75 3ds max video tutorials (in Portuguese)
Rolling a ball using script controller
Creating a classic armchair
Using E-light Maxscript for generating a dome (or sphere) of lights

"3ds max 6 Animation and Visual Effects Techniques" by Sanford Kennedy covers modeling, rigging and character animation. The book is aimed at intermediate and advanced users and has chapters on Character Studio crowd animation, Combustion 3, and plug-ins such as ClothFX, and Shag Hair, as well as tutorials on using the Reactor 2 Stunt Double. You can find the book at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, among other online bookstores.

Press Release here. A list of Nominees is here. VFX Nominees; The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Perl, . Lord of the Rings leads the count with 11 nominations including best picture and best director.

PSoft has released a new version of their Non-PhotoRealistic shader plug-in Pencil+.   [ more... ]

Metin Seven has released a maxscript to help automate setting several Vray material and light parameters on all or selected objects.

New images at Raphael Benedet's 3D Artists gallery (and they're all created with Max).

Mike Brown presents the second in a continuing series of short 3ds max animations for "Nyxies - Creatures of the Night". Available in DIVX and MPEG1.
Related MU stories: [1][2]

Pixar has posted a sneak peek for their upcoming short "Boundin'" - a story told through song.

MaMa! consists of high resolution greyscale bitmaps for different map channels. Maps are seamless and tileable, they are based on photographs of natural materials and are not synthetically generated, and, according to Norphos, they have been created using an optical measurment process that allows for more information to be extracted from photographs. Visit Norphos.com for more.

"According to a recent weblog post, a San Francisco native had his house raided by the FBI last week, and 'lost upwards of 9 machines, and lots of misc equipment besides' in a seizure related to the theft of the Half-Life 2 source code from Valve Software." The slashdot story is here.   [ more... ]

RenderNode reviews Motionbuilder 5: "... if you want to enhance professional and effective character animation outside of your regular 3D software, or if you need more FBX mocap information, MOTIONBUILDER will be a smart choice for making successful 3D characters in action."

LaCie announced Bigger Disk, a hard drive that packs 1 terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) of storage space in a 5.25" form factor. The disk drive offers FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB connectivity. LaCie Bigger Disk is expected to ship in mid February at a SRP of $1,199.

"Model, Rig, Animate! with 3ds max 6" by Michele Bousquet uses tutorials and color illustrations to show how to model a low-polygon character, create a rig for it (no plug-ins required), and animate the character, including facial expressions. Read on for more.   [ more... ]

"Kodak embraces digital revolution - Photography giant Eastman Kodak has announced plans to stop selling traditional film cameras in North America and Europe." Read the whole article at BBC News.

Computer Arts reviews ParticleIllusion 3.0: "... It’s not 3D and it lacks motion-tracking facilities, but this app remains a must-have for anyone in the effects industry looking for an affordable quick-fix solution."

El Portal del 3D y la Animación has a great interview with Ray Harryhausen (Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, etc., etc.): "We never considered pictures as special effects pictures. We considered them fantasy films and used the special effects in order to put on the screen scenes we couldn't photograph in another way." (Spanish|English)

A short article on Ion Storm's use of 3ds max in Deus Ex: Invisible War

Doug King reviews DreamScape 2.0 and AfterBurn 3.0 in CGW. "Among DreamScape's new features are enhancements to the Terra editor, including instant mesh preview inside the viewport and support for MAX script and pressure-sensitive digital tablets...." "[New features in AfterBurn 3.0 include the addition of Bézier curves to Animation Flow Curves] speed and performance enhancements and reflections for rendering particles as convincing fluids..."

"(Jan. 12, 2004) -- Adobe last week began drawing criticism from users when it was discovered that Photoshop CS incorporates anti-counterfeiting technologies that actually analyze images and refuse to allow users to import scans of certain types of currencies."
Full Story @ digital media   [ more... ]

InsideCG reviews 3ds max 6: "... stable, fast and easy to use."
CGChannel reviews 3ds max 6: "... when looking over the complete new feature and enhancement list, there are many things to like."
Update(cptvideo): another from Ron LaFon in Cadalyst

Di-O-Matic, Inc. have announced their upcoming plugin Hercules. Hercules is a complete musculature solution aimed at creating realistic deformations for your animated characters skin directly inside 3ds max.

Hercules is currently in final development stage and the release date is planned soon. The suggested retail price is set to $599, pre-orders are currently being accepted and provide access to the latest beta version until the final version is shipped. Read the whole PR at Di-O-Matic.com.

