Decoding NVIDIA Edify — The Technology That Helps Developers Create Custom Models Trained on Their Data

Decoding NVIDIA Edify — The Technology That Helps Developers Create Custom Models Trained on Their Data

Editor’s note: This post is part of the AI Decoded series, which demystifies AI by making the technology more accessible, and showcases new hardware, software, tools and accelerations for RTX PC users.

Content generators — whether producing language, 2D images, 3D models or videos — are giving the creative community tools that bring visions to life faster.

To help developers build these new generative AI tools, NVIDIA has set up NVIDIA AI Foundry. It helps companies train generative AI models on their own licensed data using NVIDIA Edify, a multimodal AI architecture that can use simple text prompts to generate images, videos, 3D assets, 360-degree high-dynamic-range imaging and physically based rendering (PBR) materials. Using AI Foundry, companies can train bespoke AI models to generate any of these assets.

Key elements of Edify include its ability to generate multiple types of content, its superior training efficiency, which allows it to produce high-quality content while trained on fewer images, and its ability to fine-tune models to style-match or learn characters or objects.

One of the best examples of services built on NVIDIA AI Foundry and Edify is Generative AI by Getty Images, a commercially safe generative photography service. The combination of AI Foundry and Edify allows users to control their training datasets, so they can create models that fit their need.

To avoid copyright issues, Getty Images used Edify to train the service on its own licensed content, ensuring that no famous characters or products are in the dataset. The company also shares part of the profits with the contributors, driving a new revenue stream for creators who contribute to the model.

Asset Generation With Edify 

Edify can be trained to generate a variety of image types, including images, 3D assets and 360-degree HDRi environment maps.

Edify Image can generate four high-quality 1K images in around six seconds, doubling the performance of the previous model. Images can also be converted to 4K with a generative upscaler that adds additional details.

Getty Images 4K image generation trained on NVIDIA Edify using commercially safe creative libraries.

Images are highly controllable thanks to advanced prompt adherence, camera controls to specify focal length or depth of field, and ControlNets to guide the generation. The ControlNets include Sketch, which allows users to provide a sketch to follow or copy the composition of an image, and Depth, to copy the composition of an image.

Images can also be edited with Edify Image. InPaint allows users to add or modify content in an image. Replace — a strict InPaint — can change details such as clothing. And OutPaint can expand an image to match different aspect ratios. And all of this is simplified with Segment, a feature that can mask objects with just a text prompt.

Edify can also create artist-ready 3D meshes. The meshes come with clean quads-based topology, up to 4K PBR materials and automatic UV mapping for easier texture editing. A fast preview mode provides results in as few as 10 seconds, which can then be turned into a full 3D mesh.

Meshes are perfect for prototyping scenes, generating background objects for set decoration or as a head start for 3D sculpting.

Edify 360 HDRi generates environment maps of natural landscapes that can be used to light a scene, for reflections and even as a background. The model can generate up to 16K HDRi images from text or image prompts. With a desired backplate in hand, users can create a custom HDRi to match instead of spending hours looking for one.

High dynamic range, 360-degree panoramas from text prompts.

Edify’s multimodal capability is unique, enabling advanced workflows that combine different asset types. Used together with an agent, for instance, Edify allows users to prototype a full scene in a couple of minutes with a simple text prompt — like in the NVIDIA Research SIGGRAPH demo that showcased the assistive 3D world-building capabilities of NVIDIA Edify-powered models and the NVIDIA Omniverse platform.

Another use case is to combine Edify 3D and 360 HDRi with Image to give users full control of image generation. By generating the scene in 3D, artists can move objects around and frame their desired shot — and then use Edify Image to turn the prototype into a photorealistic image.

Generative AI by Getty Images 

Getty Images is one of the largest content service providers and suppliers of creative visuals, editorial photography, video and music — and is the one of the first places people turn to discover, purchase and share powerful visual content from the world’s best photographers and videographers.

Getty Images used NVIDIA AI Foundry to train an NVIDIA Edify Image model to power its generative AI service. Available through Generative AI by Getty Images for enterprises and Generative AI by iStock for small businesses and amateur creators, the service allows users to generate and modify images using models powered by NVIDIA Edify.

Generative AI by Getty Images (or iStock) offers a variety of licensed content.

