Side Effects Software also says new character animation and compositing programs are

TORONTO, Canada (May 30, 2002) -- Side Effects Software has lowered the price of Houdini Select and is providing free site licenses for its rendering application Houdini Mantra to all customers who are currently on the Annual Upgrade Plan for one or more full Houdini licenses.

The company also says it will announce two new 3D products in the near future: a stand-alone character animation program and a compositing/image effects program.

nVidia have put up a video of stuff done for/with their GeForce 4 card.

FireWire Trademark, Logo & Symbol to be Used on Products, Packaging and to Promote 1394 Compliance

DALLAS and CUPERTINO, California—May 29, 2002—The 1394 Trade Association (TA) and Apple® today announced that the FireWire® trademark, logo and symbol have been adopted as a brand identity for the IEEE 1394 connection standard in a no-fee license agreement between the TA and Apple. In addition, Apple has granted the TA the right to sub-license the FireWire Trademark for use on products, packaging and promotion of the standard

3DLuVr has posted their new Contest assignment : "In the Lab"
Lots of neat prizes again, but more importantly - more showing off of Your talents.
Deadline : July 7th, 2002

Real-Time, Through-the-lens Compositing of Effects Shots A Great Advance for Directors and Performers

OXFORD, UK May 29th, 2002 – Vicon, 2d3 and Kaydara have teamed up to show an advanced pipeline for pre-visualisation during the creation of effects shots. Featuring a Vicon 8i motion capture system, boujou2 for automated tracking of effects footage, and Filmbox 3.5 for visualization of the composited shot, the pipeline allows directors to see a highly accurate representation of the finished shot while directing the talent during the take.

New Orleans, LA – May 29th, 2002 – Digimation, Inc. announced today the immediate availability of SpeedTreeMAX™ - a powerful new virtual tree creation plug-in developed by Interactive Data Visualization (IDV) for use with Discreet’s 3ds max 4x   [ more... ]

Havok is looking for great animations done with 3ds max and Reactor for their demoreel. If you have material you would like to submit please contact Ross O'Dwyer.

Using Discreet products like 3ds max?  Creating cool work you would like to showcase?  Discreet is seeking submissions for their SIGGRAPH 2002 show reel. 
For more information go to http://www.discreet.com/events/siggraph2002_submissions_text.html

New pictures at Raphael Benedet's 3D Artists gallery.

CGFocus has a brief interview on the direction of many of discreet's products.   [ more... ]

Discreet have released Service Pack 1 for Combustion 2
Read the PDF for a complete list of things addressed (lots).

The good people at CG Channel have reviewed Boxx Technologies' 3DBOXX system.
“Boxx Technologies appears to be aiming this product at graphics people who find Dell, HP/Compaq and IBM machines price tags hard to swallow, but want a quality product that is fully tested and works out of-the-box. Good specifications, great design, helpful technical support and a competitive price.”

Twisted Pictures (site's in Dutch) used 3ds max, 'Arnold' and even SimCloth to help produce Deadline - a short Dutch horror movie created by AV enthusiasts on a budget of €4000 starring a relatively high profile actor, Cas Jansen.
To see some stuff from behind the scenes actually pertaining to the 3d side, check Stefan Radermakers' website.

Muse Communications have put their MDK (Muse Development Kit) available.

“Muse-Lite is a unique next-generation PC tool that delivers a stunning new user interface experience. With Muse-Lite, the average computer user is now able to enjoy the Internet's richest media content while sharing the experience with other users simultaneously. Muse operates like a "super browser" allowing the user to operate in a 3D, multi-user environment while browsing multiple web pages, watching movies, listening to music, chatting, or viewing other computer applications. Muse-Lite is free for download today!”

The MDK comes with a 3ds max 'toolbox'.

