You’re always improving your craft, and we’re always improving KeyShot Studio so that it better supports your design workflow. Upgrade to the latest version to access the new Custom Pivot tool, OpenPBR, Cryptomatte, depth of field lock, up to 85% faster displacements, up to 50% faster AMD performance, and more!
Speed up your workflow with the latest updates — here’s a step-by-step guide
1. Grouping hotkeys + custom pivot
Create your own pivot points (including axes) from scratch without relying on the CAD application and author.
By clicking on “Custom Pivot” from within the Move tool, you can manually move the pivot point for the select part(s) around. If you want to select a precise pivot, simply use one of the available modes to automatically find the center of the most appropriate shape.
In Sphere mode, click twice to find the center of a spherical shape. This is great when moving the elements of a ball joint, for example.
In Corner mode, you’re instructed to click on three planes. The pivot will then be placed at the intersection point of the planes, i.e. the corner where the clicked surfaces meet. You can also click “Done” after clicking two planes. This will place the pivot along the exact edge of the clicked surfaces.
In Cylinder mode, you’ll click on two points along the curvature of a cylinder. This places the pivot on the exact center axis of the cylinder. A third click on either end of the cylinder will then move the pivot to the center of the respective cap. This is extremely useful when a part slides along a rod or to find the correct axis for pushing a round button in or out.
2. Open PBR Support
Transfer files from Rhino through the importer or plugin, from Blender through the plugin and from GLTF/GLB files through the importer into Studio while maintaining the original material parameters. There is no conversion from source to KeyShot material as KeyShot Studio now simply supports the source materials.
3. Cryptomatte Support
Cryptomatte is a solution that makes selecting the different parts in a rendering trivial by leveraging the fact that renderings are made based off of 3D scenes that already contain the information of where the different parts are. It is an open standard, essentially extra information, that can be enabled as a Render Pass in KeyShot Studio 2025.3 and later. The Cryptomatte information is then exported along the rendered image as an EXR file and can be imported into post-production software that supports Cryptomatte.
4. Material graph updates
ADock, zoom & panning now available
The material graph window is now dockable, making it possible to slot it into the rest of the KeyShot Studio UI. Functionality has also been added to make working with the graph itself easier: zooming in and out now targets the mouse cursor location, panning is unlocked, a visual grid can be shown to help align nodes and snapping is available to easily organize graphs.
5. Automated CAD metadata
KeyShot Studio 2025.3 now transfers metadata from your CAD application to KeyShot Studio. This works with the plugin for PTC Creo and the importers for PTC Creo, Solidworks, Solid Edge, Catia and Siemens NX.
The metadata is loaded, filtered and displayed in KeyShot Studio. Filters control which fields are shown and can be stored and loaded to and from a file. That makes it possible for a group of users to use the same exact filter.
6. Depth of Field lock
No more manual re-focusing as you’re working on your scene.
With the new “Keep Focus” toggle in the Depth of Field section of the Camera settings, cameras automatically re-focus when moved. This allows you to set the correct focus distance once and then tweak the camera position without further issues.
7. Faster displacements
With KeyShot Studio 2025.3, refreshing displacements has become significantly faster. The exact speed up is very dependent on the original surface geometry, displacement settings and texture. In some cases, we have measured a change from 10 to 1.5 seconds, which is an improvement of 85%. The visual outcome is unaffected and identical.
8. Up to 50% faster AMD performance
Upgrade to 2025.3 for an instant speed boost.
9. AI Shots Workflows
AI Shots in KeyShot Studio 2025.3 stores all generated AI images permanently, until specifically deleted by the user. This works like a typical digital photo camera or your phone’s photo library. It is possible to multi-select AI Shots and bulk delete them.
It is now possible to compare the AI-generated images, and their 3D rendered source directly by clicking on a toggle on each AI Shot.
There is also a new share button in the top-right corner of each AI Shot that allows you to set an AI-generated image as a backplate with a single click. Users can even drag and drop AI Shots into their 3D view to add new backplates even quicker.
10. Light position lock axis
Earlier this year, we introduced the new Light Layers tool. In the latest version of Studio, you can use the Light Layers tool to mask lights in a way that emphasizes elements within the scene, and you can use the new light position and shift lock axis while enhancing your scene.
11. UI updates and improvements
Rhino Importer Instancing
Rhino scenes now transfer faster into KeyShot Studio via the plugin. Some scenes that were previously too large to load into KeyShot Studio will now work, since instancing reduces the memory footprint of scenes. There is also no difference in this regard between using the plugin or importer for Rhino, making the overall user experience simpler.
Tri-Planar Shaders
It is now possible to connect both images and procedural textures to the Tri-planar node. The Projection X/Y/Z slots have been maintained for compatibility with older versions of KeyShot Studio and new Texture X/Y/Z slots have been added that can be used to project procedural textures onto surfaces.
This makes it possible to directly connect a procedural texture like the Marble node to the Tri-planar node without having to create any images in external programs. This also means that the parameters of the marble, its color, scale and so on, can simply be always tweaked within the material graph, as they are not baked into the image texture.