Getty Images and iStock recently updated to the latest version of Edify Image, enabling faster generations and higher prompt adherence and exposing Camera Controls.

Updated camera controls in Generative AI by Getty Images.

Users can now also use the generative AI tools on preshot creative content, allowing them to edit and modify iStock’s library of visuals to rapidly iterate and perfect content. Those same capabilities will be soon available on Gettyimages.com.

Test drive Generative AI by Getty Images on ai.nvidia.com.

Generative AI is transforming gaming, videoconferencing and interactive experiences of all kinds. Make sense of what’s new and what’s next by subscribing to the AI Decoded newsletter.

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Applications Now Open for $60,000 NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Awards

Applications Now Open for $60,000 NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Awards

Bringing together the world’s brightest minds and the latest accelerated computing technology leads to powerful breakthroughs that help tackle some of the biggest research problems.

To foster such innovation, the NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Program provides grants, mentors and technical support to doctoral students doing outstanding research relevant to NVIDIA technologies. The program, in its 24th year running, is now accepting applications worldwide.

It focuses on supporting students working in AI, machine learning, autonomous vehicles, computer graphics, robotics, healthcare, high-performance computing and related fields. Awards are up to $60,000 per student.

Since its start in 2002, the Graduate Fellowship Program has awarded 200 grants worth more than $6.5 million.

Students must have completed at least their first year of Ph.D.-level studies at the time of application.

The application deadline for the 2025-2026 academic year is Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. An in-person internship at an NVIDIA research office preceding the fellowship year is mandatory; eligible candidates must be available for the internship in summer 2025.

For more on eligibility and how to apply, visit the program website.

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Golden Opportunities: California to Train Students, Educators in AI

Golden Opportunities: California to Train Students, Educators in AI

The State of California today announced a first-of-its-kind AI education initiative with NVIDIA.

The public-private collaboration supports the state’s goals in workforce training and economic development by giving universities, community colleges and adult education programs in California the resources to gain skills in generative AI.

“AI will continue to become more advanced and more prominent in all sectors, and California has the responsibility to support and prepare our students and faculties,” said Amy Tong, secretary of the California Government Operations Agency. “As a world leader in AI computing, NVIDIA is a natural partner to prepare the future of California’s workforce.”

Working With California Colleges and Universities

Through this initiative, California educators can gain certification through the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute University Ambassador Program, which connects instructors with high-quality teaching kits, workshop content and NVIDIA GPU-accelerated workstations in the cloud.

“It’s always good to equip our professors and teachers because, as mentors to our youth, they are in the best position to help shape students’ career paths,” Tong said.

By empowering educators across the state with the skills to harness the latest AI technologies and NVIDIA GPUs, the initiative can prepare full-time students about to enter the workforce and it can train working professionals who are expanding their skills through community college or adult education courses.

“We want to train a workforce of the future, and also excite students and adults who are out of the workforce about opportunities for the future,” said Stewart Knox, secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency.

The state agencies are also exploring how internship and apprenticeship programs can offer students hands-on experience with AI skills.

Bolstering Efforts to Bridge the Digital Divide

NVIDIA is already working on multiple projects across California to make AI more accessible and understandable for students from a variety of backgrounds. The company’s educational initiatives and industry-spanning collaborations are helping students and professionals in biotechnology and life sciences, advanced manufacturing, media and entertainment, and other fields to gain proficiency in harnessing AI to support their work, enhance their productivity and drive innovation.

San José State University is evaluating how the NVIDIA Omniverse development platform could support the creation of digital twins — 3D virtual representations of real-world systems — for the city of San José. During the university’s annual Black Engineer Week in June, NVIDIA hosted dozens of students for a daylong program featuring tech demos and career advice discussions.

NVIDIA is embarking on several workforce, climate and community-based projects with schools in the University of California and California State University systems. One plans to train students on underwater data center technology, while another is working with California Black Media to train a large language model on nearly a century of journalism by Black journalists in the state.

The NVIDIA GTC AI conference, held earlier this year in San José, featured several sessions for educators to explore how to integrate generative AI and NVIDIA technologies into their curricula — as well as a panel discussion about the need for equitable access to AI education and resources.

Learn more about NVIDIA’s AI education resources.

