

Press Release

Blackmagic Design announced that Axis Animation used Fusion Studio for its work on the game cinematic and cutscenes for the latest real time strategy game from Relic Entertainment and SEGA Europe, Warhammer® 40,000®: Dawn of War III®.



Axis Animation has previously worked on AAA SEGA titles such as “Aliens: Colonial Marines” and “Alien: Isolation.” For “Dawn of War III” however, the team adopted a brand new approach to its VFX pipeline, allowing the studio to streamline its 3D characters and environments into a 2.5D compositing setup in Fusion Studio.

“It was the work of Polish surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński that was the essential ingredient in our pitch to Relic. We worked with the team at Relic to strike a careful balance between our intended aesthetic with Beksiński's ethereal imagery and the established WH40K world created by IP holders Games Workshop®,” explains Lead LRC artist on the project, John Barclay.

Axis produced the award-winning trailer for “Dawn of War III” which received great responses from fans and critics alike. With the success of the trailer, developers Relic Entertainment wanted to take the same art direction into the cutscenes.

To do this, the Axis team assembled their scenes within the standard studio pipeline but automated the process of converting the 3D scene into the multitude of image planes required for their 2.5D comps. “This helped us enormously, especially for the cutscenes, which featured limited camera movement,” Barclay reveals. “It was incredible that we had the flexibility to use effects like volumetric fog and insert them into the same scene as characters and environments built from 2.5D cards. It also meant our lighting artists could work on the scene as though it were any other 3D set.”



Brought into Fusion using a custom Python and Lua script to ensure all the data was positioned correctly, the cards meant that every artist at Axis could automatically render their character from Houdini and import it as a projection into Fusion. An alembic export was then used to bring in the camera positioning from Maya.

“Using image planes in Fusion allowed us some significantly reduced render times and also greater flexibility with more creative iteration over the whole show. The workflow allowed artists familiar with our standard pipeline to create something a little more unusual,” Barclay concludes. “Fusion is key to helping us solve both creative and logistical challenges. It was an essential part of our toolbox on Dawn of War III.”



Press Photography
Product photos of all Blackmagic Design products, are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

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DaVinci Resolve 14 features a new high performance playback engine that’s up to 10 times faster than before. In addition to extensive CPU and GPU optimizations, customers also get better threading and GPU pipelining, lower latency, much faster UI refresh rates, support for Apple Metal and much more. This makes DaVinci Resolve 14 faster and more responsive than ever so customers get incredibly fluid performance and more precise editing, even on long timelines with thousands of clips. Scrubbing and playback are instantaneous and there is powerful new acceleration for processor intensive formats like H.264, making it possible to edit 4K images on a laptop.

Legendary Fairlight audio is now fully built into the DaVinci Resolve 14 application itself. Fairlight is famous for being used at the world’s highest end studios for audio post on film and television. Fairlight is known for both its superior sound quality and its speed. Customers get a massive set of professional audio tools for recording, editing and sweetening, professional bussing, mixing and routing, and multi format mastering to 3D audio formats such as 5.1, 7.1, Dolby and even 22.2. The state of the art, super low latency audio engine is designed to work with 48KHz 24-bit audio and delivers up to 1,000 tracks with real time EQ, dynamics processing and plug-ins on every track when used with the Fairlight Audio Accelerator. Plus the new Fairlight audio can record up to 96 channels while simultaneously playing back up to 150 audio channels, while mixing it all in real time! There simply is no other software available with this level of dedicated audio power.

The new Fairlight audio in DaVinci Resolve 14 features a full multi track timeline for subframe editing of audio, down to the sample level. The mixer is designed to let customers create sophisticated sequences and has several main, sub and aux buses for mastering and delivering to multiple formats at the same time. Every channel on the mixer features real time 6 band parametric EQ, along with expander/gate, compressor and limiter dynamics. Clip time warping lets customers stretch or compress audio without shifting pitch. In addition, every single parameter can be automated, even VST plug ins, using a variety of automation modes.

In addition to audio editing, sweetening, and mixing, Fairlight audio in DaVinci Resolve 14 also includes multi channel recording tools that are far superior to those found in most editing systems. Customers can record voice overs or even an entire symphony orchestra while also monitoring video and multiple channels of dialog and sound effects. The advanced monitoring can handle buses up to 24 channels wide with customizable fold-up and fold-down for crossing between formats. Monitoring can be done on up to 16 different sets of speakers, including massive cinematic installations.

DaVinci Resolve 14 works with the Fairlight Audio Accelerator card, which gives customers up to 1,000 zero latency tracks and real time effects processing for EQ, dynamics, and up to 6 VST plug ins per channel. Even without the accelerator, most modern computers can still process more than 60 tracks in real time. In addition, DaVinci Resolve 14 can also be used to drive the entire line of Fairlight hardware mixing consoles, which makes working on complex multi track projects faster than any other system available.

The advanced busing and mixing architecture also allows multi language and multi format delivery to be handled simultaneously from the same project, dramatically reducing the time required to deliver final masters.

All this editing, color correction and audio post production power also means multiple people need to work on the same job, at the same time. This is where the revolutionary new collaboration tools are vital to the dream of revolutionizing post production. The new collaboration tools completely redefines post production workflows by supporting simultaneous editing, color correction and audio post. Assistant editors can prepare footage while editors cut the picture, colorists grade the shots, and sound editors mix and finish audio, all in the same project at the same time.

New bin, clip and timeline locking lets users safely work on a specific part of the project without overwriting each other. There’s also a built in secure chat client that lets team members talk to each other from within DaVinci Resolve without the need for an external internet connection. This secure chat is vital because most high end facilities are unable to use services such as Slack or Skype for messaging because they need to remain completely disconnected from the internet to ensure security against hacking.

The new timeline comparison tool makes it fast and easy to see differences and merge changes between two timelines by viewing a side by side comparison of every single change made between users. Best of all, DaVinci Resolve 14 works with the storage you already have. There’s no need to buy expensive or proprietary storage and servers to work collaboratively.

The new multi user features of DaVinci Resolve 14 eliminate the need for importing, exporting, translating and conforming projects. Customers no longer have to wait for a locked edit before starting color and audio work. Switching between editing, color and audio is just a single click away. That means picture editors, colorists, and sound editors can all work in parallel, making DaVinci Resolve 14 the fastest way to edit, grade, mix and deliver projects.

In addition to the incredible performance improvements, editors also get new slip and slide trim commands that make it easier to dynamically trim live on the fly during playback. They can now save interface layout presets, view multiple bins at once and open multiple bin windows. New marker overlays, audio only and video only edit tools, track colors, and subframe audio editing make it the world’s most powerful creative editor.

For colorists, there are over 20 new Resolve FX filters that make it easy to remove dust, fix dead pixels, warp images and more. The amazing new face enhancement tool automatically recognizes and tracks facial features so colorists can quickly smooth skin, adjust skin tone, brighten eyes, and even change lip color, all without having to manually select or rotoscope any part of the image. The face enhancement tool is an indispensable feature that colorists will use every single day. In addition, there are new stabilization, match move, and other image processing tools that give colorists more creative options than ever before.