Periodically we publish news and articles about our company, work, technologies and business. Find here below all relevant updates in chronological order. For interviews please Contact Us.
13 Mar 2024
J Cube Inc releases Multiverse 8.3, another essential upgrade to its industry leading USD solution for all Maya® versions. Multiverse is based on a unique USD multi-stage paradigm that does not rely on vendor-intermediate abstraction layers nor in-memory virtual nodes. This new version adds support for the Apple Silicon architecture with universal binary, works with the latest version of its supported rendering engines, along with many QOL improvements such as faster evaluation of hidden compounds, float color prim-vars, left-handed meshes, st primvars and all the needed bug-fixes that came by working close with our customers. Check out the full release notes for all details. Enter the Multiverse →
24 Jul 2023
J Cube Inc releases Multiverse 8.2, an essential upgrade to the industry leading USD solution for all Maya® versions. Multiverse is based on a unique USD multi-stage paradigm that does not rely on vendor-intermediate abstraction layers nor in-memory virtual nodes. This new version sports a new shading network interchange vbetween Maya and Katana, upgrades the USD library to v23.02, improves light linking between Maya lights and scene items in the USD stages, adds Maya 2024 support, and is also able to co-exist within Maya with other plug-ins that link to other USD libraries. Aside all this, improvements with instancing of point instancers and all the needed bug-fixes that came by working close with our customers. Check out the full release notes for all details. Enter the Multiverse →
28 Jun 2023
J Cube Inc releases Multiverse 8.1, another substantial upgrade of the industry leading USD solution for all Maya® versions, based on a unique USD multi-stage paradigm that does not rely on vendor-intermediate abstraction layers nor in-memory virtual nodes. This new version introduces a novel light linking system between Maya lights and scene items in the USD stages. Other new features are snapping in the viewport, display opacity in the writer, reader and viewport, added support for Redshift on macOS, Arnold 7.2 / MtoA 5.3 and RenderMan 25. Aside all this, a bunch of improvements with instancing, point instancing and nested instancing both in the viewport and in all the renderers and all the needed bug-fixes based on our customers' feedback. Check out the full release notes for all details. Enter the Multiverse →
17 Jun 2023
Today J Cube Inc is 10 Years old, and it's has been quite a ride! Looking forward for what's next. Thanks to all our customers, partners, colleagues and friends, we could have not done this without you. To celebrate we will switch our identity to a new logo.
05 Feb 2023
J Cube Inc to release Multiverse 8, a groundbreaking evolution of its industry leading USD-powered solution for Maya®. This new version extends support of streaming and procedural rendering to the STEP, IGES, IFC, OBJ and STL file-formats. Another major new feature are "USDZ Material Packages", self-contained material & texture difinitions authorable in Maya or available from third parties such as AmbientCG. A new "Pro Cloud" license is now availble to address the remote work transformation in the industry. On top of this, many other freatures and updates such as a new data importing options in the asset reader, rendering support for 3DelightNSI 2.9, Arnold 7.2, VRay 6 and Redshift 3.5, a new Asset Resolver to work with the Prisms pipeline, updates to USD to 22.11 and so much more. Check out the full release notes for all details. Enter the Multiverse →
28 Jan 2023
J Cube Inc now provides the ability to purchase 3DelightNSI directly from the web. It is possible to choose to purchase a monthly or anual subscription and to configure the amount of licenses needed. 3DelightNSI is a refreshingly easy to use, and incredibly fast, production distributed path-tracing rendering engine powered by AMD, Intel, and AWS Cloud. It's been recognized as the fastest CPU renderer in the market and is being increasingly used in high profile production worldwide. Look no forther and get your license. Discover more about 3DelightNSI.