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Figure Unveils Next-Gen Conversational Humanoid Robot With 3x AI Computing for Fully Autonomous Tasks

Figure Unveils Next-Gen Conversational Humanoid Robot With 3x AI Computing for Fully Autonomous Tasks

Silicon Valley’s Figure has taken the wraps off of its next-generation Figure 02 conversational humanoid robot that taps into NVIDIA Omniverse and NVIDIA GPUs for fully autonomous tasks.

Figure said it recently tested Figure 02 for data collection and use-case training at BMW Group’s Spartanburg, South Carolina, production line.

Figure 02 comes just 10 months after Figure launched the first version of its general-purpose humanoid robot. The company has accelerated its development timeline using NVIDIA Isaac Sim — a reference application built on the NVIDIA Omniverse platform — to design, train and test AI-based robots using synthetic data, as well as NVIDIA GPUs to train generative AI models.

“Our rapid progress, marked by advances in speech, vision, dexterity and computational power, brings us closer to delivering humanoid robots to address labor shortages for many industries,” said Brett Adcock, CEO of Figure.

The company added a second NVIDIA RTX GPU-based module on board Figure 02, which supplies 3x inference gains for handling fully autonomous real-world AI tasks compared with the robot’s first iteration.

Figure aims to commercialize industrial humanoid robots to address labor shortages, and it plans to produce consumer versions.

Founded in 2022, the startup is partnered with OpenAI to develop custom AI models, trained on NVIDIA H100 GPUs, that drive the robots’ conversational AI capabilities. Figure recently raised $675 million in funding from leading technology companies including NVIDIA.

“Developing autonomous humanoid robots requires the fusion of three computers: NVIDIA DGX for AI training, NVIDIA Omniverse for simulation and NVIDIA Jetson in the robot,” said Deepu Talla, vice president of robotics and edge computing at NVIDIA. “Leading companies, including  Figure, are tapping into the NVIDIA robotics stack, from edge to cloud, to drive innovation in humanoid robotics.”

Robotic Hands Capable of Handling Real-World Tasks

New human-scale hands, six RGB cameras, and perception AI models trained with synthetic data generated in Isaac Sim enable Figure 02 to perform high-precision pick-and-place tasks required for smart manufacturing applications.

Figure is among the initial members to join the new NVIDIA Humanoid Robot Developer Program, which provides early access to the latest tools and computing technologies for humanoid robot development. This includes the latest releases of NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab, NIM microservices (RoboCasa and MimicGen), OSMO, Jetson Thor and Project GR00T general-purpose humanoid foundation models.

 

 

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GeForce NOW Celebrates 2,000 Games in the Cloud

GeForce NOW Celebrates 2,000 Games in the Cloud

This GFN Thursday marks 2,000 games in the GeForce NOW library, with five new games joining this week, alongside a demo for Square Enix’s Visions of Mana and a new reward for members playing Elder Scrolls Online.

From epic role-playing games (RPGs) to heart-pounding shooters, the GeForce NOW library offers a variety of adventures for members to dive into anytime, anywhere.

There’s more to come — the highly anticipated action RPG Black Myth: Wukong from Game Science will soon be available for members to stream when it comes to the cloud at launch on Tuesday, Aug. 20.

Plus, gamers looking to try GeForce NOW can lock in a one- or six-month Priority or Ultimate membership at half price with the limited-time summer sale.

More Choices Than a Buffet

GeForce NOW has achieved the remarkable milestone of over 2,000 games supported in the cloud.

They’re all playable across devices, including PCs, Macs, NVIDIA SHIELD TVs, select Samsung and LG Smart TVs, mobile devices and handheld consoles like the ROG Ally and Steam Deck. Visually stunning games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2 can be played at max settings — all from the comfort of the couch or while on the go.

2,000 games library on GeForce NOW.
2,000 reasons to game on.

Thanks to collaborations with renowned publishers like Blizzard, Capcom, Epic Games and Square Enix, as well as indie studios including Coffee Stain Studios, Re-Logic and Team 17, GeForce NOW is opening the door for more gamers to enjoy incredible gaming experiences in new ways, streaming across their favorite devices.

Since GeForce NOW supports games that members already own, there’s no need to repurchase titles to enjoy them in the cloud. And features like game library-syncing with Steam and Ubisoft Connect make it seamless to jump into gameplay without the hassle of installation or updates.

