Sony open sources digital effects software
The five programs are OSL, Field3d, Maya Reticule, Scala Migration and Pystring
While Imageworks has released other open-source software in the past, the release of five tools at once brings its involvement in open source to a new level, the company said on Monday, in an announcement marking the beginning of the Siggraph computer graphics trade show in New Orleans.
The five programs are OSL, a programmable shading language for rendering; Field3d, a voxel data storage library; Maya Reticule, a camera masking plug-in for the Maya digital animation application; Scala Migrations, a database migration tool; and Pystring, which allows Python-like string handling in C++. A voxel, or volumetric pixel, is the basic element making up three-dimensional models.
Currently, however, Imageworks is shifting to the wider use of freelancers in place of staff employees, and believes the broader use of its in-house tools could help make this shift easier, the company said. Open source could also help facilitate collaborations between different effects companies.
The company said it could release more open-source tools, depending on the success of the current effort.
Comments
Be the first to write a comment
You must me logged in to write a comment.