Maxforums is holding a Car Modeling Contest. To enter the contest, you should register before September 7th, and submit the render on 30th September at the latest. Maxforums is giving away a Digimation plugin to the winner of the contest.

Lighting 201 (bounce cards, soft boxes, rim lights and getting good reflections)
Spline + Subdivision Head Modeling in Max
Lighting: soft shadows in Max 5
Car paint: version 2
Car paint: chameleon - version 3
Car door seams
Tire and tread

Terragen to 3ds max converter has been updated with a few new features and improvements. Price has been changed to $20.

Animal Logic's 3ds max to RenderMan bridge updated to v1.8.0. This new version supports PRman's raytracing and global illumination features. Visit Animal Logic's MaxMan pages for more.

Utah-based Nevercenter has posted online a demo version of Silo, their new subdivision surface modeler. The final version will soon be available for purchase at a price of $109.

Darkling Simulations DarkTree updated to version 2.51. Download the patch from Darksim.com.

New version (2.52) available for download from Darksim.com.

GroundCrew is a new procedural map plugin for 3ds max 4.x/5.x designed for creating many different types of ground textures. It comes with 48 presets and can also be used for creating displacements and bump maps. Take a look at the FAQ page and GroundCrew gallery at Digimation.com for more.

According to a report posted at Digitalproducer.com, video editing tops the list of services offered by digital media facilities, while 2D/3D animation is ranked 4th (samples were taken worldwide).

SplutterFish has posted more details on 'Shave' for 3ds max.

Some great images added to Raph.com.

Read the PR at AMD.com.
Errata: the headline for the current news item used to say "optimized" for AMD 64-bit processors, but the PR does not state clearly that 3ds max has already been optimized to take advantage of AMD's 64-bit architecture.

"We walk with Giants" is the theme for 3DLuvr's current contest. Many great prizes available, the deadline for entering the contest is September 14. Check it out!

Gamespy has a great interview with ID Software's John Carmack. The article has some comments on the latest advances in graphics cards and the convergence of real-time and off-line rendering. ID Software's co-founder also shares some interesting ideas on big budget games, risk-aversion and how these factors affect innovation.

Render Node Magazine is a new publication that will offer tutorials, reviews, interviews with leading artists and articles focused on production case studies. Render Node will also present the best work done by professionals, individuals and students as well as studios. The list of articles for their upcoming first issue (which will be sold in .pdf format) can be seen online as well as some free samples. Check it out!

Digimation announced today that it has begun shipping SpeedTree 2.0 for 3ds max 4.x/5.x (a version will be available for Max 6 when it ships), and SpeedTree VIZ 2.0 for Autodesk VIZ 4. SpeedTree 2.0 includes support for palm trees, trees with even smaller polygon counts and a completely re-written foresting tool. SpeedTree 2.0 is now available for $295 until August 31 after which it will have an SRP of $395. Upgrades from SpeedTreeMAX are $100. A 15 day time limited demo can be downloaded from www.digimation.com.

InsideCG reviews Kaydara's Human IK for 3ds max :"...highly recommended. It takes one of the most time consuming processes and makes it a lot more manageable."

Highlights tour and a few quicktimes added to BodyPaint 3D R2 information pages.

Magpie Pro 2.0 lip sync and animation software has entered beta. A trial version is available for download.

In order to promote its line of Athlon 64 Processors, AMD is conducting an Animation and Digital Film Contest. You may submit your work in one of two categories, Digital Cinematography or Computer Character Animation. One grand prize winner will be selected in each category and each will receive an Athlon 64 processor-based desktop system and a $6,400 cash prize.

TIWdtemental is a shader plugin for rendering DarkTree procedural textures in  Mental Ray. By simply giving a DarkTree texture file as an input parameter to one of the shaders, the texture will be rendered without having to generate bitmaps first.

Autodesk recovers nearly $60 million in North America. Read the PR at Yahoo.com.

Character Animation Technologies announced the upcoming release of Character Animation Toolkit (CAT), a new Max plugin that offers customizable rigs, a parametric motion cycle system, MoCap import functions and an animation mixer. Check out a detailed list of features or watch a demo video at Charanitech.com.

As the dust settles and numbers turn into statistics (24.332 people from around 77 countries attended SIGGRAPH 2003, 240 companies exhibited at the show floor), here's a final set of pictures from the Convention Center, along with a few links to animations and reports, and some comments on the show.   [ more... ]

3DyAnimacion.com has an interesting interview with Daniel Martínez Lara, from Pepeland.com. (English|Spanish)

CGW reviews FinalToon: "...The interface is user-friendly, and I found it easy to create the looks I wanted."