2,000 games on GeForce NOW.

The GeForce NOW library continues to expand each week with titles from popular digital stores like Battle.net, Epic Games Store, GOG.com, Steam, Ubisoft Connect and Xbox, and supports over 120 PC Game Pass titles — so gear up and game on.

Khajiit Has Wares … in the Cloud

ESO member reward on GeForce NOW
It’s not just a snack — it’s a statement.

It’s time for a new reward. GeForce NOW members playing Elder Scrolls Online can add a touch of sophistication to their journeys with a free Noble Snack emote, letting their character savor a regal treat in the heart of Tamriel.

Members who’ve opted in to GeForce NOW’s Rewards program can check their email for instructions on how to redeem the reward. Ultimate and Priority members can redeem the reward today, while free members can claim it starting on Friday, Aug. 9. It’s available through Sunday, Sept. 8 — first come, first served.

Here Come the Games

GeForce NOW members can today play a demo of Square Enix’s upcoming action RPG Visions of Mana before it launches in the cloud on Thursday, Aug. 29. Experience snippets of the story, the battles and the game’s focus on elemental powers — hallmarks of the Mana series. Though the title’s bonus items can’t be obtained through the demo in the cloud, members can get the items later by playing the full game when it launches on GeForce NOW.

Members can also look for the following this week:

  • Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks (New release on Steam, Aug. 6)
  • Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (New release on Steam, Aug. 8)
  • Ratten Reich (New release on Steam, Aug. 9)
  • Nine Sols (Steam)
  • Visions of Mana Demo (Steam)

What are you planning to play this weekend? Let us know on X or in the comments below.

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Recursion CEO Chris Gibson on Accelerating the Biopharmaceutical Industry With AI

Recursion CEO Chris Gibson on Accelerating the Biopharmaceutical Industry With AI

Techbio is a field combining data, technology and biology to enhance scientific processes — and AI has the potential to supercharge the biopharmaceutical industry further.  In this episode of NVIDIA’s AI Podcast, host Noah Kravitz speaks with Chris Gibson, cofounder and CEO of Recursion, about how the company uses AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and development at scale. Tune in to hear Gibson discuss how AI is transforming the biopharmaceutical industry by increasing efficiency and lowering discovery costs.

Time Stamps

0:58: Background on Recursion
6:23: Recursion’s approach to drug discovery
12:06: Empirical data generation and generative AI prediction
17:46: How supercomputing is accelerating drug discovery
22:32: What is techbio?
29:15: The future — using natural language prompts to work with AI systems
31:44: Recursion’s plans for future

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Problem Solved: STEM Studies Supercharged With RTX and AI Technologies

Problem Solved: STEM Studies Supercharged With RTX and AI Technologies

Editor’s note: This post is part of the AI Decoded series, which demystifies AI by making the technology more accessible, and showcases new hardware, software, tools and accelerations for RTX PC users.

AI powered by NVIDIA GPUs is accelerating nearly every industry, creating high demand for graduates, especially from STEM fields, who are proficient in using the technology. Millions of students worldwide are participating in university STEM programs to learn skills that will set them up for career success.

To prepare students for the future job market, NVIDIA has worked with top universities to develop a GPU-accelerated AI curriculum that’s now taught in more than 5,000 schools globally. Students can get a jumpstart outside of class with NVIDIA’s AI Learning Essentials, a set of resources that equips individuals with the necessary knowledge, skills and certifications for the rapidly evolving AI workforce.

NVIDIA GPUs — whether running in university data centers, GeForce RTX laptops or NVIDIA RTX workstations — are accelerating studies, helping enhance the learning experience and enabling students to gain hands-on experience with hardware used widely in real-world applications.

Supercharged AI Studies

NVIDIA provides several tools to help students accelerate their studies.

The RTX AI Toolkit is a powerful resource for students looking to develop and customize AI models for projects in computer science, data science, and other STEM fields. It allows students to train and fine-tune the latest generative AI models, including Gemma, Llama 3 and Phi 3, up to 30x faster — enabling them to iterate and innovate more efficiently, advancing their studies and research projects.

