Leading visual effects software developer The Foundry has announced the release of OCULA 3.0 – a significant upgrade to their stereo plug-in toolset for the NUKE compositing system – further reinforcing their position as industry leader in stereo 3D post production. In the three years since its original launch The Foundry has released a new version annually as well as several point releases, each with artist driven improvements and game-changing features.

Refined in production on ground breaking live action stereo projects including Avatar, TRON: Legacy, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, OCULA provides artists with a set of NUKE tools that assist with the integration of elements and help correct common stereo-3D defects.

OCULA 3.0 is our most significant upgrade to date. Stereo-3D has seen substantial growth in the three years since OCULA was launched and sustained collaboration with customers on ambitious stereo projects has provided the opportunity to considerably improve OCULA’s efficiency and workflow. OCULA 3.0 brings new tools to help fix mis-focused camera pairs and retime in stereo as well as a range of workflow tweaks and improvements to speed up day-to-day OCULA use dramatically. It is cleaner and more accurate giving better results from all OCULA operations.

Jose Fernandez de Castro Heller, Senior Compositor, MPC Vancouver said “Right off the bat the results we’re getting from OCULA 3.0 are truly amazing. This is a major step up from OCULA 2.2.”

Mark Van Den Bergen, Senior Compositor – Stereo, Dr D Studios said “I love the new disparity map algorithm in OCULA 3.0.  We did tests using the depth map generated by OCULA to create digi-doubles of real live action in a CG snow storm to allow the FX team to blow snow particles around the people to get the correct holdout mattes in z-depth.  We created geo from footage without building animated digital doubles.”

Bill Collis, Chief Executive Officer, comments, “The Foundry aims to innovate in the area of high end visual effects and invests heavily in research and the support of emerging industry trends. OCULA was developed in conjunction with customers facing the reality of delivering ambitious live action stereo projects. There is no other tool like it on the market . It also reinforces NUKE, with its native stereo workflow, as the only real choice when compositing stereo-3D.”

OCULA 3.0 is available immediately and works on the same platforms as NUKE/NUKEX. For details on pricing please contact our sales team or one of our trusted resellers.

www.thefoundry.co.uk