DIGITAL PRODUCTION

For those who don’t know the tool: DBSONIC LABS builds focused utilities for professional post-production workflows. PostPro Analytics sits around the creative applications rather than processing media itself, collecting project and activity metadata locally from editing, compositing, design and 3D tools before turning it into dashboards, reports and billing-oriented production records.

For those who don’t know the tool: Roman Gibadullin, publishing as iltaen, is a 3D low-poly artist; Blender is the host DCC for modelling, rigging, animation and rendering. Spider Walker is his small Blender add-on for the animation stage, taking an existing armature and driving its leg controllers procedurally against scene meshes before baking the resulting motion into a regular Blender Action for downstream editing and rendering.

For those who don’t know the tool: Leonid Kychko publishes production utilities and assets for Autodesk 3ds Max. PBR Generator sits between look development and downstream rendering or asset delivery: it analyses existing shading networks, bakes them into texture maps and rebuilds the result as either a Chaos V-Ray VRayMtl or Autodesk Physical Material.

For those who don’t know the tool: aflatsprite develops Blender tools including Softie Collision System, a Geometry Nodes setup aimed at animation and sculpting. It sits between mesh preparation and downstream rendering, providing an immediate deformation path plus a separate XPBD simulation modifier for Blender 5.2. Softie’s main collision mode is not a conventional simulation.

For those who don’t know the tool: Command Frame is a floating search-and-command interface for After Effects developed by motion designer and plugin developer Scott Black. Version 1.5 is available free through aescripts + aeplugins and exposes more than 1,300 actions covering effects, presets, layers, compositions, properties, scripts, panels, workspaces and supported plugin actions. The basic interaction is simple. Open Command Frame with a shortcut, start typing and execute the matching action.

For those who don’t know the tool: CLO Virtual Fashion develops Marvelous Designer, a pattern-based 3D garment design and cloth-simulation application aimed at game, VFX and animation work, alongside CLO for fashion workflows.

For those who don’t know the tool: Blackmagic Design spans acquisition, live production and postproduction, with DaVinci Resolve combining editing, Fusion VFX and motion graphics, Fairlight audio and colour finishing.

No, you do not need to redesign your facility around MXL this week. That is the useful starting point for anybody outside the relatively small circle currently building software-defined live-production platforms. MXL is infrastructure technology, aimed primarily at developers of media functions and the architects joining those functions into systems. So, show this to your TD. It is, however, something worth having heard of before 2027.

For those who don’t know the tool: Cutpoint Labs makes focused Mac and iPhone utilities for editorial and finishing. LUT Tuner sits between LUT preparation and grading: it edits and inspects .cube 3D LUTs, then can turn the edited result into an adjustable DCTL approximation for DaVinci Resolve. LUT Tuner has acquired a more interesting trick than another LUT export button. Cutpoint Labs can now take an edited .cube 3D LUT and create a tunable DCTL approximation for DaVinci Resolve.

For those who don’t know the tool: Mug Lab publishes tools for Blackmagic Design’s Fusion environment, where image-processing Fuses can sit directly inside compositing flows and Fusion-based Resolve effects.