Students studying data science and economics can use NVIDIA RAPIDS AI and data science software libraries to run traditional machine learning models up to 25x faster than conventional methods, helping them handle large datasets more efficiently, perform complex analyses in record time and gain deeper insights from data.

AI-deal for Robotics, Architecture and Design

Students studying robotics can tap the NVIDIA Isaac platform for developing, testing and deploying AI-powered robotics applications. Powered by NVIDIA GPUs, the platform consists of NVIDIA-accelerated libraries, applications frameworks and AI models that supercharge the development of AI-powered robots like autonomous mobile robots, arms and manipulators, and humanoids.

While GPUs have long been used for 3D design, modeling and simulation, their role has significantly expanded with the advancement of AI. GPUs are today used to run AI models that dramatically accelerate rendering processes.

Some industry-standard design tools powered by NVIDIA GPUs and AI include:

  • SOLIDWORKS Visualize: This 3D computer-aided design rendering software uses NVIDIA Optix AI-powered denoising to produce high-quality ray-traced visuals, streamlining the design process by providing faster, more accurate visual feedback.
  • Blender: This popular 3D creation suite uses NVIDIA Optix AI-powered denoising to deliver stunning ray-traced visuals, significantly accelerating content creation workflows.
  • D5 Render: Commonly used by architects, interior designers and engineers, D5 Render incorporates NVIDIA DLSS technology for real-time viewport rendering, enabling smoother, more detailed visualizations without sacrificing performance. Powered by fourth-generation Tensor Cores and the NVIDIA Optical Flow Accelerator on GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs and NVIDIA RTX Ada Generation GPUs, DLSS uses AI to create additional frames and improve image quality.
  • Enscape: Enscape makes it possible to ray trace more geometry at a higher resolution, at exactly the same frame rate. It uses DLSS to enhance real-time rendering capabilities, providing architects and designers with seamless, high-fidelity visual previews of their projects.

Beyond STEM

Students, hobbyists and aspiring artists use the NVIDIA Studio platform to supercharge their creative processes with RTX and AI. RTX GPUs power creative apps such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Autodesk, Unity and more, accelerating a variety of processes such as exporting videos and rendering art.

ChatRTX is a demo app that lets students create a personalized GPT large language model connected to their own content and study materials, including text, images or other data. Powered by advanced AI, ChatRTX functions like a personalized chatbot that can quickly provide students relevant answers to questions based on their connected content. The app runs locally on a Windows RTX PC or workstation, meaning students can get fast, secure results personalized to their needs.

NVIDIA ChatRTX user interface.

Schools are increasingly adopting remote learning as a teaching modality. NVIDIA Broadcast — a free application that delivers professional-level audio and video with AI-powered features on RTX PCs and workstations — integrates seamlessly with remote learning applications including BlueJeans, Discord, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex and Zoom. It uses AI to enhance remote learning experiences by removing background noise, improving image quality in low-light scenarios, and enabling background blur and background replacement.

NVIDIA Broadcast.

From Data Centers to School Laptops

@dannylum_

The GeForce RTX 40 Series Laptops are perfect for your back to school all-in-one computer! Get one today #STEM #Gaming #engineering #student #BeyondFast #ad @NVIDIA GeForce

♬ original sound – Danny Lum

NVIDIA RTX-powered mobile workstations and GeForce RTX and Studio RTX 40 Series laptops offer supercharged development, learning, gaming and creating experiences with AI-enabled tools and apps. They also include exclusive access to the NVIDIA Studio platform of creative tools and technologies, and Max-Q technologies that optimize battery life and acoustics — giving students an ideal platform for all aspects of campus life.

Say goodbye to late nights in the computer lab — GeForce RTX laptops and NVIDIA RTX workstations share the same architecture as the NVIDIA GPUs powering many university labs and data centers. That means students can study, create and play — all on the same PC.

STEM Application Performance for GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU versus Laptop without GeForce RTX GPU.

Learn more about GeForce RTX laptops and NVIDIA RTX workstations.

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Meet the Maker: High School Student Develops Robot Guide Dogs With NVIDIA Jetson

Meet the Maker: High School Student Develops Robot Guide Dogs With NVIDIA Jetson

High school student Selin Alara Ornek is looking ahead — using machine learning and the NVIDIA Jetson platform for edge AI and robotics to create robot guide dogs for the visually impaired.

