New Maxscripts by Borislav Petrov:
- snap3DS 3.1: Snapshot meshes on each frame and export as a single mesh to .3DS (or any other supported format). Originally developed for Quake II character animation export.
- FlattenVertexColors/OptimizeVertexColors: Reduce Vertex Colors to the Mesh Vertices Count or Remove duplicated Vertex Colors per Mesh Vertex.

Two Character Studio 3 reviews: one at Planet3DArt and another at Computer Creative.
Max Havok Pro dynamics plugin also reviewed at Computer Creative.

Impulse has released the latest version of their particle effects system and compositing tool, Illusion. New features include larger particle shape sizes (up to 2048x2048), improved motion blur, and area emitters.  An upgrade from version 1 is $40.

A report on Digital Media World, a video/CG related event held a couple of weeks ago in London, is available at Visual Magic Magazine.

Right Hemisphere has made available a demo of Deep Paint 3D, its 3D texture painting program along with Texture Weapons, an extension to Deep Paint 3D with advanced mapping tools. Maxon has also released a demo version of its own flavor of 3D texture creation: BodyPaint 3D.
Cebas is currently working on a plugin that communicates BodyPaint with Max.

More information available on Next Limit's Lightwave to Max geometry converter: it features animated geometry, object motion and camera info conversion (as its name implies, though, there is no texture translation support).

A balloon in the pool (Realwave 2 tutorial)
Modeling Alloy Wheels using Surface modifier

Joe Alter's hair grooming, dynamics and rendering tool now supports Renderman directly from within the stand-alone user interface, as well as via its Renderman plugin. This means that hair and hair dynamics can be applied with Shave and a Haircut to any Max scene as long as you're using Renderman or a Renderman-compliant renderer for output.
More info available at Joe Alter's site.

Asetolf, a Max to Lightflow converter has been updated. Check it out at http://web.tiscalinet.it/asetolf

Onyx Computing announces release 5.0 of its procedural tree creator TREE Professional. The new version 5 expands on the choices of 3D export file formats, introduces sunlight and shadow casting, and is accompanied by TREE Library with an even larger selection of tree presets. TREE Storm 5 Max plugin also available.

Check out this !
It rocks !
Final Fantasy Images

The Shrek Trailer is now online, enjoy it at countingdown.com, Shrek is next PDi/DreamWorks feature film.

The response to the initial release of (the project currently codenamed) Ghost has been overwhelmingly positive - check out the ghost gallery to see some of the new images that have been done.  The first Update, 0.0.1a is now available up at the downloads page - the update fixes a couple of bugs.   [ more... ]

TerraScape, a procedural landscape generator plugin for Max is now shipping. Features include special modifiers to aid in the creation of topology, a landscape material that bases its generation on the existing terrain's elevation and slope angle, and tools to help optimize terrain creation for run-time game engines.
Click here for more.
Digimation is offering a migration upgrade for previous owners of the Four Elements plugin until the 12-31-2000, contact them for details.

Shares of ADSK stock jumped 18 percent today after yesterdays announcement that third-quarter operating profits jumped 31 percent .  This represents a 10 percent sales improvement over the same quarter last year and earnings topped analysts' estimates by 4 cents per share.   Story on Yahoo Finance.

DesignFreak has a preview of 3Ds max 4, including several Quicktime clips covering some of the new features. These clips are different than those released at Discreet, and cover some features in greater detail.

The Ghost Rendering System is finally out of the gates.  This is alpha level software, so be careful.  The release provides a technology preview of the project currently codenamed "Ghost," and is aimed at testing some of the core systems including the internal rendering management and ray server.  From the welcome page:  "Ghost is a new, state of the art rendering engine that is being designed around the principles of extensibility, portability, modularity, distributability, stability, and reliability."  After seeing some of the imagery already being produced, I would like to add "quality" to that list :-)  Be sure to check out the new image in the ghost gallery.

A useful little script by the president of VR Boboland that lets you "pick an object from the scene and see which lights affect its illumination". Go check it out.

Michele Bousquet, author of many 3D Studio Max and Character Studio related books has finished her new book dedicated to Character Studio R3 animation. "Learn everything there is to know about animating with Character Studio R3. Includes creation of crowd scenes, the new, easy-to-use IK controls, plus all the basics."
The book is scheduled to start shipping on December 4, 2000 and there's a special pre-release price for orders placed before Dec. 1st.
A couple of animations made with Char. Studio R3 are also available from the site in the downloads section.

Netscape has released version 6 of its browser. Netscape 6 has been years in the making and is the result of the Mozilla open-source effort. Its core rendering engine "Gecko", has been optimized for fast rendering speeds of complex HTML objects such as nested tables and the overall size of the browser has been kept surprisingly small.
Click here to download Netscape 6.
Click here to read an article at CNet.com.

