Ill be writing more about the features in the future. Here is the bullet list from the Shade 10 press release:

• Multipass Rendering. Render images into layered TIFF files that allow post processing of each discreet effect
• Workflow Enhancements. New, interactive 3D manipulator, custom work planes, fully customizable viewports
• Fur Support, New Hair Operations. New support for adding 3D fur, hair masks, additional hair styling tools, hair collision detection and gravity
• Switch Joint. A new interactive joint object allows models to switch between alternative geometry.
• External Surface, Geometry References. Shade 10 files can reference external surface materials, geometry and more
• Global Illumination Enhancements. Path Tracing + Photon Mapping, save Irradiance Cache, Irradiance Cache with Shade GRID
• Toon Rendering Features. New Half Tone and Color Half Tone presets, multipass rendering with Toon Renderer
• PoserFusion: Poser 8, Poser Units. New support for Smith Micro Poser 8 for incorporating or hosting Poser characters in Shade. Improved Poser units support for developing content for Poser.
• Export to COLLADA. Now export Shade models to industry standard COLLADA for use in other applications, game engines, simulations
• Export to Second Life. New export Shade models as sculpted prims for use in Linden Labs MMO
• Export to Blue Mars. New export Shade models as digital assets for the Avatar Reality MMO
• Native 64 bit operations on Mac OS X. Supported with Mac OS X 10.6 on Intel

Shade 10 is available in three different versions: Designer ($49), Standard ($249) and Professional ($899).

MultiPass Rendering is a way to render images into discreet layers, with each layer containing specific elements. For example, here is a render that incoporated global illumination components.  The image below it captures only those elements associated with global illumination information.

That image looks kind of murky, doesn’t it? Well that’s okay.

So What is the Big Deal about MultiPass Rendering?

MultiPass Rendering doesn’t add anything new to your render, but it empowers you in so many ways to improve your renders. If you are a regular Adobe PhotoShop user, you already have some notion about what I am talking about.  When it comes to MultiPass Rendering, its more important about what the layer leaves out rather than what it includes.

With MultiPass Rendering, you can go back and do some powerful things through post processing. One simple reason might be that you want to do a post processing trick of taking only the background of a scene and turn it into black and white, while leaving the subject of your composition in full color. You can assign an object to a layer with an Object ID, before rendering. This will place the object itself into a separate layer – allowing you to select all layers other than the object layer, and transforming it into grayscale with in simple step in Photoshop.

MultiPass Rendering can work with visual elements as well as actual objects in a scene.  For example, having each discreet object rendered into its own layer (object), vs rendering all refraction information into a layer (parameter).

Do I Have to Use MultiPass Rendering?

Not at all – you can go ahead and render your image just like you are used to. The only downside of the old way is that, if you want to make a lot of changes to objects within your render, you’ll spend a lot more time in a product like PhotoShop.

Because of its origins and long customer involvement, the Shade development team has been very, very careful to change the customer experience in a way that would disrupts traditional workflow.  At the same time,  the Shade development team wants to meet the expectations of more recent generations of 3D designers – especially at the root of the customer experience – interaction with objects in a scene.

Shade 10 introduces a major tool addition: the 3D manipulator. In Shade 9 or earlier, if you wanted to move or resize and object interactively, you’d leverage command keys or go to Tools > Move menu. You can still do that in Shade 10, however now you can interactively manipulate objects in the Figure Window.

Here is a typical layout in Shade 10, using multiple display options and the universal mode of the 3D manipulator:

Shade 10 Figure Window with 3D Manipulator

You can interact with any object using the 3D manipulator. Here is the universal manipulator cage with a single camera in Perspective view:

Shade 10 Perspective View Showing Camera and 3D Manipulator

Often you will only want to modify one aspect of your object or scene, so using a universal mode tool increases the chance you’ll make an unintended change. For that reason, you can also limit the 3D manipulator to just one mode.

Maybe you only want to move an object along an axis – you can limit the 3D manipulator only to Translate mode:

Shade 10 Camera with 3D Manipulator - Translate Mode

Just need to change the size of your current object? Limit the 3D manipulator to Scale mode:

Shade 10 Camera with 3D Manipulator - Scale Mode

What about rotating your selected object? Use the 3D manipulator in Rotate mode:

Shade 10 Camera with 3D Manipulator - Rotate Mode

With its long history, there is a chance some long term Shade users will want to stay with the old tried-and-true methods. If you are one of those users, you don’t have to worry – the 3D manipulator can be turned off.

The Shade 10 Beta is distributed without most of the Shade content. All Shade 9 content works with Shade 10!

The beta period is to help our engineers find any major issues with the software, as well as pick out issues with the localization into English. Our localization team has translated many new strings in the application, as well as fixed some existing language issues that have been with the software since at least Shade 8.

Shade has always had one of the least cluttered interfaces of all 3D applications – and Shade users like that! With Shade, you aren’t shuttled between workspaces or pushing away dozens of panels or navigating menus five levels deep. With Shade 10, your workspace is still entirely unburdened – several new additions plus several small interface tweaks makes it easier to  find the tools you need and less cluttered than any previous version of Shade.

The Shade 9 Figure Window let you grab your four viewports by the edges or at the intersection for live resizing. The Shade 10 Figure Window lets you customize workspace in many more ways.

You still have your four viewports – but now each one of them is independently customizable.  Say goodbye to hard coded viewports!

Yes, you still have your top, front, right side and perspective views when you first start up.  Now each viewport has a control bar and each has two new menu items on them: the View Menu and Display Menu.

Shade 10 View Menu

The new View Menu is where you can select what each port displays from any of eight different types: Perspective, Top, Bottom, Right Side, Left Side, Front, Back and UV. UV lets you jump right in to view your UV map if you are working with polygon meshes.

Shade 10 Display Menu

Now lets move on over to the right where we find the Display Menu. The first thing you can customize for each view is your display mode – from wireframe to full texture preview – with or without wireframes.  There are a few other display controls in this menu, including lighting options for when you are modeling.

Do some mousing around with your mouse wheel. Your mouse wheel is finally usable in Shade for zooming! But mouse zoom is fairly smart, too – if your main view is set to perspective, it won’t zoom unless you select it or you switch one of your other view ports to perspective.