More people seem to be running around grabbing HDRI images (with thanks to many new digicams' RAW modes);
Vienna at Night

But other than for rendering and all kinds of analysis, HDRI may seem a bit pointless - displaying and printing the lovely snapshots just doesn't work that well.
Here's a nice new paper entered for Siggraph 2002 which addresses this very problem :
Gradient Domain High Dynamic Range Compression

“This tutorial is complex from the point of view of modeling!
http://www.3dm-mc.com/tutorials/car/”   [ more... ]

Toshiba announced that it has developed the world's first large flexible liquid crystal display, opening the way to the display of images on curved screens and moving toward the long-term goal of foldable LCDs. The new display is a full color, 8.4-inch super-slim low-temperature polysilicon active-matrix TFT LCD supporting SVGA resolution.

Dust on your footage? Here's a very useful program for anyone who's been working on the tedious process of removal of objects from filmed footage. Pixeldust automates this task and rebuilds the background to replace the removed objects. Pixeldust uses vision science technology to provide automated assistance in a time-consuming post-production task. With little or no interaction required from the user, Pixeldust can remove any or all moving or still foreground objects from a scene and reconstruct the obscured parts of the background. Pixeldust is schedule to ship in Q4 2002 for the Windows and Linux platforms.
Check out the sample movies at 2d3's website and read the whole PR at Computer Graphics World online.

FaceStation uses Eyematic’s patented computer vision software engines to automatically recognize and track facial expressions from either a live video camera or pre-recorded video clips. In real-time actual facial expressions are analyzed, captured and used to animate fully shaded 3D models in Max. No motion capture hardware, facial markers or offline rendering processes are required. A free eval is available at www.eyematic.com/products_facestation.html   [ more... ]

IDV's SpeedTreeMAX is finally shipping. More information at our previous news item.

Cebas have released a patch for finalRender with some fixes and enhancements. They are also currently working on Stage-1 of their renderer.

“Chaos Group announced today that the DEMO version of their renderer VRay is available for download from their site.
http://www.vrayrender.com/home

The demo version of VRay is based on the full-featured VRay Advanced version but is timelocked, watermarked and unable to save render parameters to MAX files.

They also announced the initial VRay 30% discount promotion will expire on June 02,2002.”

Hollywood Studio Ocean Monsters will be using Brazil r/s for over 30 effects shots it will create for the upcoming film In the Shadow of the Cobra which range from complete 3d CGI to 3d/live action.

“SANTA CLARA, CA — MAY 21, 2002 — NVIDIA® Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) today announced that its Quadro™4 family of workstation graphics solutions delivered the highest performance results on the new SPECviewperf 7.0 3ds max-01 and Ugs-01 tests as well as the updated Light-05 test published by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation’s Graphics Performance Characterization (SPEC/GPC) group.”

InsideCG have a three page review of Right Hemisphere's Deep UV 1.0 up.
“Does what it promises. Does it well. May not be "Ultimate UV Mapping", but it comes quite close, at a steep price. Try before you buy.”

VRay.info reports that the demo version of Chaotic Dimension's VRay should be released tomorrow.
A new version (1.08.03) is available as well, fixing several bugs.

Power Booleans is a new plugin by nPower Software that greatly enhances both the reliability and quality of Boolean operations on 3ds max meshes. The plugin captures meta-information about a Max mesh and detects and removes the invisible “topological” edges prior to computing the Boolean. The result is retriangulated to produce the final Max mesh. This process produces both a higher quality mesh (fewer skinny polygons and fewer small edges) and substantially fewer triangles. Price is $195, a trial version is available for download. The same company has also posted information on its upcoming Power Solids plugin, a precision solids modeling toolset 100% integrated with 3ds max.

Soul of Art has announced its upcoming maxSculpt plugin, a modeling tool that lets users manipulate any object in Max as if it was a piece of clay. A trial version is available for download.

“1,500 Useable seamless textures annually for less than 1/3 the cost of a single texture CD available at this subscription site!
http://www.tiledtextures.com/ is maintained by a texture artist dedicated to the craft of collecting, researching, and making seamless textures.”

“Spellcraft Studio from Germany shows the first character of their upcoming short movie "yeah!", along with two test-animations!

