After years of waiting, PMG has finally announced the arrival of their Messiah:studio. PMG also announced that a special advance release of Messiah:studio will ship in the first week of October 2001 and is available to anyone who is already scheduled to receive Messiah:studio, or anyone who purchases it before October 1, 2001. Many more details have been disclosed regarding PMG's animation and rendering package: Messiah:studio will feature a hierarchical expressions system, an integrated particle system (with real-time OpenGL motion blur), nonlinear animation editor, OpenGL supported toon shader, interactive (real-time) soft body dynamics, Renderman RIB output, etc. Messiah:studio is priced at $1395.

Monsieur Cinema has a short but nice interview with Guillaume Areto, art director at Dreamworks (French).

Chaotic Dimension [Chaos Group | Dimension DESIGN Animation Group] have updated their gallery with new pictures from VRay, SHAG:Hair, f-Edge and their realtime game FreeGen.

Wingededge.com has a *very* interesting article by master modeler Bay Raitt and Nichimen's Greg Minter on how to apply the principles of traditional sculpture to make great 3D characters.

Check out this new animated short done 100% with 3ds max by Anders Pedersen, John Haarup and Søren Larsen from Denmark.

Yes, that's Spanish... but the publisher said there would be an English version as well.. For now, try these links through the Blabberfish :
Book page
Index
  [ more... ]

Robert McNeel & Associates announced the release of Rhino 2.0, the latest version of their NURBS modeling software. There are lots of new features in this release, including hundreds of new modeling and editing commands, enhanced object snaps and selections, support for more import and export file formats and scripting capabilities through VBScript and JScript. A detailed list of features is available at Rhino3d.com. A plugin for importing Rhino 2.0 meshes into 3ds max 4 is already available.   [ more... ]

Autodesk announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire the software product line from Media 100, a provider of digital media products. With this acquisition, Autodesk's Discreet division will add streaming media capabilities to the Discreet family of products, allowing customers to create, distribute, re-purpose and publish media content for consumption via the Internet, corporate Intranets and IP-enabled devices such as cell phones and PDAs.   [ more... ]

Paul Debevec has updated his page with information on HDR Shop, an image editor designed to view and manipulate High-Dynamic Range images. The software allows you to create a high-dynamic range image by assembling images taken with a standard camera and may be freely downloaded for non-commercial purposes. There's also information on a device called Light Stage 3.0 that provides direct illumination of an actor with light generated according to a virtual environment (a real-world implementation of image-based lighting).

CNet's Builder.com has a great tutorial on using 3ds max and Macromedia Director to create a 3D character for the web.

Wisconsin-based Virtual Partners offers beginner and advanced Max classes and has now added intermediate through advanced Forensic Animation classes (September 13th-15th).

MaxMan Lite is a FREE reduced feature version of MaxMan that allows users who are interested in learning about Renderman-compliant renderers get started. It only supports 50 models and up to 10 shaders and does not support delayed read archives. MaxMan Lite replaces MaxMan_BMRT.

Pixar has made available the list of features for the next release of Photo Realistic RenderMan (PRMan). Check it out at Pixar.com.

Here's Digital Dimension music montage of some of their 3D work for NASCAR ON FOX.
Copyright FOX Sports, Images courtesy of Digital Dimension.
3D animations were created with Discreet's 3D MAX and composited with eyeon's Digital Fusion.
High Resolution WindowsMedia8 (18MB), Lower Resolution WindowsMedia8 (6MB)   [ more... ]

Darkling Simulations' DarkTree 2.0 procedural shader creation software is now available. This release brings new features such as much needed workflow enhancements, lots of new procedural components, "tweaks" (macro controls that can alter single or multiple parameters in the tree) and better integration with max. DarkTree 2.0 is scheduled to start shipping on August 28, and is priced at $479 (downloadable version at $459) for new users and $125 (downloadable version at $105) for registered users of DarkTree 1.
More information available at Darksim.com.

