Blackmagic Design Releases 3D VFX Software Fusion 7

Tim here, and today Blackmagic Design announced that they are releasing the popular visual effects and motion graphics software Fusion 7 for free, with a Studio version for as low as $995. Wow! Like Blackmagic did with DaVinci Resolve and color grading they have now done with Eyeon's Fusion. Back in September Blackmagic announced that it had bought Eyeon in order to acquire this software. Read the full press release below:

Blackmagic Design Revolutionizes the Visual Effects Industry with Fusion 7

Fremont, CA - November 10, 2014 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Fusion 7, the world's most advanced visual effects and motion graphics software, is now available completely free of charge.
Fusion 7 for Windows can be downloaded from the Blackmagic Design website now.
Previously getting access to high end visual effects tools such as Fusion cost thousands of dollars, so it was more restricted to elite Hollywood visual effects artists. Now with Fusion 7 being available free of charge there is no limit to block anyone from creating world leading visual effects. Blackmagic Design believes this will revolutionize the industry and consumers will be able to watch dramatically better feature films and television shows in the future.
Also announced was Fusion 7 Studio, a complete bundle of VFX and motion graphics solutions with collaborative tools and unlimited network rendering for creative teams and larger facilities. Fusion 7 Studio drastically reduces the cost of setting up multi user studios. Fusion 7 Studio will be available for $995 from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide.
Fusion has been one of Hollywood's leading visual effects and motion graphic tools for over 25 years and has been used on thousands of feature film and television projects, including blockbusters like Maleficent, Edge of Tomorrow, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, The Amazing Spider-man 2 and The Hunger Games, as well as hit television shows like Battlestar Galactica, Orphan Black and many more.
The free of charge Fusion 7 is a fully featured solution and is not limited in it's features. It has a massive visual effects and motion graphics toolset that can be used for both personal and commercial work. Fusion 7 features an infinite 3D workspace and an easy to use node based workflow for quickly building unlimited effects. Customers get advanced 3D compositing, paint, rotoscope, retiming, stabilization, titling, an amazing 3D particle generator and multiple keyers, including Primatte. Fusion 7 also lets customers import and render 3D geometry and scenes from other applications as well as create their own elements from scratch.
The $995 Fusion 7 Studio includes everything found in the free Fusion 7 software, plus adds extra high end features such as optical flow tools for advanced retiming, stabilization and stereoscopic 3D production, support for third party OpenFX plug ins, and distributed network rendering so customers can render jobs on an unlimited number of computers at no additional cost! Fusion 7 Studio also includes Generation, a studio wide multi user workflow and collaboration tool that helps creative teams manage, track and review versions of every shot in a production. Customers can also move projects from the free Fusion 7 software to a workstation running Fusion 7 Studio and take advantage of workflow collaboration and unlimited distributed network rendering.
Unlike other software, Fusion 7 Studio doesn't require annual maintenance fees, subscriptions, a connection to the cloud, or per node render license costs. That means customers don't get tricked into hidden or on going costly payments for software they've already purchased.
"Visual effects software has been expensive for way too long and it's time that this changed. Consumers are screaming for more exciting movies and television programs and so we need to do everything we can to help our customers create stunning visual effects," said Grant Petty, Blackmagic Design CEO. "Now, with the free version of Fusion, everyone from individual artists to the biggest studios can create Hollywood caliber visual effects and motion graphics! When combined with DaVinci Resolve Lite, customers can get the world's most advanced tools for editing, grading, 3D compositing, visual effects and motion graphics, all absolutely free!"

Availability and Price

Fusion 7 software for Windows is available for download now from the Blackmagic Design web site free of charge. Fusion 7 Studio will be available for $995 at all Blackmagic Design Resellers. Existing Fusion 7 customers and customers on a current Fusion support plan can upgrade to Fusion Studio at no additional charge by contacting Blackmagic Design.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world's highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design's DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company's Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

This is incredibly significant because what it means is that the software is available to a whole demographic of independent filmmakers who wouldn't have had access to it before. It also makes doing a stereoscopic 3D production more affordable to a certain extent. The full Studio version of the software comes with numerous stereoscopic 3D controls that aren't available in the free version. According to the official page's information: "Fusion Studio includes the world's most advanced camera matching, stereo alignment, convergence and spatialization tools for creating realistic, eye popping stereo 3D!"

Comprehensive Stereoscopic Tools

When you're shooting stereoscopic 3D it can be incredibly difficult to get perfectly aligned 3D images from the left and right eye cameras and lenses. Fusion uses an optical flow toolset that goes far beyond simple transforms and keystone adjustments to correct the intricate alignment and disparity issues that can occur during production. When creating stereoscopic composites, Fusion simplifies complicated stereoscopic workflows by using a single camera instead of complex stereo camera rigs. Fusion can even create 3D from 2D source material, and is used by more studios than any other solution to convert 2D movies into 3D!