Software: 3dsMax 4.2
Renderer: Brazil V 0.2.26 alpha-d”

VENICE, CA (May 21, 2002) - SplutterFish LLC, a high-end 3D rendering software solutions provider, today announced that its Brazil Rendering System™, currently in late-stage beta, is gaining phenomenal acceptance from worldwide CG professionals. Brazil r/s is a fully integrated high-end rendering suite for Discreet's top-selling animation software 3ds max and Autodesk's visualization solution, VIZ. Since its public alpha debut last September over the Internet, more than 60 customers in 17 countries have purchased the Brazil r/s Beta and deploy it for a wide range of applications – film, commercial broadcast, architectural and product visualization, design engineering, cartoon animation and CG education. Some notable early adopters include Flipside Editorial, Planet Blue, Toxic Design Studio, and Arnold Imaging.   [ more... ]

Creative Cow reviews Deep Paint 3D: "...the nicest paint program I have used in a long time."
CGChannel reviews Boujou 1.3: "If you are doing a lot of CG integration with live action, and time is of great importance, Boujou does its job extremely well." (Login required.)
DV reviews Vegas Video 3.0: "Effects can be previewed in realtime via 1394, which neither Final Cut Pro 3.0 nor Xpress DV 3.0 can handle (...) Vegas Video 3.0's standard audio effects rival those in $80,000 NLEs." (Login required.)
DV reviews Grain Surgery: "The results were solid with grain addition tasks, amazing with quieting down digital video noise, and downright miraculous with transforming old 60s film footage transferred from VHS via DV." (Login required.)   [ more... ]

The new rewritable optical disc is compatible with current CD/DVD technology and is expected to become commercially available in 2004. Read the article at Digit Magazine.

Next Limit have updated their RealFlow and RealWave i/o plugins for 3ds max 4.
They now also have their FlowTracer available for Maya.

“Between May 16 and July 31, 2002, all owners of Adobe® Photoshop® (versions 5 through 7) can take advantage of procreate™ upgrade rates and get the full power of Painter 7™ and KnockOut 2, saving up to 50% off the suggested retail price! All you need is your Adobe Photoshop serial number.”

FXguide have a tidbit of information on boujou 2, as well as 2d3's upcoming other tool - Pixel Dust.
From the text, it seems a lot of issues with version 1 were addressed.

Tomek Baginski's visual adaptation of Jacek Dukaj's story has been voted unanimously as "Best animated short" by the SIGGRAPH 2002 committee. His non-commercial animated film has been created with 3ds max, painted in Photoshop, composited with After Effects, and edited with Softimage DS. And Brazil r/s had a hand too. :-) Tomek made the short over a period of 14 months with the support of Platige Image. Congrats Tomek!! We'll be looking forward to seeing it at SIGGRAPH.

“Informatix Software International Limited is proud to announce that version 3 of its award-winning Piranesi® software is now available.

Piranesi's unique ability to 'Paint in 3D' remains at the heart of the product, and many new productivity aids and effects have been added. Other new features open up whole new areas in which Piranesi can be used, from 2D plan and elevation images to cubic panoramas. We would like to thank our customers for their help in determining all the ways in which we have improved Piranesi.”
Press Release

“PALO ALTO, Calif., May 16 (Reuters) - Design software maker Autodesk Inc.(NasdaqNM:ADSK - News) on Thursday posted a fiscal first-quarter net profit that fell 37 percent from a year ago, slashed its full-year earnings guidance and said its chief financial officer was leaving for a start-up.”- Yahoo! Finance
Stock charts for ADSK (3ds max), AVID (softimage) and SGI (maya)

“EMERYVILLE, CA, May 16, 2002 – Pixar Animation Studios (Nasdaq: PIXR) today announced that it has filed an amended complaint charging Exluna, Inc. with misappropriation of trade secrets, copyright infringement and patent infringement. The amended complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.”
Press Release

Blue Dream Studios used 3ds max to create a CG-style comic book version of Spider-man.
And Blur Studio used 3ds max as well for a commercial for a new Spider-man toy.

“Mountain View, California - May 14, 2002 - Eovia Corporation, developer and publisher of leading 3D software, announced today the future availability of Carrara Studio 2, a major and widely awaited upgrade to Carrara Studio. The English/international version of Carrara Studio 2 will begin shipping on June 5, 2002 for both the Mac® (OS 8, OS 9 and OS X) and Windows® platforms, but can be pre-ordered now to ensure priority delivery. Fully localized versions in French and German will follow shortly.”

