Check out the trailer for Pixar's upcoming feature film.

XSI 3.0 introduces a new behavioral animation and crowd simulation system that incorporates full-featured behavioral scripting, visual state-graph editing and dynamic motion synthesis. Other highlights include: tools for working with HDR images and the integration of Mental Ray v.3.1 technology, enhancements to hair and fur dynamics tools, a rebuilt NLA mixer as well as a new advanced particles system. Read the whole PR at Digitalproducer.com.

Digital Media World reviews Brazil r/s 1.0: "...we would recommend Brazil to any max-based production house looking for high quality, reasonably priced rendering..."

"A big portion of our release plan for the next 12 months involves features that were developed for a limited audience and have been previously unavailable to the public." Matt Fairclough, author of Terragen is currently working at Digital Domain. Visit Terragen's website for more.

Another little animated short coming from Spain. Take a look at Alex Mateo's "La Piedra" (The Stone). Created with 3ds max, Character Studio, Combustion and a dosis Chuck Jones style humor.

Digital Fusion 4 features hundreds of new advancements and improvements including full scripting capabilities, a new Grid Warping tool, advanced RAM caching for instant previews, floating point color depth support, and a brand new tracker tool. SRP is $4,995 for the full version and $495 for upgrading from DF 3.1.

Meshbox announced the availability of Meshbox 1.0, a tool that provides CG artists and production studios with a convenient way to collect, manage and convert 3D content. Read the whole PR.

Another great article by Leonard Teo, check it out at 3DFestival.com.

Scratch is a new texture plugin by Mark Williams that creates scratches and other subtle surface features. Looks great when used as a bump map. Download for Max R4/5 from Maxplugins.de.

ASIFA Israel has a great article that offers some guidelines for achieving convincing and interesting acting in animation. Check it out!

Chaotic Dimension have posted version 1.09.02f of their VRay renderer. The update includes additions such as 3D displacement mapping (in addition to the old-style 2D mapping), a dialog for missing map files and a few bug fixes. Registered users can download the latest version from VRayrender.com.

Read an interview with Discreet's General Manager Paul Lypaczewski at DigitalProducer.com.

Cebas announced the availability of FinalToon 1.0 NPR rendering system for 3ds max and 3D Studio VIZ. The new plugin is a "True Line Renderer" that has been implemented as a 3ds max render effect: users can adjust line styles in realtime without the need to re-render the whole scene over and over again. Features include the ability to draw surfaces using hatching strokes to get a hand drawn look of the image, Flash (swf) and Adobe Illustrator (ai) output, etc. Support for FinalRender provides users with advanced options, including GI rendering for cartoon style objects. Price is $295 until December 1st, 2002.

This year again, the Asia Animation conference/exhibition will be held;
“Jointly organised by Asia Image, the well received Asia Animation conference was attended by some of the industry's leading speakers. Names like Mr. GV Gabu of Pentamedia, India, Mr. Frank Saperstein of PASI, Philippines, Ms. Joan Vogelesang of Toon Boom Technologies, Canada, Mr. David Flack of MTV Asia, Singapore and many more were seen at last year's fully packed conference. The Animation conference attracted over 20 international speakers and over 120 delegates packed the 2 day conference. For more info visit www.asiaanimation.com.sg”

Latest Software Release Draws On The Powerful Automatic Stitching Engine Central To The Award-Winning REALVIZ® Stitcher, Bringing Professional-Level Stitching Capabilities to the Booming Leagues of Digital Camera Users
Sophia Antipolis, France (October 22, 2002) - REALVIZ®, a leader in image processing software development, is pleased to announce the launch of their very latest software application, REALVIZ Stitcher® EZ. Drawing on the powerful automatic stitching engine central to REALVIZ Stitcher, acknowledged by professional photographers, architects, multimedia and 3D artists worldwide, as a 'must have', Stitcher EZ now offers photographers of all levels, regardless of previous experience, an intuitive and speedy solution for the creation of high-quality panoramas, producing stunning results on a standard personal printer, as well as for the enrichment of web pages and virtual tours. REALVIZ® Stitcher EZ now brings professional-level stitching capabilities to a whole new user community, regardless of their prior knowledge of digital imaging processes.   [ more... ]

October 23, 2002 (Castro Valley, CA) -- GHOST 3D, LLC announces today the release of Scribe-iT™ version 1.55, an advanced desktop 3D digitizing solution for Discreet's top-selling 3ds max™ and Autodesk VIZ® from Autodesk, Inc.  Scribe-iT1.55 offers new support for the recently released MicroScribe G2 digitizers from Immersion Corp, and includes the newly released Surf-iT 1.55 modeling toolkit and surfacing engines.  The GHOST 3D software can be purchased through a worldwide network of resellers or directly online from http://www.ghost3d.com.   [ more... ]

October 23, 2002 (Castro Valley, CA) -- GHOST 3D, LLC officially announced today the release of Surf-iT™ version 1.55, a powerful Spline based 3D modeling plug-in for Discreet's top-selling 3ds max™ and Autodesk VIZ® from Autodesk, Inc. Surf-iT is the premiere 3ds max and VIZ plug-in to incorporate instant creation of parametric 3D Spline objects, called S-Objects™, and includes the most extensive 3D Spline modeling, editing and surfacing tools.   [ more... ]

The second edition of Mexico's Animation and Visual Effects Congress will take place from November 6-9 at the "Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey - Campus Ciudad de México" in Mexico City. More information at www.congresofx.com.