12 Sep 2022
J Cube Inc announces its most ambitious product, developed for nearly two years in stealth mode, and is the culmination of decades of combined experience in the field. A product, we believe, will change how internet services will request, process, and consume graphic-related data in the projected future of the metaverse. We are proud to introduce WeRender — scalable web services for rendering and data processing, where all storage & compute happens on the cloud. WeRender allows everyone to programmatically describe, store, and compute synthetic datasets, to automate requests of rendering and other 3D/2D processing tasks, and to communicate and share with other internet services. All with an easy to use multi-language API in PYTHON, C#, JAVASCRIPT, and REST. It is designed for all developers, regardless of expertise in graphics. It works from any connected device, and without the need for powerful hardware, complex software nor its licenses. Render effective images at cents on the dollar just with your API of choice, a text editor and a terminal. The service is now open to selected beta accounts, register at https://werender.io
29 Jun 2022
J Cube Inc releases yet another major version of its industry leading USD solution for Maya®, rendering & interchange with other DCC apps, Multiverse | USD 7.1, with both the FREE and PRO version available immediately. On top of the all new v7.0, this new release brings the Hierarchy Importer with "live connection" (able to handle also USD instances & point instancers), OpenPype intergation, Prism integration, USDZ rendering in the HydraVP2 Viewport and in 3DelightNSI, Composition Writing of layers as USD SubLayers, Asset Writing of Maya instances as USD Inherits, Maya® 2023 with Python 3.9 on all platforms, Arnold 7.1+ & MtoA 5.1+, VRay 5.20.23+, support for multiple Redshift versions (3.0.67+ and 3.5.03+ currently), and many other features, improvements, bug-fixes, documentation and web updates. There is also a reduced pricing for single seats and ability to buy arbitrary number of licenses from the webiste. Check out the full release notes for all details. Enter the Multiverse →
22 Mar 2022
J Cube Inc announces the next major version of its industry leading USD solution for Maya®, rendering & interchange with other DCC apps; Multiverse | USD 7. Featuring a new Hydra-VP2 viewport for high performance draw with many-compounds, seamless Maya® selection and interaction, strategic draw modes that allow to work with impossibly large scenes, rich shading & lighting effects; new ability to write shading networks to USD as assets and overrides for both DCC-interchange and procedural rendering; a faster MEOW panel with better performance, persistence, multi-tabs, prim count; a new de-instancing ability; Maya® 2022 with Python 2 & 3 support, updated USD 21.11 libraries, Asset Resolver 2.0 and tons of other smaller features, improvements & bug-fixes. Check out the full release notes for all details. We also like to thank our users for an ever increasing industry adoption with over 20M API calls in 2021 requesting the Multiverse Free version. Read More →
08 Jul 2021
J CUBE Inc. is proud to make a double announcement. We have been working with Apple to use their advanced Metal API in our products, as a result of this co-op, Multiverse and Muse were featured at Apple WWDC2021 as the first 3rd-party USD applications. Then, we are super excited to announce the imminent crowd-sourcing of Muse on Kickstarter! All relative details about this new adventure will be shared with the campaign opening. We are committed to simplify CGI with a powerful, yet easy, standalone tool for handling USD assets. Read more on the new Muse section on this website.
15 Jun 2021
J Cube Inc. has been chosen by Illumination Research Pty Ltd as authorized reseller of 3DeligthNSI for Japan. 3Delight is renowned for its utmost performance and uncompromising quality, which is achieved through ease of use and elegant workflows that are artist-first. Under the hood it is based on the Nodal Scene Interface (NSI) for scene description, Open Shading Language (OSL) for shading and lighting, and it is heavily optimized for modern multi-threaded hardware and cloud rendering. It is available on all platforms and integrated on many DCC apps as open-source. J Cube distributes 3Delight in Japan at comparable US pricing with customer support services in JST provided in English language. In addition, thanks to our core rendering expertise, we also offer on-demand custom development services. Read more on the 3Delight section on this website.
