A Look Inside Genarts' Powerful New Sapphire V6 Quantel Plug-in
Posted by Gary Oberbrunner on Thu, Jan 12, 2012 @ 11:25 AM
GenArts has been working hard on Sapphire v6, and it's very exciting for us to have it available on Quantel, thanks to VDS! V6 is a huge new release for us, featuring the custom lens flare designer, and a whole new preset system so users can get both inspiration and quick results faster. One of the most interesting features of v6 is integration with GenArts' new FX Central site; FX Central allows you to browse and download looks directly to the Quantel right from FX Central. New looks are made available monthly, and we're constantly making more improvements.
Aside from the new features in v6, Sapphire has always been all about performance. It automatically detects any NVIDIA GPU in your system and uses it for rendering. We've worked hard to make that completely transparent, so the effects render with exactly the same quality and look whether it's using our traditional multithread CPU renderer or the new CUDA GPU renderer. Both render paths are fully floating point internally so there is never any loss in quality or luma clipping.
We've also worked with VDS to speed up some of the low-level interface code between Sapphire and the Quantel system; this makes all our effects take less time per frame. The best optimization is always to *not* run extra code, and that's what we always try to do.
Speed is not just about render wait times; in fact I think making effects interactively adjustable so the artist can get a feel for what's going on is even more important. So we've tried to optimize for both final-quality renders and quick-turnaround interactivity. We're constantly working on this but you should see some nice improvements in v6.
Performance is more than just speed, though; it's also about control. Because of the proprietary language we use to create our effects, we can afford to experiment a lot, and we obsess over the parameter set we give users; everything matters, from the intuitiveness and clarity of the names, to the layout, to the sensitivity. We want the effects to feel fluid and easy, but also reward users who dive deep into them and explore all the interesting options. We spend a lot of time thinking about these issues and discussing them with users, and I hope it comes through in the final product.
With each release, we strive for a balance between new effects -- both utility things like StretchFrameEdges and fun effects like Flashbulbs, new functionality like the flare editor and preset browser, and performance enhancements. We think v6 came out pretty well on all fronts, but you should judge for yourself.
Check out our free trial by clicking the big box below.
We always love to hear from users, so feel free to send us suggestions, comments or complaints; check out our Creative Cow forum.