“PrometheanFX™ is a suite of special effects tools. It includes an easy-to-use particle effects editor, compositor, and SDK. Imagine quickly creating and easily compositing impressive special effects into your game's 3D Studio MAX™, Lightwave™, or Realsoft3D™ rendered cut-scenes. Then, in a few lines of code, plugging those SAME visual effects directly into your real-time 3D game engine! PrometheanFX™ allows you to include breathtaking special effects not yet seen in interactive computer games!”
More at DAM Entertainment.

IFilm has put online streaming versions of some of the short films presented at this year's SIGGRAPH. If you've missed the event here's your chance to see them.

Animated Translucency v0.98 by Grant Adam - Animated version of the Translucency script, builds translucency data for sequences. Multiple object support. Needs jblib and jbfunctions from www.johnburnett.com.
MaterialEditSelected v1.0 By Shawn Lewis - Selects/edits the texture of the currently selected object(s).
HairPlanter v2.0 By Jarek Dukat, ported by Swami Lama - Lets you plant hair on your objects. It generates lots of simple renderable shape objects to simulate hair.
TopCAT v0.12 by Borislav Petrov - Lets you expose parameters of modifiers on the stack or the base object to the top of the stack by creating Custom Attributes and wiring them to the original properties.   [ more... ]

DivXNetworks announced that DivX 4.0, the newest version of their codec (compressor/decompressor), is available for download. The new version features improved performance, faster encoding speed and near-DVD visual quality.

Lots of new images. Check 'em out!

Spheron is offering a digital camera that captures HDRI panoramas in a 2-minute scan. Check out also Spheron's gallery for some very nice panorama images (sample).

“A quick report on the show, all the things we showed, and a review of many of the questions asked”

“SAN FRANCISCO --(Aug. 20, 2001)-- Discreet announced that it has signed a second licensing agreement with Microsoft Corp. to create, publish and distribute Discreet gmax game packs for multiple Microsoft game titles. The highly anticipated epic role-playing game (RPG) Dungeon Siege(TM), developed by Gas Powered Games, is the next confirmed title to be published by Microsoft to include support for gmax software, and is scheduled for delivery in 2002.”

Some interesting numbers and facts regarding SIGGRAPH 2001 available at CGW.com. Also, SIGGRAPH's official website will have an online section soon containing recordings of audio, video, and slide presentations from many of SIGGRAPH's conferences.

Industry professionals give their views on animation on the Internet. Read the article at Digital Animators.

Sam Gebhardt, artist at Blur Studio has put up a website with some great concept sketches and 3D work. Check it out!

Thomas Suurland has added 249 new blueprints to his website (including 108 cars and 105 tanks). Check out his two mini-tutorials on how to use them with Max 4 and Rhino.

CGW reviews EI's Universe.
Computer Arts reviews Vue d'Esprit 4.
Computer Arts reviews Bryce 5 (now being developed and sold by Corel).
Creative-3d.net reviews World Builder 3.0.
Creative Pro reviews Painter 7 (also bought by Corel from Metacreations).
TDP's newsletter has a review of Mankua's PowerStamper plugin (available only to subscribers): "PowerStamper is one of those rare examples of a top quality tool for such a relatively low price".

Boujou 1.3 new features include tools for dealing with lens distortion, a batch-processing feature for 24/7 hands-off matchmoving, new scene geometry capabilities, and Flame, Inferno and Houdini export capabilities.
Read the whole PR.

Matt Clark has updated his website with more of his character work. He has also posted a great time-lapse movie tutorial sharing his techniques on subdivision modeling with Max and Meshtools. Definitely worth a look.

“Siggraph, August 2001: Not a Number™ (NaN) has announced the release of Blender Creator™ 2.20 at Siggraph, as the world wide community of active Blender users reaches over 250,000. This latest release is a major advance of the Blender 3D technology enabling software suite, strengthening the company’s mission to establish a universal platform for the creation and replay of real-time 3D.”
Press Release@NaN (MS Word doc)
Press Release@InsideCG (html)

Trinity3D have more information, including a 30-minute demo (in Windows Media), of finalRender up on their website.

Remember our 15 minutes of fame for Fractal Worlds ?
It has evolved beyond my expectations;
Check out Pandromeda's website for one of the most eyebrow raising 'terrain renderers' of late.
MojoWorld allows You to render entire worlds from far from outer space down to just several feet at high quality.
And perhaps more eyebrow raising is the user interface. Very wacky indeed.