Create-A-Thon • 3D Shootout • Tech Workshops • Tech Showcase - The XD Challenge takes place October 22-24 in Seattle, WA and is organized by XYZ & You and Dan, 'Major Pixel', Kemmis. Four great events in one, spanning two and a half days, in a huge warehouse on the Seattle’s Lake Washington. For those who come to watch and learn, you will have fun and will walk away with a bigger brain. For those who come to play and compete in the Create-A-Thon, you’ll leave giddy with some awesome prizes and one of the teams will leave with the biggest and best.

Vocanson are sporting a new section on their site with complete scenes - well, 'scene' at the moment - for non-commercial use; free for You to play with and explore different lighting, post-effects, etc. (note: 3ds max 5 needed)

Rebel Think announced that they have started development of a new plugin for Max that will enable users to create static and animated skies. Also of note, another image has been posted in the 'Future' section of the website showing off Natural:snow's capabilities.

Alias|Wavefront is now offering the Mental Ray for Maya plugin at no cost (price was $3,995). Customers can now download Mental Ray for Maya 1.5 public beta at A|W's website. There's also a rumor circulating that the Mental Ray renderer will be integrated into future versions of Maya, though it's not specified if it will be part of Maya Complete or Unlimited.

“OtherWorld software has announced the beta of VisualMarker 2.0. VisualMarker is a powerful and inexpensive ($37,95) optical motion capture software application. It can export to BVH, 3DS, and VMM and is fully compatible with Poser. VisualMarker can be used with (web)cam and doesn't require calibration or a big room. Get started quickly with new wizards. Excellent solution for game developers, professionals and enthusiasts of 3D animation.”

Companies Will Support, Encourage and Reward the Next Generation of Talented Architectural Visualization Artists

Calgary, Canada and Cambridge, UK — 15th October, 2002 - CGarchitect.com, the leading online resource for cg architects, and ART VPS Ltd., developers of leading edge Virtual Photography solutions, today announced their exclusive partnership in the formation of the first ever architectural computer graphics scholarship.   [ more... ]

Take a look at these 3D reconstructions of three of M.C. Escher's spatial illusions. For some interesting notes on the art-making process of M.C. Escher visit http://www.etropolis.com/escher.

Digit Mag reviews 3ds max 5: "A major upgrade..."

Rome-based Rebel Think is working on a new plugin for 3ds max that simulates ocean surfaces and provides sophisticated control through special shaders of water and under-water effects. Natural:sea features include: a sea shader with over 50 controls for defining the look of the water, Natural:deep blue shader, foam calculation (3 different algorithms), etc. Natural:sea is currently in Beta testing.

The long awaited free version of VRay from Chaos Group is a fact! It includes:
- Reflections and refractions
- Indirect illumination (GI)
- Depth of field
- QMC sampler
- Various Anti-aliasing routines

And Chaos Group gives this for FREE! Come, register and get your free VRay copy!

http://www.vrayrender.com/free

Sitni Sati (Afterworks) have posted on their site a short clip with some FX tests done for Dracula 2000.

New pics at Raph.com. Check 'em out!

Take a look at the animations generated with this Lightwave plugin.

Lots of them! Andy Murdock's animated short will soon be available in DVD format. The "Lots of Robots" DVD will also include an hour and a half worth of animation tutorials. "Many 3dsmax secrets laid open for your enjoyment and education." Not to be missed!

“You wanted it you got it....! Blender is OpenSource now. We are very sorry that the site is down now but we had to move the server because our previous ISP unplugged us last thursday! Stay tuned we will be up soon.”
- Take that message any which way You want, but the sources are up.

X-bit Labs have put up a review of the preformances of the ATI RADEON 9700 Pro, Matrox Parhelia-512 and NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4600 in 3ds max 5.

As reported earlier, D2 is bringing its proprietary tools to the market. D2 Software will develop, market and support digital image processing software based upon the proprietary technology developed by D2 over the last decade. The flagship of the new company’s software line will be Nuke, D2's compositing software that operates on NT, Linux and IRIX platforms. D2 Software will make Nuke 3.0 available immediately, and will announce new product availability in the coming year. More information at D2Software.com.

An interesting article at Gamasutra.com. (Login required - and worth it!)

Cebas has posted an updated version of finalRender that fixes some issues with 3ds max 5.