07 Jun 2021
J Cube Inc announces the immediate release of Multiverse | USD v6.7. The release introduces several new features such as complete support for USD purposes which are now also orthogonal to viewing modes, a production-ready implementation of USD blend shapes with support for multiple targets and in-betweens which also plays along with skeleton animation & skin weights, compositions writing with auto-saving of overrides to facilitate consolidation of large scenes, Hydra Storm viewport controls for colors and selection, NURBS writing, FPS writing, and all the relative Multiverse Python API additions. As usual the release sports a wide spectrum of improvements and bug fixes, check out the full release notes for all details. Last but not least, thanks to an ever increasing industry adoption, we are excited to announce the new Studio License designed for medium and large companies. Read More →
10 Nov 2020
J Cube Inc is proud to announce that the Lightfront® technology is being used for a 4K live video streaming experience of the "Space Avatar" located on the International Space Station (ISS). This demonstration is under the AVATAR X Program of ANA Holdings and JAXA, which begun in September 2018. A Space Avatar, powered by the Lightfront | AI mini computer and the Lightfront | Space software technology — both developed in partnership with ANA Holdings — is installed on ”Kibō” (the Japanese science module for the ISS which orbits 400km above the earth at 8km/sec) to provide a remote maneuvering experience and live streaming in 4K @ 30fps from the ISS. As a world's first, it is now possible for the general public to directly control in real time the Space Avatar installed on Kibō, enabling an experience where you can feel & see the beauty of outer space from from a public location in Tokyo. The Space Avatar arrived on Kibō in May 2020, via the H-II Transfer Vehicle “KOUNOTORI”. The Lightfront | Space transmission technology is used to communicate with Kibō from outside of a government-run facility. Read more about Lightfront and the Space Avatar Tokyo event on Nov 21-22 2020 →
10 Nov 2020
２０２０年５月、共創型研究開発プログラム・宇宙イノベーションパートナーシップ（J-SPARC）“AVATAR X Program”の下でANAホールディングス株式会社とJAXAは世界で初めてとなる「space avatar（スペースアバター）」を地上400km上空を秒速8kmで周回する「きぼう」に設置しました。「space avatar」には株式会社ジェーキューブとANAホールディングス株式会社が共同開発した宇宙低遅延ソフトウェア通信技術「Lightfront®」が搭載されています。 「space avatar」は、JAXAの「きぼう」の有償利用制度を利用し、宇宙ステーション補給機「こうのとり」9号機に搭載され、2020年5月に「きぼう」へ到着しました。世界初の試みとして、一般の方が街なかから、「きぼう」に設置される、当社の宇宙通信技術「Lightfront®」の搭載された「space avatar」をリアルタイムで直接動かし、「きぼう」船内から宇宙や地球を眺めることが可能になります。
名称：「AVATAR X space avatar 宇宙を身近に感じよう」日時：2020年11月21日（土）、22日（日）13:00〜20:00予定 開催場所：虎ノ門ヒルズビジネスタワー4階ARCH MAGNET ROOM。
29 Oct 2020
J Cube Inc is proud to announce Lightfront AI, the powerful Linux mini computer for AI-driven avatar-like robotic applications that can operate autonomously in the Internet of Things. This small computer board is equipped with unique functionalities such as choice between nVidia SOMs, advanced Sony sensor, camera over long co-axial cables, cinematic acquisition from real world lenses, guaranteed concurrency with industrial serial interface and much more. Lightfront AI is the result of a close collaboration with ANA Holdings, which since 2018 is using Lightfront for a variety of projects, such as the tele-presence robot "newme" and the soon to be announced "space avatar". Read More →
09 Oct 2020
J Cube Inc continues innovating at fast pace with the new major release of Multiverse v6.6. Introducing a novel, comprehensive and production-ready, support for USD Variants in Maya, new custom attributes writing for both Maya and USD-typed attributes, VRay 5 support, and innumerable other improvements on performance, rendering, Metal API, UI/UX. Last but not least, introducing MUSE™, the new Multiverse Usd Standalone Editor to interactively visualize, playback, and non-destructively edit / compose / override any USD file, all without the need for a DCC application. MUSE is currently an Alpha version provided exclusively to clients of the Multiverse Pro Version as a tech preview. Read More →
07 Aug 2020
Building on the widely successful adoption of version 6 with its novel end-to-end multi-threaded architecture, v6.5 introduces new features such as improved writing and importing of USD data, better UX, and extended inter-op workflows for motion-capture with Vicon Shogun and for FX with Houdini Solaris. Interchange possibilities with other DCC apps have increased, in particular with Blender, Unreal and Unity. Rendering has also been extended to include Redshift, Renderman and VRay, making Multiverse truly render-agnostic. A new embedded Hydra path-tracing viewport powered by 3DelightNSI offers preview of highly complex datasets. Finally, macOS integration has improved thanks to Metal API integration and support of iOS and AR workflows in the Apple ecosystem. Read More →
18 May 2020
In May 2020, under the AVATAR X program, JAXA and ANAHD's avatarin deployed the world’s first space avatar inside the Japanese experiment module “Kibo” on the International Space Station (ISS). It was launched through the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV9) “KOUNOTORI9”. In a world’s first, the general public will be able to remotely operate this onboard system powered by J CUBE's Lightfront | Space and view its real-time video stream from a public, non-JAXA facility in Tokyo. Operation of the space avatar system will be made available at an event to be announced and held later this year in Tokyo. Read More →
18 Mar 2020
In large anticipation with both national Japanese government and the local Kanagawa prefecture requirements, J CUBE Inc announces it has enabled its entire infrastructure for remote work. Our team can therefore work safely from home while still in a fully operative and security-compliant manner.
