Saturday, August 15th, 2015 Posted by Jim Thacker

Luxion launches KeyShot plugins for Maya, Cinema 4D

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Luxion’s new free plugins let users import scenes into its KeyShot renderer from Cinema 4D and Maya (pictured), preserving object hierarchies and animations. Image: Gurmukh Bhasin, Cloud Imperium Games.

Luxion has announced new plugins for Maya and Cinema 4D live-linking the software to its KeyShot renderer.

The plugins enable users to access KeyShot directly within their host software, or to export KeyShot BIP files without the renderer installed.

The export process preserves object hierarchy, materials and layers; object and camera animations; and hair.

Extending KeyShot’s presence in the DCC market
Maya and Cinema 4D join a longish list of CAD and DCC tools directly supported by KeyShot.

The early audience for the renderer consisted largely of industrial designers looking for a way to generate high-quality renders without the need for a lot of technical expertise in shading and lighting.

More recently, it has become popular with character artists as a quick way to render ZBrush sculpts.

Maya and Cinema 4D users don’t necessarily fall into either camp, and both apps have a range of other powerful renderers available, so it’s interesting to see Luxion extending its reach in the DCC market in this way.

Pricing and availability
The Cinema 4D plugin is available now; the Maya plugin will follow later this year with KeyShot 6.

Both plugins will be free downloads. KeyShot itself costs $995 for the HD edition, or $1,995 for the resolution-unlimited Pro edition. You can see full pricing details on the product website.

Read more about the new Maya and Cinema 4D KeyShot plugins on the KeyShot website