Pixar will be working with Disney on its fourth computer animated co-production. The new film will be titled "Finding Nemo" (described as "a father-son underwater adventure") and is scheduled for a summer 2003 release.

Square has released the theatrical trailer for it's feature film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, in Quicktime format.

Walking a dog with Character Studio 3
Exploding a car
Creating wood textures

A couple of interesting interviews:
- Daniel Robichaud, who worked on Titanic at Digital Domain among other projects, explains thoroughly the process behind "Tightrope", a short film he designed while working at DD.
- Terrence Walker, the man behind "Understanding Chaos", shares the highs and lows of working on his self-funded science fiction short film.

Discreet has updated their website with info on 3ds max 4, including explanations and video clips of new features, and many screenshots of the new interface.

ID8 Media and Discreet invite you to Animation Launch Party for new version of 3D Studio MAX. More details available here.

Id8media has released a document describing the new features available in the upcoming release 4 of 3D Studio Max. Get it here.

3DLuVr has posted the results of the last contest and has a new contest titled "Iron Horse". This new contest marks 3DLuVer's 2nd anniversary of contests, and to celebrate, it includes an amazing first prize. Go see for yourself at 3DLuVr.

Windows DirectX API reaches version 8.0 with new features aimed at game developers such as: improved graphics authoring tool integration to ease development of 3-D characters and environments, vertex shaders and pixel shaders to improve image realism, improved DirectPlay performance and scalability for massively multiplayer games, etc.
Click here for more.

Creating a lizard
Modeling a light post with 3 different polygon limits in 3D Studio MAX
Creating a realistic apple using only procedural textures

Sitni Sati has updated its volumetric lighting effects plugin ScatterVL Pro to version 1.1 introducing such enhancements as automatic light disc creation and AfterBurn Daemons support. Gallery section also updated at Sitni Sati's website.

Scheduled for a February 2001 release, Max 4 was announced by Discreet yesterday at Satis, Paris. According to 3DVF, features shown or mentioned (besides the ones already seen at SIGGRAPH) are the new Mental Images' HSDS implementation, 3D bones (bones are now configured in 3D space and directly influence skinning envelopes), soft body dynamics, and the integration of Intel's Multires to define the number of faces in an object and to be able to animate that number depending on its distance to the camera.   [ more... ]

Neil Blevins has posted some new test images rendered in the ghost rendering system.

Maxon announces the features of BodyPaint 3D, it's new 3D painting program, that will be shipping in November.

Nsight 3DSkies is a collection of realistic pre-rendered skies that represent a variety of weather and lighting conditions. Skies are high resolution pics provided in both a 3D version (mapped onto a dome, ready to merge with your Max scene) and a high resolution backdrop.
Click here for more.

Create a woman's torso
How-To Model a Patch Flower
Making a photo-realistic orange using the Material Editor and Loft
Modeling a hydraulic piston

A very interesting article written by Sun's co-founder and chief scientist Bill Joy for Wired magazine that opens a window to what we may be facing in the next 20 to 30 years due to the advancement of new technologies.
"Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species..."

PressRelease here - The show is in London, 14-16 November, and the new plugins are:  ThinkingParticles, BunchOfVolumes 2.0, and a plug-in connection to Bodypaint 3D

Download it from Next Limit's site. Realwave 2 features' list also updated.

Frame blending be gone! ReelSmart Twixtor is an After Effects plugin developed by RE:Vision Effects that intelligently slows down, speeds up or changes the frame rate of your image sequences. Features include:
- Calculation of motion vectors at each pixel.
- Warping and interpolation of frames to "time warp" input footage
- Smart processing of fields in the input and output as appropriate
- Stretching of a sequence using a single scaling parameter
- Keyframable retiming for complete control on a frame by frame basis
- Frame rate conversions made easy (supported in After Effects only)
ReelSmart Twixtor works with After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Commotion and Combustion and other programs that support After Effects plug-ins.

The SyncMaster 240T offers an active resolution of 1920 x 1200 and a 170 degree viewing angle at a 16:10 HDTV compatible aspect ratio. The dual 2-in-1 display provides both digital and analog inputs and is a computer monitor for viewing graphics as well as video monitor for direct hook up to a VCR, DVD player, camcorder or even display High Definition TV (HDTV).
Read the whole press release.

"Introducing the Interactive Training CD for Phoenix 1.0. This CD contains 7 completely new tutorials on how to make the most of Phoenix in an interactive multimedia format."
Click here for more.

3.x patch is free for current ComicShop users. ComicShop is also now for sale for MAX R3.x at a reduced price.
Click here to download the patch.
Click here for more info on The Incredible ComicShop plugin.

For those who were not at Siggraph, or those who want to saw it again, Enjoy
Now Playing at iFilm