Samsung introduced a new line of large-screen plasma displays. The 42" PPM42S2 and 50" PPM50H2 have a depth of 3.5", a weight of 92.4 lbs., 1366 x 768 resolution and a 160° viewing angle. Input signals include composite, component, S-Video for DVD and gaming applications, and an RGB input for use with a PC. Both displays are currently shipping with a SRP of $6,499 and $12,999 respectively. A 63-inch wide plasma display is scheduled to be available in September 2002.

Samsung introduces the revolutionary Homepad Internet Refrigerator, the SR-S75F. TV lovers can enjoy their favorite shows or news programs via the built-in 15.1" LCD screen. External inputs also allow hook up and enjoyment of a DVD Player or VCR for a complete suite of viewing options. Samsung's refrigerator puts a high-tech spin on the time-honored tradition of pasting family photos to the fridge with a built-in digital photo album that stores and shares memorable moments at the touch of a button. Favorite photos can be sent over the Internet or even programmed as screen savers. A food storage director even lets you know exactly what is in the fridge!
An "all-in-one dream come true". Read the whole PR.

This update addresses a few bugs and introduces some new improvements - check out the change notes for details.

New images at Raph.com. Don't miss Stahlberg's "Girl on Stool", amazing work!

The Chaotic Dimension has received a gallery update, some new pics also at VRayrender.com.

Star Wars: Episode II will feature a 100% digital Yoda character. Read the article.

Side Effects announced the latest version of its Houdini 3D software. Version 5.5 intrduces VOPs, an interactive node-based shader and effects builder. Houdini 5.5 also features an expanded Shader Gallery, a new compositor, a drag-and-drop interface, simplified installation and keying, and enhanced character and animation tools. Houdini 5.5 will be available in Q3 of 2002.
Read the Whole PR.

Digital Anarchy announced the 3D Assistants for After Effects (and AE plugin architecture compatible programs). The 3D Assistants are a collection of keyframe assistants that enable users to create clusters of layers, cubes, tunnels, rings, spheres, and many other shapes out of layers, within AE’s 3D space.
Check out some sample movies at Digitalanarchy.com.

Kaydara announced the upcoming release of Motionbuilder 4.0, the latest version of its real-time 3D character animation motion blending and editing software previously named FiLMBOX animation. Motionbuilder 4.0 will be available in August 2002 at a base price of $USD 3,495. Read on for the list of improvements in this new version.   [ more... ]

The monthly 3DLuVr Contest's Voting Booth has opened for this month's topic "Blue Collar"

Check out these nice animations based on Tolkien's The Hobbit. The look resembles the designs done for the 1978 Rankin/Bass adaptation of the book.

The new version of the .fbx plugins are now available for free on kaydara website . The .fbx file format allows you to export and import  data from and to 3ds max, Maya, Softimage, Xsi, Lightwave, etc... .fbx file format supports camera, mesh, materials, morph targets, bones, etc... This is a must have and it is free!

“ml_plugins is a collection of free MXS plugins for discreet 3ds max 4 and Autodesk VIZ4.
worth mentioning are a bunch of royality free, high resolution tree and plant bitmaps, intended to be used with the quick tree generation plugin tree shop.”

Greenworks has posted a fully functional 30-day demo of its organic modeling and animation software. There's also a new Maxscript at Greenworks' site that helps in automating the task of importing Xfrog-generated objects into Max.

“WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush today announced the selection of Arun Netravali, former president of Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs and now chief scientist at Lucent, as one of this year's recipients of the U.S. National Medal of Technology.”
That'd be the Netravali that You may know of through the popularly-named mit-net (Mitchell-Netravali) filter in 3ds max

Digital Producer has an interview with Alias|Wavefront president Doug Walker up entitled :
“Doug Walker's Vision - The president of Alias|Wavefront on a broadening 3D market and his company's role in it”

And Hyper-3D has an interview with SplutterFish, LLC. up entitled :
“Let's grill "the fish", SplutterFish talks...”

