Four students from the IUT at Nice have brought Lego-style primitives and tools to Max (sample images: 1-2-3). The Briks forum is holding a contest with the theme "create an image that represents the most famous scene from your favorite movie". Download the software from Briks.fr.st. (French)

Ruairi Robinson (Fifty Percent Grey) is making the jump from animated films to live action ones. Still, his latest film includes some CG environments. Take a look at this impressive image of a city created with Max and rendered with VRay.

(Updated May 3, 2005) Leonard Teo has posted a thorough message discussing many of the concerns raised by CGTalk visitors.
(Updated April 27, 2005) CGNetworks aim of creating a worldwide "society" seems to have been more controversial than expected among CGTalk visitors. Follow the discussion at CGTalk.com.
From European 3D Festival organizer to Internet Discussion Board, to news website, to book publisher, to online shop, to short course teaching school, to CGSociety. An impressive list of ventures, especially considering the short timespan in which they have taken place. CGNetworks is necessarily evolving into a structure that can financially support the services it offers to CG users, and which will allow it to offer new ones in the future. Visit CGSociety.com for more.

SNOWbase and SPRINGbase are collections of High-Res texture maps in HDR-format. Low-res blurred versions of the images are included to allow users to lighten scenes with faster rendering speed and smoother sampling distribution.   [ more... ]

Lamont Gilkey interviews the creators of the animated short "The Awakening of Consciousness" for InsideCG.com. The short film has not been created with Max but it's quite polished and its videogame aesthetic is worth checking out.

SEATTLE, WA (April 20, 2005) – SplutterFish LLC, a leading high-end 3D rendering software solutions provider has been gaining significant respect from the professional computer graphics industry since its inception. Top CG studios like The Orphanage, Glowfrog Studios, Nexus Productions, Frantic Films, and Blur Studio are relying on The Brazil Rendering System for the most demanding shots in "Sin City", Honda's "GRRR", "Gopher Broke", and more!
Press release

RebelThink.01 is currently developing Natural:shaders RF, a special version of the Natural:shaders collection that supports Realflow 3's .bin file format. This new version can use fluid parameters such as velocity, pressure, etc. Also of note, Rebelthink announced that Turbosquid has become the first worldwide distributor of the Natural:shaders set of plugins. Read on for more information on Rebelthink's latest developments.   [ more... ]

Autodesk Ships VIZ 2006-Latest Visualization Tool for Sharing Design Intent
New Toolset Delivers Advanced Features Including Intuitive Interoperability With Autodesk Products

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., April 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK - News), today began shipping Autodesk® VIZ 2006, the professional design visualization software that helps artists realize their ideas through 3D modeling, rendering and animation. Autodesk VIZ 2006 features new tools that enhance interoperability with other Autodesk® design applications and for creating and managing content, such as tool palettes and a new content browser for cameras, lights and materials.
Press Release

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For those wondering - Autodesk VIZ 2006 is based on the 3ds max r7 core functionality and one can exchange files and plugins freely. See also the FAQ.

Read the news at DigitalProducer.com, CNN.com.

CGunderground are running an interview with Liam Kemp, creator of This Wonderful Life, and Maxim's CyberBabe

Following recent changes on Autodesk/discreet branding, the look of Discreet.com has been redesigned.

Metacube has recently completed a 4 minute videoclip using Max for a group of Mexican singers known as "Los Fernández". Deathfall has the interview. (English|Spanish)

Read the article at Digit Magazine.

Visit Digit Magazine for more.

Sin City opened back on the 25th of March.  The film, despite it's criticism for over-the-top sex and violence, has been very well received and is doing great box office numbers.   San Francisco based "The Orphanage" did somewhere in the range of 640 shots for the That Yellow Bastard section of the film (one of 3 chapters in the film) and have done several interviews on the web with images and breakdowns.  Why's that cool for MaxUnderground?  They used Brazil r/s and 3ds max throughout this hugely demanding production :)  If you haven't seen the film, do.  The work is beautiful and stays very true to Frank Millers original graphic novels.

Postproduction studio Platige Image has begun a recruiting campaign to increase the size of its future production team. Platige Image has produced short animated movies such as "The Cathedral" and the recent "Fallen Art".   [ more... ]

Thorsten Thormählen and Hellward Broszio from the IT Lab at the University of Hannover have developed Voodoo, a free camera tracker that estimates camera motion and reconstructs a 3D scene from image sequences. The algorithm offers a full automatic and robust solution to estimate camera parameters for long video sequences. The estimated result can be exported to 3D animation packages including Max.

Uncharted Territory have an immediate opening for several 3DS Max artists in the following fields: 3D modeling, texturing and animation, particle systems, fluid dynamics, pre-visualization.   [ more... ]

Treddi.com, the Italian portal for 3D users, has opened a new texture section with 24 new hi-res images (3000 x 2000) for free download.

The latest MAXtreme driver (Version 7.00.03) is finally available on the NVIDIA website.

Valencia-based Keytoon Animation Studios have posted their short film Buckets. It is completely rendered with Maxwell, and uses RealFlow for the water simulation.

(Update) FXGuide takes a look at the HDR capabilities of Photoshop CS2.
Read about new feature highlights, including HDRI support, at Adobe.com.

SAN RAFAEL, CA—April 1, 2005—According to undisclosed sources, a poker game that took place on Saturday, February 26 in Montreal, between marketing staff from Autodesk and Discreet would have resulted in the latest re-branding of Discreet's products.   [ more... ]

Pete Draper, author of the excellent "Deconstructing the Elements" Max book has updated his website with new images from his work. Check 'em out!

Ballistic Publishing announced that its CG Challenge book 'Machineflesh' is now shipping. Machineflesh comprises of tutorials and artwork from the contestants of the Machineflesh Challenge (16 March - 18 June 2004). Visit BallisticPublishing.com for more.