Pencil+ is a new plugin by Japanese developer PSoft that enables Max users to create NPR renderings. Pencil strokes can be layered onto each other to provide different looks. More information available at PSoft.co.jp.

Erik Asorson has written some thought-provoking articles on his experiences as a video game artist. Many of his ideas are certainly applicable to other trades of the CG professional world, too. Check 'em out!

Splutterfish has posted some official information on Shave for 3ds max at their website. Features include: Extremely fast hair dynamics - results displayed in real-time or near real-time in all but the most complex scenes, Combing/Styling interface - a dedicated Open GL-accelerated interface that is extremely fast and gives unprecedented control for styling and cutting hair, Displacement Parameters - enable complex hair effects creation such as wetness and frizz, 'Shave' does not require special UV's and will work on polygons, nurbs, or any other type of surface emitter, Fully Mappable - The parameters in 'Shave' are mappable, allowing the artist to apply texture maps or procedural maps on nearly every parameter, including dynamics parameters, for instance, such as Stiffness or Dampening. Shave for 3ds max is priced at $485. Read the whole PR for more.

Splutterfish has officially announced the release of Brazil v1.2. New features include: distributed rendering, advanced shadow plugins, an advanced skin shader, improvements to the Brazil Toon shader and support for IES photometric file formats. Read the whole PR for more.

CGWorks has posted two great interviews, one with Tim Miller of Blur Studios, and another one with CG artist Allan McKay

Soul Pix has created a music video titled "Wilderness" for Jurgen Vries / Sony UK. The video was produced in only five weeks using 3D Max 5.1, Character Studio 4.0, Vray, Stitch and Afterburn 3.0, among other tools. You can find the movie at Soulpix.de.

Painter UI designers finally seem to get it right after 8 iterations (the software has been through many different development stages at different companies, though). According to MacWorld magazine the latest version has the cleanest Painter UI yet. Read the review at MacWorld.com.

Sisyphus Software, makers of such plugins as Digital Nature Tools, Druid and Grass-o-Matic is no longer publishing plugins. A great loss for Max users. DNT will reportedly become property of Areté. Visit Sisyphus.com for more.

The fine folks at 3DVF have launched their latest contest. The theme is "ICARUS, the Bird-Man's Myth". (French only)

A game cinematic turns into a feature-length CG movie: read the interview at 3DVF.com. (English|French)

More information on Sega's character animation tool posted at Animanium.com.

A new fluid simulation tool will be available for Max soon. Check out Glu3D's website for more information - according to CGNetworks they are currently looking for beta testers.

2d3, makers of Boujou camera tracking software have announced Steadymove, an image stabilization plugin for major compositing applications dedicated to transforming hand held shots into footage that looks like done on a professional dolly. The price for the plugin is only $99. For some sample movies visit 2d3's website.

Posted Sat Aug 2, 2003 00:44 PST by Pablo Hadis | Source:

This new version of MAXON's texturing tool offers hundreds of new features, including Projection Painting for distortion free painting on 3D geometry - even seamless painting over multiple objects is possible. Additionally users get a new mapping algorithm, 15 new UV tools and completely reworked exchange plugins for 3ds max, LightWave and Maya. Visit the 3ds max connection page at Bodypaint3d.com for more information.

Yesterday was the last day at SIGGRAPH 2003. These last two days were full of excellent conferences and activities to attend and, above all, it was a chance to meet some really great people from around the world. Here are a few more pics: one of Elumens' dome shaped displays - now there's a nice flight simulator (view image), the brand new version of Shave for Max (view image), Vladimir Koylazov conjures up a fire using Chaos Group's upcoming Aura plugin (view image), the end of an exceptional conference on autonomous robots with panelists from MIT, NASA, Sony, iRobot and Stan Winston Studios - this sea of chairs shows the size of one of the main conference rooms at the Convention Center (view image). Other highlights of the day included a conference on "Theater and CG" and another titled "The Future of CG Education". Not to mention Pixar's amazing Finding Nemo Special Session. More on that later.

Reiss Studio, in cooperation with Curious Labs has developed and released BodyStudio 2.0. BodyStudio seamlessly integrates Poser 3D character animation technology into Max. Visit Reiss-studio.com for more information.

New pics at 3DArtists gallery!