What's new?

Updates for 2.1

NOTE: For Pixotope 2.1 it is essential that all Pixotope machines are updated to the new driver/firmware

• Blackmagic Design Decklink - 12.1 drivers

• AJA Kona and Corvid - 16.1 drivers and firmware

Hot on the heels of Pixotope 2.0, we are delighted to deliver 2.1 including a lot of new features and enhancements as a significant boost to your creative workflows. Here are just some of our new features:

• Body Pose Estimation

• New control panel - Experimental

• Updated AJA and BMD drivers

• Usability improvements

Body Pose Estimation

Body Pose Estimation allows an accurate live estimation of the pose and position of a human body directly from a video image, using an AI powered framework from NVIDIA. It provides a real-time set of 3D data points corresponding to a skeleton with bones and body parts.

With it you can

• position the VS compositing plane, allowing the talent on green screen to freely move toward and away from the camera

• render shadows and reflections more accurately and even render footprints

• allow the talent to interact with its surrounding using

  • Physics

  • trigger boxes

  • hand action

  • or clicker control for pick up/place logic

Learn more about how to Set up Body Pose Estimation (BPE)

New control panel - Experimental

Our original control panel has served us well, but we wanted to extend its functionality and ease of use. This has required a complete redesign. In this first version (experimental) we have focused on

• Making the control panel always be in sync with the engine so that all widgets maintain their state

• Added the ability for widgets to be controlled by the engine or by other widgets

• Added the Tab widget allowing for multiple radio options

• Added the Listener widget allowing to listen to engine or widget changes

• Added the Timer widget to execute actions at a given interval

• Added the ability to set separate Source and Target properties

• Added the ability to copy, paste and group select widgets

• Added the ability for undo/redo

This is the first of many iterations and we have grand plans for its future. We welcome your input and thoughts. If you are interested in giving feedback, sharing your use cases or contributing in general, we would love to invite you to our Control Panel slack channel! Just send an email to design@pixotope.com

Learn more about Creating a control panel - New version (experimental)

Improved video keyer

We have made major improvements to the keyer operation and its algorithms.

• You can now pick a foreground as well as undo and redo your picks

• The “Adjust Key Color intensity” can be conveniently controlled by just 1 slider

• With our enhanced clean plate generation there is often no need for background adjustment as it automatically creates a good key

• We have improved the workflow by moving respill into the video keyer panel, and enhanced the respill algorithm for automatic background

• We have improved the contact shadows

• We have improved support for handling blue screen stages

• With our enhanced alpha soft edge profile we achieve better composites

• For extra control we have refined the despill control into luma and chroma

Usability improvements

• To better identify machines in a multi-machine setup, we have added the ability to set a display name and a display color

• Want to link more projects to a single show file? Add multiple project links in the Show settings

• In case one of the client machines has a different path to the project folder, this path can now be locally overridden

• Want to autostart Pixotope? Just enable it in the Machine settings

New color space options

We have added a physical based camera model to provide a more realistic approximation to blend video footage into linear space. Our new Color space options (PX Analog Simulation Default/Soft/Strong) give a stunning richness to your composited images.

High quality supersampling and upsampling

Utilizing NVIDIA's DLSS technology we are providing an alternative to screen percentage supersampling and upsampling at a fraction of the performance overhead on modern GPUs.

Test drive new Pixotope versions

Just a reminder. Starting with version 2.0 you are now able to install different versions of Pixotope in parallel. This way, you can try out new features without affecting your main Pixotope installation.

Complete changelog

For a complete changelog, please log in to the user section of the → Pixotope Cloud and go to Downloads.

Pixotope 2.0 is here! We are super excited to present you our latest version of Pixotope which has been meticulously engineered and thoroughly revised to provide a robust and easily extensible platform for future development. Couple this with our passionate drive for delivering real-time photo-realism and impeccable image quality and Pixotope 2.0 ticks all the boxes.

To give you a taster, here are just some of our new features:

• Unreal Engine 4.27

• Multi-machine productions in complete unison

• Usability improvements

• More input and output options

• Multiple keyers

• New and improved video keyer

• Many new compositing advances

• Full control and integration via the Pixotope API

• Support for OpenColorIO 2.0

• Multiple Pixotope versions in parallel

Unreal Engine 4.27

Pixotope 2.0 gives you access to the full power of the Unreal Engine 4.27. Epic Games continues to push the envelope for unrivalled 3D graphics capabilities and rendering quality, and UE 4.27 provides an amazing array of new functionality and enhancements.

