finalShaders for finalRender Stage-1 Released; $185 Add-on Is Included FREE for a Limited Time!

Business Wire, March 16, 2004

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

EPPELHEIM, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 2004

cebas Computer GmbH today announced the release of finalShaders(TM) for finalRender Stage-1. finalShaders is the first of many upcoming finalRender Stage-1 material and shader plug-in collections.

finalRender Stage-1, introduced last year, has become an important tool for 3ds max artists around the world. Thanks to the enhanced and open program architecture it is possible to extend the features and functionality of finalRender Stage-1 without any limit! The first step to extend finalRender's capabilities has been done with finalShaders.

finalShaders offers 14 advanced materials offering an unlimited range of material and shader effects. Each of the finalShaders materials is designed to give immediate results without complex adjustments. Such complex materials as metallic car lacquer, soft translucent wax or even realistic human skin with proper 3D sub surface light scattering are just a simple mouse click away with finalShaders. Artists are now able to create the true characteristics of human skin as well as the subtle volumetric light scattering of a wax like surface. Or how about a surface scattered with water drops or any other liquid? Other renderers choke here, but finalRender Stage-1 and finalShaders handles this task with speed and the unparalleled quality.

"finalShaders was a crucial tool in the latest production work of a TV commercial we created. In the past we had to render our metallic effects with a complex compositing material in stage-0, along with the reflections and refractions. It took us too long to render in Stage-0 so we had to fall back to standard tricks with the scanliner. But NOW! We can render the complete commercial with finalRender Stage-1 and finalShaders in one go! The speed is just amazing, it's out of this world!" says Michael Plaengsken, Manager of Ground Studios in Duesseldorf, Germany.

The materials found in finalShaders include:

-- fR X-Ray is a material that can be used to create classic

X-Ray imagery or it can be abused to create super cool looking

frosted glass.

-- fR 3D-Gradient is a true 3D gradient material with full

control of the color change in 3D space. This texture is so

powerful that it alone offers millions of material variations.

-- fR-Wire is a powerful extension for the finalRender Stage-1

material set! It lets you raytrace every material as a wire

material including all material effects like

Reflection/Refraction and shading.

-- fR-WetMaterial is a revolutionary and unique material

throughout the whole rendering community! This material allows

you to add a thin film of liquid on top of any surface with

proper IOR and reflections. No other rendering system for 3ds

max offers an easier method to add water or liquid spills on

an objects surface.

-- fR-Wax is a material that uses the next generation Sub Surface

Light Scattering algorithms that will find more and more in

finalRender. fR-Wax can be used to create ultra fast wax like

materials or even easy and fast human skin effects.

-- fR-Volumetric is another unique material type for finalRender

Stage-1. It is a true volumetric material with correct and

proper volume sampling. This material allows the user to

create smoke, embedded liquids, enclosures in glass and so on.

-- fR-Velvet is used to create realistic satin, velvet materials.

The material simulates micro fur with thousands of micro hairs

on the surface. It creates automatically the realistic smooth

shimmering effect you would expect form such a material.

-- fR-ThinFilm is another advanced physical simulation material

type. It is best used to simulate a thin film layer on top of

an object's surface like you see it with oil in water. A few

settings and controls handle all the physical aspects that

create the realistic spectral rainbow coloring. These are

customizable to the viewer's position and angle to the light.

-- fR-Skin is one of the most complex materials in the

finalShaders material extension for finalRender Stage-1. This

material uses a true volumetric multiple layer skin approach.

The epidermis and deeper dermis can be individually controlled

for all the relevant parameters like skin color and light

absorption along with the "dryness" or "wetness" of the skin

itself. To generate sub surface light scattering inside of the

deeper skin layers, the robust Sub Surface Scattering method

already known from finalRender Stage-1 is used.

-- fR-Elevation is a material with unlimited layers of materials

were each layer can be independently controlled. For each

layer a height and blending value along with other parameters

may be defined.

-- fR-Electron can be used to create characteristic looking

electron microscope images. Metals, plastic and translucent

marbles can also be created with ease.

-- fR-Distant Fur simulates micro fur or dense hair as seen form

a distance. This material simulates the look of a hairy

surface by rendering millions of micro structures along with

their interaction with the environment. Direction, density and