Maxon Red Giant Update Delivers Fast, Beautiful Bokeh and Realistic Lens Flares This January release also includes enhanced support for Unreal Engine in Magic Bullet Looks, Maxon Cloud Capsule support in Trapcode and much more.

Bad Homburg, Germany – January 17, 2024 - Maxon, developers of professional software solutions for editors, filmmakers, motion designers, visual effects artists, and creators of all types, today announced wide-ranging updates to Red Giant 2024.

Highlights include two new, fast-rendering Universe bokeh tools for creating beautiful blurs, depth of field, and transitions; Light Ball core projection for Real Lens Flares and much-requested obscuration; reimagined color management integration for Magic Bullet Looks; Maxon Cloud Capsule support in Trapcode; and a new Tracker-Only mode for Spot Clone Tracker.

This release equips editors, filmmakers, compositors, and content creators of all types with new, next-level image enhancement features and tools that will further augment their options in a wide range of creative applications.

Universe offers editors and compositors an essential toolkit of effects and transitions and now it’s even easier to add dream bokeh to any shot.

• New Bokeh plugin allows artists to quickly create beautiful bokeh and mimic camera focus without the need for a complex camera lens setup. A variety of shapes, and other customizations, make it possible to simulate depth of field while maintaining control over the area of focus, focus length, and adding custom blur maps and depth maps.

• Bokeh Transition, a variant of the Bokeh plugin, helps artists seamlessly transition between two clips using a dazzling de-focus effect.

• Enhancements to Universe’s underlying framework offer non-linear editors and compositors real-time experience with Maxon products. Both new plugins plus uni.Blur are built on the new performance framework, which will be expanded to other Universe products in future releases.

Magic Bullet updates include a more user-friendly color management experience and updates to Unreal Engine integration.

• New, simplified Magic Bullet Looks color management makes it possible for artists to achieve their goals much more quickly.

• Enhanced support for Unreal Engine (UE) integration allows users to make the most of Looks with the latest version of UE.

VFX Real Lens Flares now features obscuration and a Light Ball core projection option.

• Obscuration is as groundbreaking as Real Lens Flares itself. Watch as the flare and reflections change shape and beautifully morph as the light goes behind complex shapes — just like in a real lens!

• Art direct the sun and bring streetlights to life with the new Light Ball core projection option, which gives flares a physical presence in a scene.

VFX Spot Clone Tracker helps artists turbocharge their tracking game with a new Tracker Only feature.

• Particularly helpful to After Effects users, the Tracker Only feature allows artists to hide all non-tracking-related parameters, exposing only the necessary controls. Handle multiple tracks on one clip while also kicking out nulls with the new Create Null and Clear Track buttons.

• Shape Roundness is a new single slider that determines the roundness of tracking, cloning shapes. Get more versatility from Spot Clone Tracker, and quickly clone shapes that fit into hard-to-reach places.

Trapcode updates include optimized multi-frame rendering across multiple threads, new cloud service support, and new sprites.

• Particular is now optimized for multithreaded, multi-frame rendering.

• A new asset browser refresh enables Maxon to provide assets through the cloud to all Trapcode asset browsers except Form. Artists can now find the perfect sprite, model, curve, or gradient in the ever-expanding Maxon Cloud Capsule Service.

• Highlighting Trapcode’s new cloud service support, Maxon has added two new sprite categories for emojis and pixel art.