STEREOSCOPIC WORKFLOW

Stereoscopic Production

Fusion Studio is a complete solution for stereo conversion! You can rotoscope different elements for displacement, add a 3D camera to your scene and then adjust for eye separation and convergence distance for amazing 2D to 3D conversions!

Stereo 3D Disparity tools

Fusion Studio includes specific tools to solve intricate issues that result from live action stereo production. Repair polarization, color, defocus and even timing differences between two cameras!

Optical Flow

Automatically repair problems with footage using advanced Optical Flow image analysis in Fusion Studio! Remove scratches and dust, smooth color variations and grain, even use optical flow to create super smooth retiming effects!

This is pretty sweet! And this software has been used on numerous Hollywood Blockbusters, including a few 3D flicks you might recognize. Fusion has been used for nearly 25 years to create the visual effects and motion graphics for some of Hollywood's biggest blockbuster films and television shows. This is the first time it is available so widely at two great prices: FREE & $1K.

Now it is only available for Windows Systems at this time. However, Grant Petty revealed on the Blackmagic Forums that they are working on a Mac OS version. Yet, at this time it is impossible for them to predict when that release will be. This is due to the infrastructure of the buttons having been built for Windows with the coding. They haven't left out the Mac users, and plan on opening it up to them as well as to allow all independent filmmakers the option to start experimenting with the free version and then move on to the full Studio version.

So there you have it. If you're running Windows you can head over to the Blackmagic Design Support Page and download it: here

Blackmagic URSA 3D-Capable at $6,500 Per Camera!

"The new URSA Cameras do support genlock and should work with 3D, but will also need to be frame synced."

- Rick Rivera

Tim here, and I've gotten confirmation from Blackmagic Design (via Rick Rivera, a Support Representative) that their new URSA camera will be 3D-Capable. More accurately two URSA cameras can be synced together for Stereoscopic 3D production. This makes this the most affordable 4K Cinema Camera to be able to be used for Stereoscopic 3D! Or does it?

At $6,500 roughly for the PL-Mount version of the camera ($6,000 roughly for EF-Mount), this definitely comes in as the most affordable 4K Cinema Camera. However, the media that it records on to is super expensive. It records on to CFast Cards, and to give you an idea about how much it costs: 120 GB = $1,200! How much 4K RAW gets recorded on to one 120 GB CFast Card at the normal 24 frames per second? Sadly, 6-Minutes! (Source)

Now there are 2 card slots in the camera, so that means you could technically record 12-Minutes before needing to reload both cards; but, that's a total of 240 GB at $2,400 for 12-minutes of RAW footage. OUCH! During a regular shoot you'll want a couple of cards available to continuously shoot. So if you dump two cards while two cards are in the camera that gives you 4 cards, but you'd likely want 6 cards to be safe. Thus, you're looking at $7,200 for recording media!

The price will drop as most recording media has in the past for the industry. And Blackmagic Design isn't the only company using CFast Cards. ARRI is betting on the CFast technology as well as its the primary recording media for their new AMIRA camera. The AMIRA is the lower cost ($45,000) documentary version of their ALEXA. The ARRI ALEXA can record on to three media: SXS Cards, XR Modules (XR Capture Drives), and CFast Cards (through adapter). This should help bring the price down of the CFast media, and as well increase the sizes of cards.

Coming back to the cost of the Blackmagic URSA for 3D Production we need to look at the cost of the camera body and media for each eye. Say one already has lenses and the other necessary camera accessories and just needs to know the cost of the cameras and media. Two PL-Mount URSA Cameras will cost $13,000 to the average consumer. Say one buys 6 CFast Cards per camera, then that's 12 CFast Cards total and will cost $14,400. That means that the URSA in a 3D-Capable capacity costs $27,400! Wow, that's affordable compared to the RED Scarlet or Epic. Each Scarlet will cost $14,500 for the body alone; thus, two Scarlets are $29,000 before RED SSD's for recording media. The Epic is more money than the Scarlet, obviously. The ALEXA is expensive at $75,000 per camera. In the end, The Blackmagic URSA is still the most affordable 4K Camera for Stereoscopic 3D Production!

Let's look at some of the Technical Specs for the Blackmagic URSA compared with the ARRI ALEXA since they are so similar in physical design.