Skin deformation by muscles is coming to 3ds max: Absolute Character Tools (ACT) is a new plugin by Snoswell Design that features an advanced and comprehensive set of objects and tools for the creation and animation of muscles and skin deformation by muscles. The tools are production ready and will be in beta testing for a short period following SIGGRAPH to test the implementation of a new user interface and high-level automation features. Price is yet to be announced but has been rumored to be between $1000-$2000.

Unreal Pictures, the company behind Character Studio, have updated their website.
On it, You'll find the Character Studio 'puppet' walking, running, dancing in Flash.   [ more... ]

The LA Times has a very interesting article on Henrik Wann Jensen's research on translucent materials.

SplutterFish announces the Brazil Rendering System 1.0, a new fully-integrated rendering suite for 3ds max. Brazil r/s is a full-latitude, floating-point renderer, built on a fast, efficient raytracing engine. It sports many advanced features such as camera and film effects, motion blur, depth of field/bokeh lens simulation, sophisticated filtering, anti-aliasing, and highly-evolved illumination and shading models including raytracing, caustics, global illumination, non-photoreal capabilities, and support for all the standard artistic "fakes". It is also compatible with a variety of volumetric and hair rendering systems. This commercial version of Brazil r/s will be available in Fall 2001.
Read the whole press release at Splutterfish.com.   [ more... ]

Simon Bunker has posted some HDRI shaders (download) for use with BMRT and a couple of Max scenes that work with these shaders and BMRT via MaxMan (Animal Logic's Max to Renderman plugin).

The specifications for version 1.3 of the OpenGL standard are now available from opengl.org in a 1.8meg PDF file.   [ more... ]

3hird Dimension has signed a non-exclusive distribution agreement with Digimation for worldwide distribution of quCat™. Digimation will promote, sell and distribute quCat™ primarily to the 3D studio Max community”   [ more... ]

“Imagine yourself(camera) at the bottom of a staircase looking up, and a light shining in from a door at the upper right of the staircase. Your basic global illumination scene of light shining in a window and lighting up a room.
It rendered about as fast as the scanline renderer with no grain.
You should go down to Siggraph and check it out.
Scott [Kirvan] also said the caustics are not hooked in right now, but everything will be working fine in about 2 weeks. Very nice guy too, I must say.”   [ more... ]

Intel announced that it has developed a new software technology called Light Field Mapping (LFM) that helps to create more life-like 3-D images for interactive applications, such as games, by correctly modeling light reflection properties of 3-D objects. LFM has the potential of making interactive photo-realistic computer graphics possible on the PC, improving texture mapping. Intel Labs researchers will present technical details of this technology at SIGGRAPH.
More information and some animations created with LFM techniques available at Intel.com.

“New version features the first automated stereoscopy creation solution and ColorCode 3-D™ software solution to bring stereoscopy to the Web”   [ more... ]

CGW has a short article on Bionatics' plant creation applications.

Leonard Teo of InsideCG.com has put up a report on his impressions at this year's SIGGRAPH.

Yep, you've read that right. Softimage announced SOFTIMAGE|3D v4.0 software at Siggraph 2001. New features and enhancements include multiple UV texturing vertex color shading, interactive editing of shading normals and additions to the Saaphire SDK. SOFTIMAGE|3D v4.0 software, which will also support the Linux platform, is scheduled for release in Fall 2001.

Equilibrium announced the availability of DeBabelizer Pro 5 for Windows, a graphics tool for automatically preparing digital images, animations, and digital video for delivery in virtually any medium. This upgrade includes batch processing capabilities such as command line control and conditional scripting, automated Web catalog publishing, and Digimarc digital watermarking. The new version also supports RealVideo conversion, optimized color palettes for PalmOS and WindowsCE, and enhanced GIF and JPEG compression.

CGW has an article on ILM's work for Jurassic Park III.

CGW has an article on CG actors and their role in Final Fantasy.

Digital Game Developer have a short review of Chaotic Group's Phoenix 1.5 online.