The project, called IC4U, is one of seven robots Ornek has created to date, including a school aid robot, named BB4All, that can help prevent bullying with real-time notification and health-monitoring capabilities.

About the Maker

A high school senior from Istanbul, Turkey, Ornek has always had a passion for the intersection of AI, social good and robotics. She’s a self-taught robotics developer — in building IC4U, she used the Jetson Developer Kit as a sandbox to explore and experiment.

She is a member of AI4ALL, a nonprofit program with the mission to make AI more diverse and inclusive, and the New York Academy of Science. A global presence in the robotics scene, she’s been recognized at the European Youth Awards and Women in Tech Global Awards events. She placed first in the 2021 Istanbul Bosphorus Robot Cup and third at the 2023 OpenCV AI Competition.

Her Inspiration

Ornek’s inspiration for creating IC4U came from a trip to France, where she saw a guide dog assisting its owner. Her late dog, Korsan, was also a key source of inspiration.

“I started to think about if a visually impaired person lost their dog, not only would they lose their best friend, but their eyes,” Ornek said.

The project was built to offer the visually impaired a companion not limited by aging and health.

Her Jetson Project

Ornek initially used ultrasonic sensors located in IC4U’s eyes to detect obstacles. But after attending the 2021 World Summit AI as a panelist, she decided to develop new AI applications for the robot dog that’d enable it to mimic a real one.

The ultrasonic sensors only offered object detection from directly in front of IC4U, and Ornek wanted to expand detection to the robot’s entire surroundings.

The solution was using sound sensors located in the robot’s ears. IC4U can turn toward a sound and process visual information gathered by an integrated ZED 2i Wide-Angle 3D AI camera, which captures a wider range of visual data and helps detect information such as the size and speed of an object.

“To power the ZED 2i camera and for high-quality image processing, I used an NVIDIA Jetson Nano developer kit,” Ornek said. “I was so impressed with the ZED 2i camera’s performance that I didn’t want to limit its use to a simple object-recognition task.”

She began to think of other ways that IC4U could assist a visually impaired person. IC4U’s improved data processing from high-resolution sensors, powered by Jetson, enables it to detect city objects such as stop signs, traffic light colors and the denomination of paper money.

In addition, Ornek used the Jetson Nano to add a shopping feature to IC4U via web scraping from publicly available resources, aiming to one day expand it by partnering with online retail stores.

Back to School

In the long run, Ornek hopes to deploy IC4U for use in smart cities and spaces — continuing her exploration of AI applications with next-generation platforms like Jetson Orin.

This fall, she’ll begin studying computer science at the University of British Columbia on a full scholarship, as a recipient of the Karen McKellin International Leader of Tomorrow Award. She strives to encourage other youth, especially girls, that technology is fun.

Students and educators with a valid accredited university or education-related email address can sign up to purchase the Jetson Orin Nano or Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit at a discounted rate. U.S.-based students and educators can visit Sparkfun to sign up for their discount — residents of other countries should check their eligibility (login required).

Learn more about the NVIDIA Jetson platform and NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute Jetson AI courses and certifications.

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Editor’s Paradise: NVIDIA RTX-Powered Video Software CyberLink PowerDirector Gains High-Efficiency Video Coding Upgrades

Editor’s Paradise: NVIDIA RTX-Powered Video Software CyberLink PowerDirector Gains High-Efficiency Video Coding Upgrades

Editor’s note: This post is part of our In the NVIDIA Studio series, which celebrates featured artists, offers creative tips and tricks, and demonstrates how NVIDIA Studio technology improves creative workflows. We’re also deep diving on new GeForce RTX GPU features, technologies and resources, and how they dramatically accelerate content creation.

Every month brings new creative app updates and optimizations powered by the NVIDIA Studio platform — supercharging creative processes with NVIDIA RTX and AI.

RTX-powered video editing app CyberLink PowerDirector now has a setting for high-efficiency video encoding (HEVC). 3D artists can access new features and faster workflows in Adobe Substance 3D Modeler and SideFX: Houdini. And content creators using Topaz Video AI Pro can now scale their photo and video touchups faster with NVIDIA TensorRT acceleration.

