Toxik provides a collaborative workflow for film compositing that integrates an Oracle relational database, ensuring constant synchronization between all systems. More information at Discreet.com, FXGuide.com and Digit Magazine.

Lee Roderick reviews Combustion 4 for CGNetworks: "... continues the trend of delivering new and powerful features to both compositors and designers, without favoring the toolset to one discipline or the other."

Discreet (Autodesk) has made available new training DVDs. These include the Games Development Series Training DVDs Vol. 1 & 2 and new DVDs in their Master Class Series recorded during SIGGRAPH 2004 (a lot of excellent material there, but regrettably one DVD still missing from the list is the class on tracking by Matt Merkovich).

Autodesk has begun shipping Combustion 4 which, as reported earlier, incorporates many new features (and happily enough, it has officially regained its capital "C" letter!).

Richard Rosenman has updated his website with detailed information on Red Rover's "Plumber", a CG short created with Max he co-directed with Andy Knight, which has screened at many festivals and has finally been released internationally. Drawing on the lessons learned from their first CG film production, Red Rover is already hard at work on a second CG short film.   [ more... ]

Keep an eye on this one, even if it's called PF Fundamentals, it's certainly worth a look for those who already have experience with Particle Flow. DVD 5 has over four hours of tutorials conceived by Chris Thomas that cover nine real world examples. Visit CG Academy for more information and some sample videos.

Frischluft's Lenscare v1.2 is 25% - 40% faster and has been made more responsive on multi CPU machines. The latest After Effects version of the Flair set of plugins fixes a problem with alpha masks. Updated versions for both AE-compatible plugins are available at the download page.

The fine folks from Valencia-based Keytoon have posted online more impressive work with their latest reel. They are also hiring, so proficient Spanish 3D artists looking for a good place to work may want to check out their site.

Particle Flow Tools: Box #2 has a preliminary estimated release date of (northern hemisphere's) Summer '05. Box#3 development is already underway, with the main theme as "Visual Scripting".

Wiring a Control Board (for characters)
Photoshop tips for 3D Artists
Ornatrix - A Crash Course
Detailed tutorial on the behavior of light
Particle Flow and Scripting (needs Flash)
How to create a fractured explosion using Particle Flow   [ more... ]

Discreet renamed to "Autodesk Media and Entertainment". PR available at Discreet.com.

"NURBS", it's been a while since we heard that acronym. Power NURBS is a comprehensive surface and solids modeling package being developed by nPower Software. Power NURBS is designed to handle difficult modeling tasks common to styling or industrial design applications. The software is currently in alpha release, Max users interested in participating in the beta testing process should contact nPower Software.

Accomplished character animator Keith Lango is offering a subscription service for learning character animation through video tutorials.

Madrid-based Reyes-Infográfica, known to 3D users for their Max plugins, have developed fashion design tools based on their proprietary technology.

CGUnderground interviews Spanish artist Juan José Palomo.

Itoo Software has released a new version of Forest Pack, its package of plugins to aid in the creation of large extensions of plants and vegetation. Also of note, their user's gallery has been updated with new images. Read on for the list of new features.   [ more... ]

According to rumors, developers at CAT are working on a new crowd system for Max.

Stephen St Leger and James Mather have collaborated on the concept of directing a 15-minute high-energy genre movie shot entirely on green screen and post produced by themselves. Prey Alone is almost entirely digitally created, in fact the only elements of live action in the movie are the actors and some hand props. Everything else was built in post production using Max and After Effects by the Irish filmmakers. Find out more at PreyAlone.com, CGChannel also has a great article on the production of the movie.

Debra Kaufman interviews Blur Studio's Tim Miller on Creativity, Greed and Flying Star Wars Characters: "... the companies I’ve seen rise and fall over the years, it’s because the owners got greedy and decided it was time to cash in and take money out of the company for a nice car. Money doesn’t mean anything to me."

Digit Magazine has the article.

Evermotion.org is ready to ship a new product: the furniture collection "Archmodels volume 1".   [ more... ]

CG Academy announced the availability of the second DVD in the MAXScript Fundamentals series, covering practical topics related to working with massive numbers of scene objects. The DVD was recorded by Borislav Petrov (a.k.a. Bobo) and is intended to teach the average 3ds max user how to "talk" to 3ds max by employing the amazing power of MAXScript as a command line interface to the software.   [ more... ]

Mikhail Gladtchenko reviews 3ds max 6 Animation CG Filmmaking From Concept to Completion for RenderNode.com: "... very useful if you are somewhat new to CG Film production."

Munich-based Scanline has developed an Ocean Dynamic and Hydro Fluid Simulation software called "FlowLine" that realistically simulates different types of water motion, from raging ocean storms to calm river waters interacting with a boat's oar. Visit Scanline.de for some impressive images created with the fluid simulation software (click on SIGGRAPH 2005/Special: Hydro Fluid Simulations).

Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age, Robots, Bunny) have posted some very interesting information regarding their pipeline process. Also of note, AnimWatch has an interesting interview with Chris Wedge, co-director of Robots.

As reported earlier, Character Animation Technologies (CAT) is working on a muscle deformation system for Max that allows users to achieve realistic movement, especially on shoulders and other difficult areas of physiology, with a minimum of setup. The CATMuscle pages have now been updated with more information. New sample videos have been posted and a beta version is now available for download.

Jean-Eric Hénault (CGChannel) interviews Tim Miller on Blur Studio and "Gopher Broke" - one of their latest shorts. A very informative article for those interested in Blur's work. Check it out!