Stéphane Marty's VirtuaLight global illumination renderer has been updated with new features such as chromatic light dispersion, enhanced photon mapping, an optimized rendering engine and many bug fixes.

Take a look at the (not so) traditional art of Alexey Andreev and Timur Mutsaev.

Madrid-based Next Limit has announced the release of Real Flow 2.0: new features include a new streamlined user interface that includes time-sliders to preview fluid simulations over time, new viscosity per particle and real mass calculations which makes complex effects more realistic and a new body dynamics engine that enables 3D models to collide with and be dragged by fluids - effects like avalanchas, ice cubes in a glass, etc. are now possible. Visit Nextlimit.com for the complete list of features. Also check out the gallery for an animation that mimics the one that appeared at Ron Fedkiw's website some months ago.

“Going back to V-Ray software: "The features I mentioned are part of our Advanced package. Since the very beginning we promised we would have 3 different flavors of V-Ray: Advanced, Basic and Free. As we are coming to our next major release - 1.1 - we are feeling pretty much confident we will make it an even greater success so we are finally being able to give more attention to our free package. As far as I know we are one of the few to have a fully featured DEMO of our ray-tracing system without any features limitation. But the DEMO would not do any good for production. That is why, we are finally releasing the free V-Ray package for those users who would only need a basic ray-tracer with support for GI."”   [ more... ]

Digitalproducer takes a look at Digital Fusion 4, Eyeon's compositing and special effects post-production software.

Cubicspace, developer of rtre - real time 3D visualisation for Windows - has responded to market demand by announcing that its flagship software will now ship for just £1,099 (Ed.: $US1,695 | €1,749 - all prices excl. VAT.) This price will include Publisher, the stand-alone viewer and unlimited publishing licences.   [ more... ]

Di-O-Matic is pleased to announce that its popular Teach-O-Matic interactive training CD’s will soon be available in Spanish.

Due to overwhelming demand, Di-O-Matic is partnering with the Latin American multimedia company Metacube to develop localized versions of its Teach-O-Matic product line including its MAX Fundamentals, and reactor for its Spanish users.

here is a link to the press release : http://www.di-o-matic.com/press/pr_tom-spanish.html   [ more... ]

“cebas is proud to release some specific information about the upcoming release of finalRender Stage-1. Please take a look at our first preview of finalRender Stage-1 features. Throughout the coming weeks, we will release more and more information about the features and progress found in finalRender Stage-1.

The first feature to be discussed is the true 3D motion blur found in Stage-1!”   [ more... ]

ArchVision have issued version 3.2.6 [update] of their RPC plugin.
The update changes the way RPCs handle includes/excludes from lights, by letting You manually include/exclude them in the light's lists.

"imageafter.com - An online database of free high-res images and textures, raw and untouched"   [ more... ]

“Check out the large collection of 3D MrFurniture Models and Textures that has just become available at http://www.mr-cad.com/ for all Architectural and Interior needs.”

Here's an interesting interview with Phil Tippett discussing his company and the current climate in cg and film.

Digit Mag has the article.

Side Effects Software announced shipment of Houdini Halo, the company's new stand-alone compositing and image effects application. Features include deep raster support, the ability to incorporate custom-built composite operations and effects without writing code, animatable visual handles, optimized 2D and smart tiling algorithms and large-format image handling. Halo is available now for NT, Linux, IRIX and Solaris-based platforms at a list price of US$2999.

A collection of locomotion and other photographic studies of movement by Eadweard Muybridge is now available online courtesy of the University of California, Riverside / Museum of Photography. Check 'em out!

Discreet has announced a special, promotional bundle of combustion^® with cleaner™ at a Suggested Retail Price of US$1,497 available exclusively through discreet resellers.

TreeMatoGraph 0.4.7 by Borislav Petrov - A graphical interface to the Material Editor. It lets you visualize and edit maps/materials relationships and quickly navigate the Material Editor. Latest additions include: support for Darkling Simulations' SimbiontMAX shaders, support for Brendan Duncan's MAXShade, fixed infinite update loop after Options dialog, etc.
Layer Interface 0.3 by Harry Dechering III - Another scripted interface for the Max 5 layering system, this one adds some great features for handling objects/layers. 0.3 update: added sticky Viewport sidepanel, sticky object Display properties sidepanel. (incl. toggle macroscript) and simple icon for LayerInterface.
Polymagus 2.0 beta 005 by Herman Saksono - A set of tools to assist polygon modeling and enhance 3ds max Poly Object tools. It consists of: Paint Selection, Blend Edges, Draw Poly, Join Edges, Average Vertices, Separate Poly and Explode Poly.
PolySculptTool 1.1 update 003 by Herman Saksono - A mesh sculpting tool with brush based interface. New in update 003 are code fixes that eliminate memory leaks and wrong displacements on rotated objects.   [ more... ]