Kelseus has introduced a Cloth Engine for game developers, based on the same technology as its Kelseus Cloth plugin. An SDK is now available for licensing. Kelseus has developed a custom timing mechanism that synchronizes the Cloth Engine to the frame rate of the scene determined by the user. In other news, according to a review at Kelseus' website, the next version of the 3ds max plugin will feature tearable cloth.
Read the whole PR.

CGW reviews Rhino 2.0 NURBS modeler.

DSI is shipping the HandGear touchpad, a multi-point input device that uses a hand-gesture interface and lets the user perform multiple tasks by allowing them to sidestep intermediate commands required when using just a mouse and keyboard. The product is available for order immediately with an API Plug-in for Discreet's 3ds max.   [ more... ]

Read the article at CGW.com.

Read the article at CGW.com.

Elsa's collapse last week into receivership has seen Nvidia scrambling for new workstation graphics board partners.

Headed by ex-DreamWorks executives Penney Finkleman Cox and Sandra
CULVER CITY, Calif. (May 09, 2002) -- A new animation unit is being planned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, under the leadership of veteran producers Penney Finkleman Cox and Sandra Rabins, according to today's Los Angeles Times.

Fujitsu has developed a new technology that will enable hard drive recording densities of up to 300 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in2). The new developments are expected to lead within two to four years to the introduction of 2.5" hard disk drives with capacities up to six times the recording density available today. The technology also allows for more than three times the playback output levels of current HDs.

“Blur Studio has produced a 3D computer-animated simulator ride film based on the DC Comics character Batman. The Batman Simulator Ride Film will debut at Six Flags’ new theme park in Spain, Warner Bros. Movie World Madrid. It will also appear in the Warner Bros. Movie World Australia Theme Park. The attraction offers park visitors a thrilling opportunity to fly alongside Batman and help him as he battles Catwoman, The Joker and Mr. Freeze.”
Read the full article at InsideCG

“Did you know Microsoft was convicted of software piracy last year by a French court? Not many people do. The Commercial Court of Nanterre fined Microsoft 3 million francs because it illegally included another company's proprietary source code in SoftImage 3D, a top-of-the-line animation package.”
Read more at NewsForge

The new public test build of Brazil r/s has been posted at the SplutterFish website! The Brazil Public Test is a feature limited version of SplutterFish's commercial production renderer. Aside from the limited feature set, this test build is a fully functional renderer that will do full raytracing and path traced global illumination. This version is faster than previous versions, more robust, and contains the same features that were used to generate nearly all the images in the gallery at SplutterFish.com.
Read on for more information and the official PR.
  [ more... ]

“The difficult economic climate affected our business more than we anticipated late in our April quarter," Chairman and Chief Executive [of Autodesk] Carol Bartz said in a prepared statement. "Our business in Asia fell below our expectations, and Discreet continued to experience selling pressure.”

Sonic Foundry is shipping the latest version of Sound Forge, the digital audio recording, editing and mastering software. New features include: nondestructive audio editing, multitask background rendering, 32-bit/64-bit float/192kHz file support, QuickTime and Windows Media format import and user interface enhancements. Upgrade for current users is $149.95.

Digit Magazine reviews Houdini Select: "...Select is more suited as a companion to Houdini 5 than a standalone 3D-solution."
InsideCG reviews World Builder 3 Professional: "...a complete landscape creation toolset capable of realistic, as well as non-realistic, vistas."
CG Focus reviews Lightwave 7.5: "...quite a lot of new features in this release and compared to 6.5, it's much more stable and the rendering times are vastly improved!"

Digit Magazine has a couple of interesting articles:
- Improvements in LCD technology.
- Flat-panel monitors that can show images in 3D.

Ron Fedkiw updated his website a little (might be in the process of - some images are still left as .tifs)
I highly recommend the new fire anims.