23 Jan 2020
J Cube Inc announces the immediate release of Multiverse | USD, the easy to use, production-ready, native USD solution for Autodesk® Maya®. Powered by a new end-to-end multi-threaded architecture, from scene construction to final rendering, version 6 of Multiverse enables anyone to instantly and non-destructively author, playback, layout, lookdev, light & render large USD data sets, and makes possible to inter-op with USD-ready DCC apps such as Houdini / Solaris. Everything is interactively streamed to Hydra-based viewports and to final frame renderers, in procedural fashion. Multiverse is now available in two versions: Pro Version with mission critical support services, and, for the very first time, a full featured, commercially usable, and completely Free Version.
Read More →
15 Oct 2019
ANA HD — All Nippon Airways Holdings — successfully unveiled at Tokyo's CEATEC 2019 (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) their avant-garde avatar-in robotic platform, along with its first original robot, dubbed “newme”. The robot was also the winner of the best product award for the Society 5.0 Town category at the event. J CUBE Inc, strategic partner for the ANA Avatar project, is proud to announce that newme's end-to-end software robotic infrastructure is powered by Lightfront®. Lightfront® is a a secure, generalized, bi-directional ultra low latency live data streaming framework designed for hardware and cloud applications in the Internet of Things (IoT).
17 Jun 2019
On its 6th anniversary, following an on-going company & team expansion, J CUBE Inc. announces it has relocated to new office premises at the iconic Sangyo Boeki Center Building ("Sanbo"), in Yamashita-cho Yokohama, right on the waterfront of the Yokohama old port. J CUBE continues hiring highly-skilled technical personnel, with several open job positions at its new head office — Contact us to join our team.
27 May 2019
J CUBE previewed Lightfront, its high-bandwidth low-latency streaming system, at the XPRIZE Avatar Team Summit held in conjunction with the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. Lightfront was used to successfully stream a 4K @ 60 FPS stable bidirectional stream between Geneva and Yokohama with a latency of 120ms using a bandwidth of 50Mbps. It was presented to the audience of the XPRIZE competition team, the XPRIZE operations team, and the other competition partners along with the XPRIZE Avatar official sponsor, ANA.
07 Jan 2019
ANA HD — All Nippon Airways Holdings — and J CUBE Inc have been exchanging ideas and working on a joint research project since June 2018. Together, we have formed a strategic partnership to advance the ANA Avatar, ANA Avatar X and ANA Avatar XPRIZE projects. J CUBE is currently developing the novel Lightfront core technology, a secure, generalized, bi-directional ultra low latency live data streaming framework designed for hardware and cloud applications in the Internet of Things (IoT). Detailed information on Lightfront will be released in mid 2019. As a result, J CUBE is opening multiple job positions at its head office in Yokohama, Japan.
18 Dec 2018
Foundry and J CUBE Inc. are pleased to announce that they have agreed on the transfer of specific technologies. The arrangement advances the technologies of both, and the common desire to deliver tools which provide the best possible user experience. J CUBE Inc. retains property and rights on the Multiverse suite of tools and continues to develop and sell the Multiverse suite of tools and other products independently of Foundry.