The August Studio Driver is ready to install via the NVIDIA app beta — the essential companion for creators and gamers — to keep GeForce RTX PCs up to date with the latest NVIDIA drivers and technology.

And this week’s featured In the NVIDIA Studio artist Stavros Liaskos is creating physically accurate 3D digital replicas of Greek Orthodox churches, holy temples, monasteries and other buildings using the NVIDIA Omniverse platform for building and connecting Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) apps.

Discover the latest breakthroughs in graphics and generative AI by watching the replay of NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang’s firechat chats with Lauren Goode, senior writer at WIRED, and Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at SIGGRAPH. 

There’s a Creative App for That

The NVIDIA NVENC video encoder is built into every RTX graphics card, offloading the compute-intensive task of video encoding from the CPU to a dedicated part of the GPU.

CyberLink PowerDirector, a popular video editing program that recently added support for RTX Video HDR, now has a setting to increase HEVC with NVIDIA NVENC HEVC Ultra-High-Quality mode.

The new functionality reduces bit rates and improves encoding efficiency by 55%, significantly boosting video quality. Using the custom setting, content creators can offer audiences superior viewing experiences.

Encoding efficiency jumps by 55% with just a few clicks.

Alpha exporting allows users to add overlay effects to videos by exporting HEVC video with an alpha channel. This technique can be used to create transparent backgrounds and rapidly process animated overlays, making it ideal for creating social media content.

With an alpha channel, users can export HEVC videos up to 8x faster compared with run-length encoding supported by other processors, and with a 100x reduction in file size.

Adobe Substance 3D Modeler, a multisurface 3D sculpting tool for artists, virtual effects specialists and designers, released Block to Stock, an AI-powered, geometry-based feature for accelerating the prototyping of complex shapes.

It allows rough 3D shapes to be quickly replaced with pre-existing, similarly shaped 3D models that have greater detail. The result is a highly detailed shape crafted in no time.

The recently released version 20.5 of SideFX: Houdini, a 3D procedural software for modeling, animation and lighting, introduced NVIDIA OptiX 8 and NVIDIA’s Shader Execution Reordering feature to its Karma XPU renderer — exclusively on NVIDIA RTX GPUs.

With these additions, computationally intensive tasks can now be executed up to 4x faster on RTX GPUs.

Topaz Video AI Pro, a photo and video enhancement software for noise reduction, sharpening and upscaling, added TensorRT acceleration for multi-GPU configurations, enabling parallelization across multiple GPUs for supercharged rendering speeds — up to 2x faster with two GPUs over a single GPU system, with further acceleration in systems with additional GPUs.

Virtual Cultural Sites to G(r)eek Out About

Anyone can now explore over 30 Greek cultural sites in virtual reality, thanks to the immersive work of Stavros Liaskos, managing director of visual communications company Reyelise.

“Many historical and religious sites are at risk due to environmental conditions, neglect and socio-political issues,” he said. “By creating detailed 3D replicas, we’re helping to ensure their architectural splendor is preserved digitally for future generations.”

Liaskos dedicated the project to his father, who passed away last year.

“He taught me the value of patience and instilled in me the belief that nothing is unattainable,” he said. “His wisdom and guidance continue to inspire me every day.”

Churches are architecturally complex structures. To create physically accurate 3D models of them, Liaskos used the advanced real-time rendering capabilities of Omniverse, connected with a slew of content-creation apps.

The OpenUSD framework enabled a seamless workflow across the various apps Liaskos used. For example, after using Trimble X7 for highly accurate 3D scanning of structures, Liaskos easily moved to Autodesk 3ds Max and Blender for modeling and animation.

Then, with ZBrush, he sculpted intricate architectural details on the models and refined textures with Adobe Photoshop and Substance 3D. It was all brought together in Omniverse for real-time lighting and rendering.

Interior rendering of the Panagia Xrysospiliotissa Church in Nicosia, Cyprus.

For post-production work, like adding visual effects and compiling rendered scenes, Liaskos used OpenUSD to transfer his projects to Adobe After Effects, where he finalized the video output. Nearly every element of his creative workflow was accelerated by his NVIDIA RTX A4500 GPU. 

Interior scene of the Church of Saint Basil on Metsovou Street in Athens.

Liaskos also explored developing extended reality (XR) applications that allow users to navigate his 3D projects in real time in virtual reality (VR).

