Autodesk Launches Lustre 2008 Digital Color Grading System for Film and Television Projects

Autodesk Launches Lustre 2008 Digital Color Grading System for Film and Television Projects

Enables Creative Color Grading throughout Post-Production Process; Supports American Society of Cinematographers' Color Decision List

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Sept. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) today announced the Autodesk Lustre 2008 digital color grading system. Lustre has shaped colors and lighting in hundreds of feature films, trailers and TV shows, including Balls of Fury, El Cantante, Children of Men, Babel, King Kong, Cane, Pushing Daisies and Swingtown. Lustre 2008 will be showcased at Autodesk stand #7-420 during the International Broadcasters Convention 2007, held in Amsterdam's RAI Convention Center, September 7-11.

"Around the world, Autodesk Lustre is used to enhance lighting, cinematography and storytelling in films and TV content," said Stig Gruman, vice president of Advanced Systems, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. "Lustre 2008 equips colorists with even more creative flexibility and includes a new multi-layer timeline. Colorists can experiment with look creation earlier in the post-production process. As well, Lustre 2008 offers a better workflow that leads to faster project completion and ultimately offers greater value for all types of productions."

Companies rely on the Lustre system's advanced creative capabilities, as well as its cost-effective performance that is made possible through Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-acceleration, pipeline flexibility and facility-wide application interoperability.

Andreas Rostock, managing director at Sonne Postproduction in Denmark, said, "At Sonne, we're ready to take on any kind of project, from feature films to music videos, but we specialize in commercials. We've developed a workflow that gives us the flexibility needed to take on any type of job and Autodesk Lustre fits well into our process. The new multi-layer timeline in Lustre 2008 will give us greater workflow flexibility in terms of how we conform, while the rich grading toolset will allow us to expand our creative capabilities to deliver a higher-quality product to our customers."

Chris Jacobson, colorist at LaserPacific Media Corporation, also sees great value in the Lustre workflow, particularly as it relates to the interoperability between Lustre and the Autodesk Smoke editing/finishing system. Jacobson commented: "We can easily share media between Lustre and Smoke with no time-consuming rendering in between, thanks to Autodesk's Wiretap technology. In essence, the editorial and digital intermediate color sessions can happen simultaneously, making our clients very happy. With a pipeline like this, you really can be in two places at once. It brings multi- tasking to a whole new level."

Highlights of Lustre 2008
New creative tools:

-- The new multi-layer timeline gives colorists gestural tools to quickly
create editorial, shot and grade versions of their project. Colorists
can experiment with multiple looks on a single shot, as well as easily
applying a look across multiple shots.

-- With the automatic region tracker, colorists can track elements of a
scene faster than ever before. Colorists can specify an image region
and Lustre figures out the rest, automatically analyzing inside the
region in order to apply scaling and rotation to secondary geometries.

Workflow and performance improvements:

-- Lustre 2008 supports The American Society of Cinematographers' Color
Decision List (ASC-CDL). The ASC-CDL was developed to ensure that
images appear the same when displayed in different places on different
platforms. This leads to look consistency across the various stages of
post-production, from on-set look creation to the final grade. Lustre
2008 allows colorists to import multiple CDLs, either as Slope-Offset
Power (SOP) values in an edit decision list (EDL), or as files
referenced in the EDL comments, to which CDL data can be applied on a
per-shot basis in the Lustre timeline.

-- The Lustre system's grading functions now include additional GPU-
acceleration of secondary grading capabilities, including geometry
blurring and inside/outside grading, as well as GPU-accelerated
playback for plug-in effects such as Blur Mix, Print Bleach and Glow.
These improvements speed up the look-creation process.

For a complete list of new features and enhancements in Autodesk Lustre 2008, visit www.autodesk.com/lustre.

Pricing and Availability

Autodesk anticipates that Lustre 2008 will be available in autumn 2007 for the Microsoft Windows operating system. For further information, please visit www.autodesk.com/lustre or contact Autodesk Media & Entertainment at 800-869-3504.

About Autodesk

Autodesk, Inc. is the world leader in 2D and 3D design software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk has developed the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art digital prototyping solutions to help customers experience their ideas before they are real. Fortune 1000 companies rely on Autodesk for the tools to visualize, simulate and analyze real-world performance early in the design process to save time and money, enhance quality and foster innovation. For additional information about Autodesk, visit www.autodesk.com.

Autodesk, AutoCAD, Lustre, Smoke and Wiretap are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Autodesk Canada Co. in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

(C) 2007 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050415/SFF034LOGO )

Contacts: Roohi Saeed, 514.954.7296, or Karen Raz, 310.450.1482
roohi.saeed@autodesk.comkaren@razpr.com

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Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050415/SFF034LOGO
AP Archive:

http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Autodesk, Inc.

CONTACT: Roohi Saeed of Autodesk, Inc., +1-514-954-7296,
roohi.saeed@autodesk.com; or Karen Raz for Autodesk, Inc., +1-310-450-1482,
karen@razpr.com

Web site:

http://www.autodesk.com/
http://www.autodesk.com/lustre

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