Discreet have released Service Pack 1 for 3ds max 7. It includes a number of fixes for 3ds max 7 across several functional areas, including SDK, Scripter, Skin, DX9/Shaders and mental ray. SP1 is only for the English-language version of max 7, other languages are planned for release later this year.

Check out this great short film by Till Nowak, created with Max. Some aspects of the film could be a bit more polished, but this one clearly shows that what matters most is the story. Definitely recommended.

The grass is always greener on the other side. XSI users who seem to own XSI Foundation or XSI Essentials and are unwilling to pay the extra cost for XSI Advanced are requesting an XSI port of Ornatrix. Another similar (but not so populated) thread can be found at Orbaztech's forums, requesting an XSI port of Particle Flow.

Physics Processing Units (PPUs) are designed to provide hardware accelerated calculations of physics effects, such as realtime soft body dynamics, fluid dynamics, smart particle systems, clothing simulation, soft-body deformation with tearing, and fracturing of objects. Visit Ageia.com for more.

Twixtor 4.5 introduces a complete rewrite of its tracking system. Twixtor is much more accurate, tracks objects farther, and exhibits fewer artifacts when there are objects crossing in the scene. The difference in accuracy means that retiming artifacts are either drastically reduced or disappear on the hardest to retime footage. Visit REVisionFX.com for more.

Alias is offering a Personal Learning Edition of its MotionBuilder software - a free, non-commercial version of the character animation software. The ability to export FBX files has been disabled with MotionBuilder PLE.

Claudio Lodi reviews Image Modeler 4.0 for RenderNode: "... too costly when compared to competing products such as Dsculptor or Imodeler (...) [If] ease of use is a factor that you're willing to pay for, Image Modeler 4 is probably the tool for you."

New images at 3D Artists gallery. Check 'em out!

CGChannel has an interesting article on Natural Motion's Endorphin.

The latest version of Electric Rain's renderer/SWF file format exporter sports up to fifty times faster rendering speeds, artistic pen styles, improved transparency settings and the ability to control the density and color of single and overlapping shadows. Additional export formats include Adobe Illustrator, EPS, SVG and Toon Boom’s PNT format. Visit Erain.com for more.

Yet another notable update from Ephere. Ornatrix v1.3 includes new additions such as a special mesh type for seamless integration with cloth dynamics, propagation tools to spawn hierarchies of hairs on top of each other on the fly, and an additional dynamics engine with improved stability and collision detection. The update also has many improvements and bug fixes in general workflow, rendering, and animation. Visit Ornatix's forums for the full list of changes.

Boomer Labs announced MAX2AE, a new plugin for Max v4+ that bridges the gap between Max and After Effects. The plugin enables Max users to integrate After Effects elements into Max renders in an accurate and efficient way, matching all aspects and parameters of Max cameras, lights and objects.

ZBrushCentral has posted some videos from their January user meeting. The videos are quite short but are a good example of what some talented modelers (Bay Raitt, Meats Meier, Taron, etc.) have accomplished using ZBrush. Definitely worth a look.

As we reported earlier, Peru has completed its first CG animated feature film titled "Piratas en el Callao", which has already premiered in Peru and Bolivia. The BBC has posted an interesting article on the subject. It must be mentioned that there is at least one precedent of a CG animated feature film made in Latin America, titled "Cóndor Crux", though it contained many 2D elements (in this sense it was not completely 3D animated) and was an Argentine/Spanish co-production.

Color Theory has finally been ported to the Windows platform. Color Theory is a digital color wheel that helps users find harmonious color combinations. Available as a stand-alone application or a plugin for Photoshop or After Effects-compatible applications, Color Theory enables artists to quickly analyze hundreds of color schemes based on the traditional RYB color model while working with existing logos and artwork. A demo version and some sample videos can be found at Digitalanarchy.com.

NewTek (www.newtek.com) is offering a limited-time, $495, competitive upgrade to LightWave 3D.   [ more... ]

Boring 3D is back, new pictures are being added to the gallery.
Source: Nik Clark

Occlusion in 3dsmax 7
Tutorial which describes the new 'Ambient Occlusion' method. This method is basically rendering out an occlusion pass(which is a grayscale or a tinted image based on environment map) and then overlaying this image over a flat lit diffuse pass(achieved by ambient lighting, I'll describe it later) to represent the shadowing caused by the environment.
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Source: Stryker of 3dm3

Photographic 3D rendering using linear color space
A tutorial on how to get your renders more photographically accurate. Focuses on VRay 1.46.xx with 3DS Max7. However, this theory can be applied to any renderer in any package.
Source: throb himself

Scriptspot.com has opened a new section "Meet the Gurus" which will feature interviews with script writers that have contributed free tools to the 3ds max community. The first interview is with Borislav Petrov, also known as Bobo.

The pre-elimination round for Maxforums.org's 3D Tournament begins today. This round will determine who fills the slots for the first round in this single elimination 3D tournament.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Andy Murdock on the latest version of "Lots of Robots". Andy provided us with some very interesting details on the conception and production of his movie (and also, we finally got the chance to ask him the question).

The latest version of the skeleton rig is now available in the rigging section of Brad-Noble.com. This version adds full squash and stretch and IK/FK snap to the list of things this resizeable rig can do quickly and intuitively.

Nik Clark has posted many useful scripts on his website, including SpookyLights, that helps users create complex light animations, and maxOrrery, a script that creates and animates a miniature version of the solar system. Check 'em out!

3D y Animación has launched a new contest with the theme "Robots". Deadline for entries is April 30. (Spanish)

RenderNode interviews Steve Odgen, founder of AnimWatch.