Sitex Graphics have announced version 1.9 of their AIR rendering product.
“Linux version
Floating-point output for creating HDR (high-dynamic range) images
Multiple output images from a single render pass
More efficient rendering of large scenes
New controls for faster indirect illumination”

CG Architect has reviewed...
VRay - review
“All in all, Vray is an extremely promising package. By focusing a great deal of their attention on speed, while making sure that quality was high and the interface was simple, users can easily adopt it into their production. Global Illumination and raytracing is no longer a luxury, but will be part of your everyday process. At its current price, it is the most competitive package I've seen.”
and
Archvision Automobiles - review
“Having spent several hours playing with all of the different options and using them in a production job, I can honestly say that I was very impressed with this new collection. ... Overall I'd say this is a great collection worth picking up, and I am looking forward to seeing what new collections are coming down the line.”

Version 1.08.02 of VRay was released by Chaotic Dimension, which fixes "another load crash ... plus normals of mirrored objects."   [ more... ]

Singular Inversions have released version 2.1 of their Facegen Modeler 3d faces generator application.

“WATERFORD, VIRGINIA, May 3, 2002 — Pandromeda, Inc. is pleased to announce the MojoWorld™ 1.2 Product Line. It comprises MojoWorld Transporter™, MojoWorld Transporter Pro™, and MojoWorld Generator™. MojoWorld is the only software that gives users the power to create, render and animate entire planets with infinite detail and realism. The 1.2 release is more robust, has new features for easier use, and supports third-party plug-ins. Pandromeda is also introducing the new time-limited MojoWorld Generator Demo, which lets users experience all the power of both the Generator and Transporter Pro products in a free trial.”

Discreet put a demo version of Combustion 2 available on their website.
Limitations :
“• A red cross appears in the center of each viewport
• Workspace files cannot be saved
• Rendered files have a red cross in the center of the image”

We have decided to disable the anonymous user login account pending further notice.   [ more... ]

Computer Arts has some brief reviews of Houdini Select 5, After Effects 5.5, D Sculptor 2 Pro, Flash MX, Photoshop 7 and Realviz Stitcher 3.

“VRay just turned 1.08.00
the new version includes several bugfixes and enhancements.
New feature: Displacement mapping.
Registered users can download the new version from www.vrayrender.com”

Digital Media Designer has a comparison review of Macromedia's Flash MX vs Adobe's LiveMotion 2 available on their site.
“Wow! This matchup was chock full of shockers, and the bout was much closer than I imagined. But in the end, Flash MX is the winner and still champion. Kudos to the LiveMotion team for getting as close as they did, but Flash MX gets my strong recommendation here for addressing every single glaring weakness that plagued Flash 5. Ultimately, however, you have to be your own judge. Fortunately, both Macromedia and Adobe offer 30-day trials of Flash MX and LiveMotion 2, respectively, so take 'em for a spin and see which is best for you. You just might be surprised.... ”   [ more... ]

SplutterFish, LLC. have put an updated version (mostly bugfixes) of the HDRI plugin available on their website.

Mystic Game Development have started licensing out their Liquid Motion Realtime Character Animation System.
It comes with a 3ds max exporter, hooking into Character Studio among other.

PMG has released Rev. 5 of the Advanced Version of Messiah Studio which has support for interchange with Max 4.* geometry. Plus, the NLA Composer is now working. Just thought some of us who have been waiting for this since New Orleans might want to know. If you currently own or buy a license for messiah:studio, you can get the advanced release version now for just the cost of shipping.

Here's a link to the thread on the Project Messiah newsgroup at Yahoo about Rev. 5.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pmGmessiah/message/21174

In what appears to be an official email from Nothing's Real, who were recently bought by Apple, Shake 2.5 will be the last version for windows. What's more, the Linux /Irix port will be supported until the end of 2003, at which time the company will decide the future of the product on that platform as well. The company recently previewed their OS X port at NAB this year. For the full email, go here.

Mark Snoswell of cgCharacter has posted the following open letter to their users concerning the termination of contract with Digimation. Click on More for the full letter.   [ more... ]

As Fred Astaire used to sing: "The world is a stage, the stage is a world of entertainment". Or is it? AWN has a great, thought-provoking article on "manufactured goods", animation as "products" and the problems of art ending up as (pure) entertainment.

Snoswell Design's Absolute Character Tools (commonly known as 'ACT') has been bumped up to version 1.5.
“The new version of ACT will include a new protection system, enhanced creation workflow, new and enhanced muscle dynamics engines and a new cross-section viewer and editor”