Nvidia Ships Gelato 1.1 Renderer

Building on its line of rendering software, Nvidia has announced the availability of Gelato 1.1, the latest version of its hardware-accelerated final-frame renderer for Alias and Maya. Now available for sale both directly from Nvidia and through retail outlets, Gelato 1.1 features a new version of its Mango plug-in, as well as an all-new Preview Mode that allows for high speed rendering of an image, with the ability to preview the final render. Beth Loughney, general manager of the Digital Film Group at Nvidia, commented: "We’re moving towards a truly interactive rendering pipeline which doesn’t require compromises in the quality of the images, tools, or experience of creating content." Mango and Preview Mode aside, Gelato 1.1 also includes OpenEXR plug-ins for the reading and writing of data in the OpenEXR image file input/output format, developed by Industrial Light & Magic. It also includes various performance enhancements, allowing Gelato to run more efficiently than prior versions, as well as improved speed and image quality in curves.