At Siggraph 2001 NVidia, in association with Square, presented a 'realtime' rendering demo of Final Fantasy (the movie).
You can find more information and a few pictures at : http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=final_fantasy

PMG will demo Messiah:studio 3D integrated animation package, composed of Messiah:animate, Messiah:render, and Messiah:develop. Both Messiah:render and Messiah:animate will also be pipeline capable for 3ds max, Maya, Softimage, and LightWave.   [ more... ]

Discreet announced Combustion 2, the latest version of its paint, animation and 3D compositing software. New features include support for new multi-format project capabilities (including video, HDTV, and 64-bit color), an interactive schematic view, an intuitive compositing flowchart designed to make complex visual effects creation faster and simpler, a fully-integrated 2D particle system, an expansive and interactive text and motion graphics module, and garbage masking technology compatible with Inferno, Flame and Flint.   [ more... ]

More news from SIGGRAPH. NewTek announced and is currently shipping LightWave 3D v7. LightWave 7 includes new features such as a Motion Mixer for non-linear animation, a revamped particle system (with simple crowd simulation, fluid dynamics and interparticle collision), basic hair and fur rendering via Sasquatch Lite and a Dope sheet for complex scene management.
For more information read the press release or visit Lightwave3d.com.

Eyematic Interfaces announced the availability of Eyematic FaceStation, a software/hardware system that streamlines facial animation and seamlessly integrates with animation packages. FaceStation allows film, television and interactive game animators to create and drive facial character animation in real-time.   [ more... ]

Side Effects announced Houdini Select, a lower-priced version of Houdini that will feature a subset of its functionality. Houdini Select will include complete modeling, animation, texturing and integrated rendering with Houdini Mantra and will have a retail price of US$1999.   [ more... ]

REALVIZ introduced Automatic MatchMover, an update to the company's 3D camera-tracking application. MatchMover's automatic 3D camera tracker detects relevant 2D features in an image sequence and turns them into accurate 3D scene and camera moves. Track selection, 2D tracking and 3D tracking are all performed completely automatically.   [ more... ]

Sitni Sati has announced that it's currently developing DreamScape, a dynamic natural scenery plugin that will enable users to create realistic landscapes, various atmospheric conditions, sea surfaces and daylight calculations. It will also provide animation capabilities.

“This Performance Pack is the result of a collaboration between Discreet and Intel to provide optimizations for Pentium® 4- and Pentium® III-based 3ds max 4.2 users. Performance increases on other platforms, including AMD, are likely, but not guaranteed. Pentium® 4 performance increases are the most significant. No effective performance decreases have been observed on or between any platforms as a result of these optimizations.”
Read full document(!)
Download the update.

VfxPro's show coverage
Wired has an article on some of the things you can expect to see.
Discreet's Siggraph 2001 site

2001 is definitely the "Year of the Renderers" for SIGGRAPH. Steamboat Software will be showing Jig v1.5, the latest version of their 3D rendering software. Among the added features to Jig v1.5 are JiggyT, the software's graphical user interface, network rendering with viewer, ExplosivoT, a new and improved particle pipeline and increased performance and functionality of hair and volume rendering.   [ more... ]

Exluna has updated its gallery dedicated to the Entropy renderer with some test images (render times included). Check 'em out!

“Illustrate! 5.2 is released
====
If you are using 3DS Max 4.2 then you MUST upgrade to this new version. The upgrade from 5.0, 5.1 is free!”   [ more... ]

CGI Magazine has a very interesting article on the influence physics engines are having on video games (hosted at Havok.com).

CGChannel has a review of Reactor, 3ds max dynamics plugin.
CGI Magazine also reviews Reactor.

Newriders is holding a 3ds max design contest. The grand prize includes Reactor, and the New Riders' 3D Library. Entries will be accepted through September 4, 2001.

Squirrely Productions is developing SceneExplorer, a new plugin that helps users simplify and speed-up day-to-day workflow by consolidating various Max features into one window. It provides access to a Max scene through an explorer-style tree that shows different objects' types and lets users have direct access to hidden/frozen states, among other features. The SceneExplorer is currently in an open beta program and may be downloaded from S.P.'s website.

