Some interesting pictures for those looking for inspiration.

RebelThink announced that their Natural:shaders one.zero set of plugins has entered beta testing, and that the first commercial release of Natural:shaders will include a NatSea shader based on their old NatSea O/S shader. RebelThink also announced that they are working on Artistic:shaders for 3ds max, a collection of shaders and plugins for ink&paint, toon & NPR rendering. New impressive images created with Natural:shaders (beta) have been posted at RebelThink's forum. Check 'em out!   [ more... ]

Winnipeg-based Frantic Films has released Deadline to the public for an open beta. The new queuing system curently works with the following software: Max 5/6, Maya 5 (6 shortly), Gelato (soon), Entropy/PRman/AIR, Digital Fusion and any rendering application that has scripting or command line access. Suggestions for including support for other software are welcomed by FF's development team.

Xen Wildman reviews SILO 1.2 for CGChannel.com: "... it immediately grabbed a spot in my short list of favourite applications."

Is it a film or is it a product? According to a recent article posted by Wired, artists at Pixar prefer to think it's a film - and the difference can be clearly seen in their movies. Check out Wired's article for a very interesting look at Pixar's past, present and possible future.

Artists at Dreamscape Imagery relied heavily on 3ds max to conjure up impressive visual effects for Roland Emmerich's 'The Day After Tomorrow'. The team at Dreamscape also used Character Studio, Afterburn and Brazil r/s for achieving some of the CG effects sequences in the movie. Discreet tools such as Inferno, Flame and Combustion were also used by other production houses handling VFX shots. To find out more about 3ds max's role in Emmerich's feature film, check out the comments from Brandon Davis and Adam Watkins at Discreet's press release.

Yes, a new hair simulation implementation for Max: Ornatrix is a hair simulation plugin by Marsel Khadiyev with features such as combing, real-time dynamics, and fluid-flow approach to hair and fur modeling. Check out the features and gallery pages for more. A public beta is available for download.

New update at the 3D Artists gallery. Check it out!

The Dimension Design Animation Group is working on a new version of Shag:Hair that will be released soon by Turbo Squid under the name of HairFX. According to rumors, HairFX will be a rewrite of the software that will incorporate new features. Stay tuned.

3D Kingdom has posted 10 new 3D models of mixed format (max and 3ds). They now have a selection of 127 models which are free for non-commercial use. You can find them here.

Zbigniew Lenard reviews Character Animation Toolkit for RenderNode: "... [CAT] offers great tools to animators, making animation much faster and easier ..."

Die Lichtplaner and HAB have released a Max version of the Radiance renderer, a high quality renderer for the analysis and visualization of lighting in design. The Light Studio RAD Renderer v3.4 is available for 3ds max 3 to 6. For pricing and a demo version head over to their homepage.

The theme for the new contest at 3DLuVr.com is the "African Savannah". For more information, visit the Assignment Text and Prizes pages at 3DLuVr.

Matt Fairclough is working on a new version of Terragen, the 3D landscape rendering program. Terragen 2 is a complete rewrite of Terragen and will sport features such as an adaptive subdivision renderer, production quality anti-aliasing and motion blur, the ability to apply almost "infinite" fractal detail to terrain and other objects, a choice between volumetric clouds or fast "2.5D" clouds, etc. A commercial version of Terragen 2 is expected to be released by mid-2005. Check out Terragen's website for more information and some impressive sample pictures.

"Motion" is the theme of a contest being held by German CG website 900px!. Prizes include Character Animation Toolkit (CAT), a book about Max 6 (in German) and a one-year-subscripton to a CG magazine (Creative Live - for German-speakers). All kinds of CG software are allowed. The contest is supported by artists such as Willi Hammes (Blur Studios), Leif Arne Petersen (D.R.O.N.E.Z.) and Marco Spitoni (The Hunt, Codeguardian). Details about the rules are available at 900pixel.de. (German)

Turbo Squid has entered into an agreement with Discreet to propel development and distribution of Discreet's gMax, a free games customization/modification toolset based on 3ds max. Developers and publishers such as Electronic Arts and Blizzard Entertainment have created gMax-enabled games, putting the ability to "mod" a game by producing everything from in-game characters to props in the hands of game players. Turbo Squid will also offer gMax users the TURBO TOYBOX, a set of 3D models in the gMax file format for game players to input into their game. Read the whole PR at TurboSquid.com.

The third issue of RenderNode Magazine is out: the May release includes articles on creating fire effects with Particle Flow, compositing techniques in Combustion and advanced colour correction tips in Photoshop, among others. More information at RenderNode.com.

A group of French artists have been working on the concept for a new French CG-animated TV series titled Kongzi, created with Max. Check out the great trailer at Sylvain Tardiveau's website (click on "PILOT"). (French)

The EGO plugin by Martin Enthed for making LEGO-like objects in Max is now available for release 6, thanks to the help of Daniel Pero and Conny Klasson.

Digimation announced the availability of FaceStation 2, the latest version of the video-based 3D facial animation software. Actual facial expressions are analyzed in real-time, captured and used to animate fully shaded 3D models with no motion capture hardware, facial markers or offline rendering processes required. FaceStation 2 also includes Avatar Editor, allowing the creation of ready-to-animate characters complete with morph targets using front and side photographs. Visit Digimation.com for more information and to see some sample animations created with FaceStation.

San Francisco-based The Orphanage studio will release eLin this coming June, a new system for HDR compositing in After Effects. Developed by The Orphanage and used on several feature films, the once proprietary technology eLin will be free for non-commercial use.

Discreet Acquires Unreal Pictures – Extends its Leadership in 3D Animation Software

character studio® Technology Acquisition and Addition of Renowned Research Software Scientists to Discreet’s Team Highlights Importance of Character Animation to the Future of 3D

Montreal, Quebec—May 10, 2004—Underscoring its leadership in animation technology innovation, Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK) today announced the acquisition of Unreal Pictures, developers of the advanced, award-winning character animation tool, character studio. This transaction brings in patents and core character studio technology allowing Discreet to further advance the state-of-the-art in intuitive character animation.   [ more... ]