 

First, he used laser scanning and photogrammetry to capture the detailed geometries and textures of the churches.

 

Then, he tapped Autodesk 3ds Max and Maxon ZBrush for retopology, ensuring the models were optimized for real-time rendering without compromising detail.

After importing them into NVIDIA Omniverse with OpenUSD, Liaskos packaged the XR scenes so they could be streamed to VR headsets  using either the NVIDIA Omniverse Create XR spatial computing app or Unity Engine, enabling immersive viewing experiences.

“This approach will even more strikingly showcase the architectural beauty and cultural significance of these sites,” Liaskos said. “The simulation must be as good as possible to recreate the overwhelming, impactful feeling of calm and safety that comes with visiting a deeply spiritual space.”

Creator Stavros Liaskos.

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Stay up to date on NVIDIA Omniverse with Instagram, Medium and X. For more, join the Omniverse community and check out the Omniverse forums, Discord server, Twitch and YouTube channels. 

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August Adventures Await: 18 New Games Coming to GeForce NOW

August Adventures Await: 18 New Games Coming to GeForce NOW

Members can choose their own adventure with GeForce NOW bringing 18 new games to the cloud in August — including Square Enix’s fantasy role-playing game Visions of Mana when it launches on PC Thursday, Aug. 29.

From cozy games to thrilling battles, there’s something for everyone. Dive into the latest titles and experience powerful performance across all devices — start with the six games available to stream this week.

Plus, the limited-time GeForce NOW Summer Sale continues, offering a 50% discount on new one-month and six-month Ultimate and Priority memberships. Check it out before the deal ends on Sunday, Aug. 18.

Awesome August

Stormgate on GeForce NOW
Fight for the future.

Plunge into the heart of battle with Stormgate, a newly released real-time strategy game from Frost Giant Studios, which is renowned for its work on popular games StarCraft II and Warcraft III. In single-player or multiplayer mode, fight demonic invaders, build bases and command armies to save humanity. Get immersed in a rich storyline, explore diverse factions and experience a blend of new and classic real-time strategy mechanics.

Members can check out the following new additions this week:

  • Stormgate Early Access (New release on Steam, July 30)
  • Space for Sale (New release on Steam, July 30)
  • Cyber Knights: Flashpoint (Steam)
  • Dark and Darker (Steam)
  • Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (Xbox, available on PC Game Pass)
  • Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Demo (Steam and Xbox)

And here’s a preview of what’s coming later this month:

  • Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks (New release on Steam, Aug. 6)
  • Ratten Reich (New release on Steam, Aug. 9)
  • Level Zero Extraction (New release on Steam, Aug. 13)
  • shapez 2 (New release on Steam, Aug. 15)
  • Akimbot (New release on Steam, Aug. 29)
  • Gori: Cuddly Carnage (New release on Steam, Aug. 29)
  • MEMORIAPOLIS (New release on Steam, Aug. 29)
  • Visions of Mana (New release on Steam, Aug. 29)
  • Breachway (New release on Steam, Aug. 30)
  • Star Wars Outlaws (New release on Ubisoft, Aug. 30)
  • Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (Steam)
  • Heading Out (Steam)
  • Nine Sols (Steam)
  • Saturnalia (Steam)
  • We Were Here Too (Steam)

Jammin’ July

In addition to the 22 games announced last month, six more joined the GeForce NOW library:

  • Cricket 24: The Official Game of the Ashes (New release on Xbox and available on PC Game Pass, July 9)
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Steam)
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition (Steam, Epic Games Store and Xbox, available on PC Game Pass)
  • Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (New release on Steam, July 18)
  • Nobody Wants to Die (New release on Steam, July 17)
  • The Settlers: New Allies (Steam)
  • HAWKED and Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn (Xbox) were included in the July games list — HAWKED will no longer be added to GeForce NOW, while Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn will be added at another time. Stay tuned to GFN Thursday for more updates.

Starting in November, GeForce NOW will transition away from updating the GeForce NOW Windows and macOS apps for legacy operating systems, including Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and macOS 10.11-10.14. Members on these systems can still enjoy streaming on play.geforcenow.com via supported web browsers.

What are you planning to play this weekend? Let us know on X or in the comments below.

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