16 Nov 2018
J Cube Inc. just added to Multiverse the ability to output assets as USDZ files for Augmented Reality (AR) purposes. This allows for previews out of the box in Apple macOS 10.14 Mojave (Quick Look) and iOS 12 with full support for geometry and textures using the Physically-Based Rendering (PBR) workflow. Check it out at https://multi-verse.io/ar
11 Aug 2018
J CUBE Inc, Illumination Research and Jadason Technology introduce at SIGGRAPH 2018 the groundbreaking 3DelightNSI Cloud rendering system. Demonstration will be carried at the Amazon Web Services booth on the AWS Cloud Rendering Partners station, every day between 9.30am to 10.30am. Come and see the future of rendering. J CUBE also announces that Mr. Kenneth Sung from Jadason Technologies Hong Kong has been appointed as executive director.
15 Jul 2018
On behalf of Illumination Research, J CUBE Inc announces it has authored and released as Open Source HydraNSI. Production-quality preview rendering of USD assets, in the Hydra imaging framework, is an appealing idea that allows for a centralized and standardized rendering application. Our Open Source initiative, implements a Hydra plug-in that converts USD to NSI commands. This allows production studios to use 3DelightNSI as a rendering back-end with its rich feature and extensible platform.
24 Apr 2018
J CUBE is announces the immediate release of Multiverse V5. Our 5th major version fo the software, allows users to manage 3D complexity with efficient scene assembly, powerful set dressing, look-development and inter-ops with DCC apps. As usual expect lighting fast read/write/playback, memory efficiency, and ease of use. We also introduce new convenient subscription and Indie pricing schemes so that Multiverse is now accessible to a much wider audience. Read more on https://multi-verse.io
01 Nov 2017
J CUBE moves its headquarters to a new office in the beautiful city of Yokohama, Japan. Just about 30 minutes train ride from Shibuya, Yokohama itself is the hub of cross-cultural experience, foreign culture and open thinking, since Japan opened up to the rest of the world in 1868.
01 Oct 2017
J CUBE delivers to Illumination Research a framework to perfrom interactive rendering in Autodesk® Maya® Viewport 2.0 (VP2). Leveraging on the novel NSI API this work allows the 3Delight NSI renderer to quickly render and update any aspect of the scene interactively inside Maya, with great benefits for all artists and users in the tasks of look development and lighting.
13 Jun 2017
J CUBE Inc. publishes a recorded keynote presentation about Maneki and "Photo Surreal Rendering" (PSR) available on our research page. Maneki is a core rendering technology created by J CUBE which used for the first time on the next generation Anime movie BLAME!, released in the theaters in Japan on 20/05/2017 and concurrently on Netflix worldwide.
13 Jun 2017
J CUBE announces the release the 4th major version of Multiverse. We introduce a new unified reading & writing architecture based on our proprietary technologoies. Hyperspace API natively wraps the venn-intersection of Alembic and USD features, while USDTalk guarantees it runs on arbitrary platforms. Other key features are sample interpolation in Maya VP2, during procedural rendering in 3Delight and Arnold and re-timing controls.
25 Apr 2017
MaterialXS is an "eXtra Small" Python implementation of MaterialX released by J Cube Inc. as Open Source on GitHub under the permissive Apache 2.0 License. MaterialXS is specifically designed to ease the transfer of materials (full shading networks) and look–development between DCC Applications.
08 Dec 2016
J CUBE announces the publication of the Milliways technical memo along with its release as a Open Source project under the very permissive Apache 2.0 license. Milliways, the storage at the back-end of the Multiverse, is used as the backbone of the Multiverse Git back-end. To know more, read the technical memo on our Research page.
03 Dec 2016
Paolo Berto Durante of J CUBE Inc. presents Multiverse and Maneki at the biggest CG Event Moscow 2016, the leading CGI convention in Russia with over 2000 registered attendees. This is the 10th anniversary of the event. Have a look at the talk description on the CG Event Website.
28 Nov 2016
J CUBE is proud to announce that Multiverse was fundamental to handle the extreme visual complexity in Marvel's Doctor Strange. Luma Pictures, an early adopter of the Multiverse technology, released some information in the coverage article published by FXGuide.
