S3D Technologies, a Los Angeles-based developer of solutions for stereoscopic 3-D production, has launched the S3D CGI Maya Plug-In, a software module that provides easy creation, management and control of a virtual stereoscopic 3-D camera rig within Autodesk’s Maya application. The company said the new plug-in removes the guesswork often associated with setting up a stereo camera pair within a CGI environment.
Such guesswork often leads to many wasted hours because scenes rendered with incorrectly set stereo camera settings will create 3-D images that are uncomfortable to view. The S3D CGI Maya Plug-In is integrated into the Maya user interface and allows the animator to simply pick the point of convergence as well as the positive and negative parallax points in the scene. It can also be used to automatically set the correct interaxial distance and toe-in, if required. These parameters will be automatically updated over the course of the animation shot.
On projects that require both CGI and live action, the S3D CGI Maya Plug-In can be used to import and export parameters to a real stereo camera rig to ensure accurate stereoscopic matching between CGI and live action. In addition, the S3D CGI Maya Plug-In is also fully compatible with S3D Technologies’ S3D Calculator, taking also into account all of the typical lens and camera variables as well as screen size and proposed viewer distance.
The S3D CGI Maya Plug-In is compatible with Maya 2009 and 2010 and is available for Windows. The Mac version should be available soon. S3D Technologies is also developing a 3DStudio Max Plug-In.