Blur have posted online a short clip of their animated short Rockfish. Check it out! (Their animation reel is also quite spectacular too.) Update(cptvideo): Rockfish was recently short-listed for Academy Award consideration - Congrats, Blur!

Andrew Reid's GhostTrails plugin will soon support particle trails and Particle Flow. Take a look at the sample image.

Vicon today announced Vicon iQ 1.5, a new release of the company's motion data processing application. Enhancements in this latest version include: support for real-time multiple-character capture, real-time kinematic fitting and diagnostic tools, improved 3D reconstruction and automatic labeling, kinematic model building, automated production QA tools, batch processable editing tools and pipeline operations all within a customizable workspace. Read the whole PR at Vicon.com.

The latest version of SpeedTreeRT, IDV's C++ API designed to use SpeedTree data in real-time applications, features new tools for trunk and lighting realism, along with efficiency and organizational enhancements. Read on for more.   [ more... ]

CGNetworks has a great article on the VFX of The Return of the King.

The teaser for Tomek Baginski's latest animated short, titled "Fallen Art", is now available for download!! According to the new "Fallen Art" website, the movie is being produced by a "group of people for whom the army has always been only an unfulfilled dream." Check out the website to find out more about the story of the movie. We can't wait to see the final film!

"3ds Max 6 Animation: CG Filmmaking From Concept To Completion" is a guide that illustrates in detail each step of production of a short film. Follow examples and situations proposed by the author designed to facilitate coverage of most aspects of CG animation, touching specifically on important areas such as contemporary character modeling, convincing body animation and dialog driven emotional facial animation. It also covers the creative areas of character design drawing, storyboards, and art direction. Read on for more.   [ more... ]

The International 3D Awards returns for its second year, with the ceremony to be held on 5 May 2004 at the 3D Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. The 2nd Annual International 3D Awards is now calling for entries. Visit 3DAwards.org for more.

SplutterFish's OpenEXR Bitmap I/O plug-in has been updated to work with 3ds max 6.  Plug-ins for use in versions 3, 4, 5, and 6 of 3ds max and Autodesk's VIZ software are all included in the package.  Get them at SplutterFish's free plug-ins page   [ more... ]

Realtexture.com has released the third edition of their material collections. Buy it separately or bundled with a discount.

CNN has an article on OLEDS, one of possible future display technologies.

Cristóbal Vila has finished a nice animated short based on one of M. C. Escher's geometric experiments. (Not created with Max but certainly worth a look.)

nPower Software announces Power Solids 2.0 and Power Translators 2.0 for 3ds Max / Viz (including support for Max 6). Version 2.0 is a significant upgrade, with many new features. Please read the Press Release.   [ more... ]

3D Festival today has announced that early bird registrations for the 3D Festival 2004, to be held 3-6 May in Copenhagen, are now open at 3DFestival.com. The list of preliminary speakers includes renowned names such as Feng Zhu and Larry Gritz, among many others. The conference is being co-organized by CGNetworks and the Gnomon School of Visual Effects. Read on for the whole PR.   [ more... ]

Los Angeles ACM SIGGRAPH January meeting will be presenting Weta Digital's work on the visual effects of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The meeting will be held on January 13, 2004 at 6:30pm at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Read on for the details.   [ more... ]

Millimeter magazine has an interesting article on current trends in CG-based previsualization.

Andersson Technologies announced its affordable new SynthEyes 2004 camera tracking software. SynthEyes performs both fully automatic tracking, including background batch processing, as well as efficient supervised tracking. Read on for more.   [ more... ]

Gnomon have released 5 new DVDs on the painting techniques of Ryan Church. Ryan is Conceptual Art Supervisor for Star Wars EP3, worked on EP2 (his work is showcased in the EP2 concept art book), and is overall an amazing painter and artist. Topics covered include Rendering Matte Vehicles, Rendering Shiny Vehicles, Hi-Tech Architecture, Low-Tech Architecture and Architectural Interior.

CGChannel has started a new job listing service.

The latest release of Director includes features such as JavaScript support (in addition to Lingo), cross-platform projector creation, the ability stream content in QuickTime, Real, Windows Media, Flash and DVD-Video formats, and DVD-Video functionality. Director MX 2004 will be available in February for Mac OS X and Windows. Read the whole PR at Digitalproducer.com or visit Macromedia.com for more.