Blur Studio's new website is online with lots of images and animations from their latest projects. Check it out!

Sun Microsystems and Side Effects Software announced that Houdini will be available on Solaris. A beta is expected by fall of 2001. Press release.

The consumer version of gmax will be available as a free download to gamers in fall 2001 and will come packed with 3D modeling, animation, texturing and character building tools. At QuakeCon (a multiplayer gaming event held in Texas, close to id Software's headquarters), Discreet is offering hands-on demos and training for gmax, based on 3ds max.   [ more... ]

Facial Studio is a new plugin by Di-O-Matic that lets you build faces parametrically, with more than 400 controls over the head (including nose, mouth, eyes, ears, teeth, tongue, etc.). It also provides a Sub-Surface Scattering Shader that lets you simulate skin (!). More info available at Diomatic.com (check out also the gallery section).

Andrew Camenisch, an MFA student at Mississippi State University has put up a useful resource with information on how to model a human head.

Dimension DESIGN Animation Group (SHAG:Hair/Fur) have put up a demo of their FreeGen realtime game.
  [ more... ]

Areté GAMEWare is an optimized middleware solution for game developers derived from Areté's RenderWorldT technology that generates polygonal wave surface geometry, textures, and dynamic buoyancy FX. The GAMEWare C++ API features a simple-to-use collection of natural FX objects that can be easily integrated into any game engine.
Read the whole P.R. at Digitalproducer.com.

Exluna's bridge product for 3ds max and 3D Studio VIZ is scheduled for release this fall and will be bundled with their renderer. The interface plugin will be displayed at SIGGRAPH (Discreet's booth).

Some very nice images at Sitni Sati's Games and Big Screen reference sections, check them out.

Precision Lightworks is bringing image-based modeling to 3ds max with their NVerse Photo plugin. NVerse Photo also comes with NVerse Terra, a plugin with which USGS DEM files can be imported into MAX.

Pandromeda's site has finally been updated with some details on their MojoWorld fractal world exploration product. Looks interesting. Check out their still, animation and QTVR galleries.

“San Francisco, California —August 7 , 2001—Macromedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: MACR) Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) and Macromedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: MACR) today announced a strategic partnership that will accelerate the deployment of interactive 3D content to the web by uniting the worlds of 3D authoring and web design. By bundling a complete version of Macromedia Director 8.5 with the standard priced shipping version of its popular 3ds max animation solution, Discreet is empowering its large designer community with the 3D capabilities of the Macromedia Shockwave Player, which is available on more than 200 million Web desktops worldwide. The co-marketing partnership and bundle arrangement is for 3ds max 4 and Macromedia Director 8.5, beginning in mid-August 2001” Press Release

Please refer to Neil's (Soulburn) comment to the "Rumor" posting.

3DGate reviews After Effects 5.

A "work in progress" version of the next release of Character Studio will reportedly be shown at this year's SIGGRAPH.

InsideCG reviews Cinema 4D XL 7.1. There's some information on Cinema 4D's new GI renderer that hints at what features could be expected from Cebas' finalRender.

Three new Max tutorials at http://nawyecky.webhop.net, Combining multiple procedural textures, Yet another way of faking global illumination, and Using the Virtual Viewport.

Max3D reviews ThinkingParticles, rule-based particle system plugin.

Check out some great images at Splutterfish.com. Artists who have images posted at the gallery may be interested in reading the latest news update.

Bionatics announced natFX, a 3D plant modeler using behavioral animation technology soon to be available for 3ds max. The new software enables users to model with only a few mouse clicks, realistic textured plants that take into account factors such as wood flexibility, leaf attachment strength and branch to trunk attachment. Using bio-computing technology, it allows for easy and quick animation of complex vegetation.   [ more... ]

Blur Studio will kick off the Electronic Theater at this year's SIGGRAPH with a two-minute computer-animated short that pokes fun at "2001: A Space Odyssey". The animation tells the tale of the ascent of man and the rise of computer animation.
Read the whole PR.

cebas computer have finally (no pun intended) opened up their finalRender website.