	Blackmagic URSA	ARRI ALEXA
Picture of Camera
Effective Sensor Size	21.12mm x 11.88mm (Super 35)	23.76mm x 13.37mm (Super 35)*
Effective Resolution	3840 x 2160	2880 x 1620*
Exposure Latitude	12 stops	14+ stops
Frame Rates	3840 x 2160p (23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 60) 1920 x 1080p (23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 60) Sensor frame rate support: Up to 60 fps	ProRes HD 0.75 - 120 fps ProRes 2K 0.75 - 60 fps DNxHD HD 0.75 - 120 fps ARRIRAW 0.75 - 120 fps
Exposure Index	ISO Presets: 200, 400, 800, & 1600	ISO Presets: 160, 200, 400, 800, 1600, & 3200
White Balance	Presets for 3200 (tungsten), 4500 (fluorescent), 5000, 5600, 6500, and 7500 (variety of daylight conditions).	Presets for 3200 (tungsten), 4300 (fluorescent), 5600 (daylight) and 7000 (daylight cool). Automatic calculation or manual white balance for 2000 to 11000 Kelvin, adjustable in 100 K steps
Lens Mount	EF, PL, B4, HDMI (Camera body without sensor, features an HDMI 4K input with mounting plate to connect any HDMI camera for URSA quality recording, monitoring, audio and timecode.)	ARRI Exchangeable Lens Mount (ELM); ships with Lens Adapter PL Mount with LDS contacts, 54 mm stainless steel PL mount, Super 35 centered. 52.00 mm nominal flange focal depth without FSND filters.
Weight	7.5 kg/16.5 lbs	ALEXA XT body with XR Module: 7.3 kg/16.1 lbs.
Dimensions	Length: 312 mm/12.3", width: 155 mm/6.1", height: 244 mm/9.6"	Length: 332 mm/12.95", width: 183 mm/7.20", height: 158 mm/6.22"
Connectors	Output:   1 x 12G-SDI -- 10-bit 4:2:2 1 x 3G-SDI -- down-converted signal for monitoring Input   1 x 12G-SDI Reference   1 x Reference input Timecode   1 x Timecode input 1 x Timecode output Analog Audio Inputs   2 x XLR -- selected mic/line level and +48 V phantom power Analog Audio Output   1 x 1/4" TRS -- for headphone monitoring SDI Audio Output   2-channel via SDI output Remote Control   1 x LANC on 2.5 mm sub-mini -- controls record START/STOP, iris, and focus USB   1 x USB 2.0 mini type B for software updates Supported Standards   SDI Compliance: SMPTE 292M SDI Audio Sampling: 48 kHz and 24-bit	1x media slot for XR Capture Dive or SxS adapter 2x BNC recording out HD-SDI, 1.5G/3G (REC OUT 1 and REC OUT 2) 2x BNC monitoring out HD-SDI, 1.5G (MON OUT 1 and MON OUT 2) 1x XLR 5-pin analog audio in (AUDIO IN) 1x BNC return video in HD-SDI, 1.5G (RET/SYNC IN) 1x LEMO 16-pin external accessory interface (EXT) 1x Fischer 2-pin 24 V power in (BAT) 3x Fischer 3-pin 24 V remote start and accessory power out (RS) 1x LEMO 2-pin 12 V accessory power out (12 V) 1x LEMO 5-pin timecode in/out (TC) 1x TRS 3.5 mm headphone mini stereo jack (AUDIO OUT) 1x custom LEMO 16-pin electronic viewfinder (EVF) 1x custom LEMO 10-pin Ethernet with 24 V power (ETHERNET) 1x Fischer 5-pin Lens Data Display (LDD) 2x Fischer 5-pin Lens Control System (LCS) 1x Fischer 12-pin for CLM-2, CLM-3, CLM-4 or later (IRIS) 1x Fischer 12-pin for CLM-2, CLM-3, CLM-4 or later (FOCUS) 1x Fischer 12-pin for CLM-2, CLM-3, CLM-4 or later (ZOOM) BNC connectors designed for fast exchange without camera disassembly. These connectors require a special tool.

*ARRI ALEXA has 3 Sensor modes 16:9 (23.76mm x 13.37mm at 2880x1620 pixels), 4:3 (23.76mm x 17.82mm at 2880x2160 pixels), and Open Gate (28.17mm x 18.13mm at 3414x2198 pixels)

As you can see from the above comparison the Blackmagic URSA is a pretty decent camera when compared to the ARRI ALEXA. Naturally the ALEXA is higher end and a camera that would be more prefered by the professionals. However, for a lower-end professional camera the URSA is capable of delivering good quality for those looking to make a project to get them noticed. And Blackmagic will only improve the camera.

Some additional details about the Blackmagic URSA can be found in the link below, but one of the best things about the URSA is that its sensor and lens mount assembly can be changed. This means you can upgrade to the latest sensor technology in the future and keep your investment in the camera body! Now that's a sweet deal. And, the sweetest part of the whole deal is that Blackmagic Design packages the cameras with the full version of its DaVinci Resolve Software!!! They also did this with their previous cinema cameras. What this means is you get the full professional color grading software many feature films use. What's more is that DaVinci Resolve comes with a plethora of Stereoscopic 3D finishing tools. More information about DaVinci Resolve can be found here.

That's the Blackmagic Design URSA Camera for you. You can read more about it on the official Blackmagic Design Website here. The Blackmagic URSA Camera is scheduled to be released late July 2014.