28 Nov 2016
J CUBE previews a new version of Multiverse V4 featuring support for writing and reading Pixar Universal Scene Description (USD) on all Maya versions and architectures. This is rendered possible by leveraging on J CUBE's Hypersace and USDTalk technologies that respectively allow to handle the venn-intersection of functionalities of Alembic and USD at once, and allow to implement USD on arbitrary applications, regardless of architecture and compiler restrictions.
12 Aug 2016
J CUBE announces the release of Maneki, a fast, consistent, all-in-one Anime (アニメ) solution designed for efficient look-development, lighting and rendering of next-generation high-quality HD/4K toon content in Autodesk Maya. Maneki licenses the 3Delight rendering engine and is the core technology for the upcoming BLAME! Netflix/cinema movie in 2017. Maneki was also used on other productions, such as the Disney Tsum Tsum series and Marvel Tsum Tsum series.
25 Jul 2016
J CUBE announces the immediate release of Multiverse V3. This release introduces a new technology called Packed Geometry. This new design allows for managing into Maya and its Viewport 2.0 much larger amount of data, in a tighter memory footprint and at higher frame rates. This feature was developed to handle the large complexity in the upcoming Marvel's Doctor Strange movie.
24 Jul 2016
J CUBE announces that the upcoming movie adaptation of BLAME! is made entirely with its proprietary and upcoming Maneki look-developemnt & lighting technology which uses 3Delight for rendering. BLAME! will be released in October 2017 both at the cinemas in Japan and as a Netflix Original. Check out the BLAME! Trailer.
21 Jul 2016
J CUBE is proud to announce that its software Multiverse is being used for the whole Houdini to Maya data exchange FX pipeline in the movie "The Shallows" featuring very large water and particle simulations. Soho VFX from Toronto, Canada, was the company taking care of delivering the shots and is the first adopter of the Multiverse technology. 3Delight was used for all rendering.
07 Jan 2016
J CUBE expands the rendering back-end of Multiverse by adding support for the widely available Autodesk Arnold offline renderer in addition to the already supported 3Delight offline renderer by Illumination Research. All Multiverse data is procedurally rendered, including polygon meshes, subdivision surfaces, points, particles and curves, hair, fur.
08 Dec 2015
J CUBE announce the publication of Multi-Masks for Production Rendering as a technical memo. The Multi-Masks technology has been implemented in 3Delight for Maya and allows for arbitray output of Masks using set-based logic in Maya. You can read the technical memo on our Research page.
04 Nov 2015
Following the Multiverse annaouncement, J CUBE announces the immediate release of Multiverse for Maya (aka Multiverse V2), a complete, procedurally accessible Alembic pipeline solution for Autodesk Maya and 3Delight distributed as a time-limited demo version as well as under a commercial license scheme. Multiverse is powered by the omonym next generation data storage back-end to the widely used Alembic file format, whose benefits are now readily available in Maya. A new website is also available for this product, read more about it at multi-verse.io.
03 Nov 2015
J CUBE is proud to announce the publication of the Space-time Color Palette at SIGGRAPH Asia 2015 in Kobe, Japan. This technology allows for efficent usage of color palette data in traditional Japanese CG pipelines for Anime/Toon projects. You can read the poster on our Research page.
02 Nov 2015
J CUBE is proud to announce the publication of Multiverse at SIGGRAPH Asia 2015 in Kobe, Japan. You can read the poster on our Research page. J CUBE already released the Multiverse Alembic back-end technology as Open Source on GitHub under the very permissive Apache 2.0 License.
22 Jul 2015
J CUBE announces the immediate release of the Multiverse back-end for the widely used Alembic 3D interchange file format. Multiverse is a next generation data storage back-end for Alembic powered by Git. This new exciting technology is made available as Open Source on GitHub under the very permissive Apache License 2.0.
17 Jun 2013
Announcing the establishment of a new company, J CUBE Inc, in Japan. Paolo Berto Durante, representative partner of Jupiter Jazz Limited Hong Kong, will be building and leading a research & development team to improve the current technologies for 3D CGI VFX and potentially other fields. The J CUBE logo is designed by Paolo Berto Durante.