Some of the highlights include:

• Virtual Production  improvements

• Multiple asset workflow improvements, including:

  • Improved Unreal pipeline support via Universal Scene Description (USD) 

  • Vastly expanded and improved Datasmith import and export functionality

  • Support for runtime import of Datasmith  assets

  • Improvements to LiDAR Point Cloud workflows

• Level snapshots in Editor

• Rendering improvements

  • Improved Hair and Fur Rendering Visuals and Performance

  • Expanded GPU Lightmass Feature Support (Beta)

  • Offline Path Tracer rendering

  • Expanded Coverage and Improved Workflow for Ray Tracing

  • Multiple improvements to Niagara Visual Effects

• Web Remote control panel integrated with Pixotope

• Live data integration

  • Improved DMX Performance and Integration

  • Live Link Facial motion capture workflow

  • Georeferencing workflow for connecting real world locations to virtual

See Unreal Engine release notes for a full list of features:
→ https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/WhatsNew/Builds/ReleaseNotes/4_27/

Multi-machine productions in complete unison

Our Data hub communication has been completely rewritten and is now based on a Publisher/Subscriber model utilizing TCP/IP. All changes made in the Director are now kept completely and instantly in sync. Finally you can use Director from any machine you like.

Usability improvements

Choose which role you want to play

To clearly define the responsibility of each machine in your production network, we are introducing roles. Your decision.

Learn more about Roles - Stand-alone, Client or Server

Introducing Shows

In Pixotope 2.0 we introduce the concept of a "Show" file where all SETUP view related parameters of a project are stored. From this accessible file you can easily create versions or backups of your show setup.

Learn more about Show files - where your SETUP is stored

Where to begin? At the START

In 2.0 we are introducing the START view where you

• Create, open and manage your shows

• Change machine specific settings

This way the SETUP and PRODUCTION views become dedicated to your open show.

Learn more about Views - START, SETUP and PRODUCTION

Pixotope adapts to the way you work

Do you want to set up your multi-machine production from a single machine? Or rather set up your camera systems in parallel, but want to have central control when adjusting the levels? To accommodate the diverse ways multi-machine productions are set up, we introduce permissions for SETUP and PRODUCTION.

Learn more about Permissions - affecting SETUP or PRODUCTION

Status is important

The status panel got an upgrade to give you a better overview of all connected machines and their main services. It now lets you

• see all connected machines (Server machine on top)

• manually restart the tracking and video I/O services

• close and reload running levels

Services are automatically started, but then you can take control.

Learn more about the Status panel and the Director Interface

Take shortcuts

To make navigating the different panels easier, we have added shortcuts for

• switching between the different views (Ctrl + 1/2/3 or Ctrl + Tab)

• going back and forth in your navigation history (Alt + Left/Right arrow)

Learn more about Director - keyboard shortcuts

Engine and Compositing Features

We have been busy working magic to improve the Engine support and compositing features to easily and seamlessly integrate live and virtual elements

• New Media Video component working in WYSIWYG and supporting ray tracing

• Ability to select and output custom buffers, not just key and fill

• Shadows can now be projected onto the VS comp plane

• New Light Catcher working with global illumination

• New Light / Reflection / Shadow Catcher using a common mesh

• Per plane feathering control

• Complex feathering achieved with material tuning

• Improved XR auto-frustum mode

• DLSS integration into XR

Learn more about XR Walls, AR Shadow, Reflection & Light Catchers and Compositing Planes

More input and output options

Getting video in and out is critical. We have listened to your requests and have, additionally to AJA video cards, added support for

• BlackMagic Design DeckLink cards

• NDI network streams (video over IP with NDI® 5) - What is NDI?

• input from File

We also added an option to display video scopes of your inputs and outputs.

Learn more about how to Configure video I/O

Audio

As video is not everything, we also added support for outputting audio on AJA video cards.

Learn more about how to Configure video I/O

Multiple keyers

We have extended keying support across all inputs. You can now add a keyer to any input, whether it is - camera, media input, network (NDI) or file.

Improved video keyer

Having an excellent video keyer is essential for VS productions. Building on the knowledge of our easy-to-use keyer we have improved our algorithms further and added a second keyer model.

Learn more about how to Use the video keyer

Services under the hood

It’s all about Service. Behind every great leading service:

• Engine

• Tracking

• Video IO

there are many supporting services to help Pixotope shine:

• Data hub - handles the communication between all Pixotope services

• Store - stores show related data

• Daemon - is responsible for starting all services and storing machine related information

• Bridge - is a utility service to connect two Pixotope Networks

Full control via the Pixotope API

With our new Pixotope API you get access to use ZeroMQ messages or HTTP requests to view and edit every aspect of your Pixotope production and to allow seamless integration.

Learn more about how to use the Pixotope API

With this release we are providing open source tools and examples to help and assist with development and integration.

Check out the Source code repository or the Compiled binaries

Support for OpenColorIO 2.0

We are now supporting the new version of OpenColorIO.

Test drive new Pixotope versions

Not only has the installer become faster, but with 2.0 you are now able to install different versions of Pixotope in parallel. This way, you can try out new features without affecting your main Pixotope installation.

Changes to the documentation

The documentation has gotten a complete overhaul → help.pixotope.com

Upgrading to Pixotope 2.0

Check out Upgrading to 2.0

For a complete changelog, please 

1. Log in to the user section of the → Pixotope Cloud 

2. Go to Downloads

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