Today, we release KeyShot 10.2. We’ve introduced some great new features with KeyShot 10 and the updates with KeyShot 10.2 round out the focus with KeyShot 10 in the areas of materials, geometry, and workflow. Across each of these, improvements in performance and usage have remained a priority.
Leading the new features is major improvements for caustics, a revamped Materials Library, a new touch-friendly Configurator style, and a new Mesh Simplification Tool, along with new import options and many other improvements across materials, user interface, and workflow capabilities.
KeyShot 10.2 introduces features for Mesh Simplification and Metallic Flakes for Axalta Paint materials.
KeyShot 10.2 Feature Highlights
The following highlights the top features in KeyShot 10.2. More details and examples of the new capabilities across KeyShot 10 are available at keyshot.com/whats-new/. The entire list of features and improvements in KeyShot 10, along with information on how each feature works, is available in the KeyShot 10 What’s New Guide. Key new features include:
Caustics
A new caustic algorithm was developed for KeyShot 10 with additional refinement and speed improvements made in KeyShot 10.2. The new algorithm can handle thousands of lights, runs blazingly fast on the new NVIDIA RTX Ampere GPUs, and allows details and fine structures in the caustics to be seen in a fraction of the time, both up close and at a distance. Additionally, caustics have been improved for smooth environment lighting and more consistent brightness. Read more about Rendering Caustics in KeyShot on the GPU.
KeyShot 10 Caustics provide an unseen level of detail and accuracy. Image: David Merz
Axalta Paints
The KeyShot exclusive set of Axalta paint materials now offer the possibility of adding metal flakes to the paint with new options for Flake Size and Flake Density. Additionally, the metal flakes are randomly distributed and will match the specular reflection and color of the underlying Axalta paint material.
Materials Library
The KeyShot Materials Library has been completely re-done with new material-specific thumbnails to visualize material appearance and properties more accurately. With this, users now have the option to select the thumbnail style from among seven different models for preset, downloaded, or newly created materials. Along with this, the library will now load resources dynamically, no longer locking the library while loading. Note: it is recommended to use the full installer to load this new functionality.
Touch-Friendly Configurator
Touch-Friendly is a new Layout Style available in the Configurator Wizard that provides a minimal, touch-friendly interface for Presentation mode. The new style provides customization options specific to the interface elements including options for size, color, styling, and icons. Previous configurators may be updated to use the new style by choosing the Touch-Friendly in the Layout Style options.
Mesh Simplification Tool
Mesh Simplification is a new Geometry Tool that allows a user to reduce the number of triangles in a mesh while keeping the overall shape. This is useful to simplify geometry for later use in KeyVR or other AR applications where performance relies on the number of triangles in the model. This tool is similar to the Re-Tessellate tool that requires NURBS to calculate the new mesh. For models that do not have any NURBS, the new Mesh Simplification tool prevents the need to reduce the quality in the modeling software only to re-import it into KeyShot. Learn more about Mesh Simplification.
Additional Features
Other updates users will find in KeyShot 10.2 include:
Link Duplicate Materials: allows users to easily locate and link scene materials that are the same.
Metallic Paint: improved visual appearance of metallic paints with clear coat roughness
Split Object Surfaces: Split Object Surfaces Tool has a new brush select option
Export/Import: improved materials for USD/glTF export plus new glTF Import and Draco compression for Export; improved FBX import; updated support for Creo View, CATIA V5, Jt (up to 10.6), Parasolid (up to 33.1); support for Maya 2022, SketchUp 2021
Headless version: improved to provide more functions and separate executable
A thorough overview of all new features, updates, and bug fixes is available in the release notes.
Availability
KeyShot 10.2 is available immediately for download and purchase at keyshot.com and through all certified KeyShot resellers. KeyShot 8 or 9 users with active annual maintenance may upgrade to KeyShot 10 at no charge. Other customers may upgrade to KeyShot 10 for an incremental fee. For more details on pricing or current license, customers may contact sales@keyshot.com. For information and examples about the new features across KeyShot 10, please visit keyshot.com/whats-new/ and follow Luxion on Facebook or Twitter.
