* * * Happy Holidays to all our readers from the team at Max Underground! * * *

Rome-based Digital Video announced the release of The TAB Kids, a new software designed to introduce kids to the animation world in a natural and intuitive way. The TAB Kids relies on the Toonz technology developed for the animation industry to produce feature films and television series.

Sitni Sati has finally released FumeFX, a plugin for Max that simulates fire and smoke effects and their interaction with scene objects. FumeFX provides extensive support for Particle Flow and Thinking Particles as well as advanced scripting capabilities via Maxscript. Detailed information can be found at Afterworks.com, along with a few sample videos.

Matthew Bath reviews ImageSynth for Digit Magazine: "... Ideal for designers looking for seamless backgrounds, brushes or texture maps, output is frankly staggering."

Red Giant Software has released a new color correction tool that supports many major compositing and editing applications.

Matt Fairclough's Terragen 2 Tech Preview is now available for personal non-commercial use or as a 30 day trial for commercial use. Get it!

Mudbox 1.0 is now available for purchase and download at Mudbox3d.com. Mudbox 1.0 Professional pricing starts at $649. Floating (network) seats and Gold Support options are also available. Mudbox 1.0 Basic, for noncommercial use is available for $299.

PS CS3 beta is available for download from Adobe Labs. Digit Magazine has an article on the new features.

Yes, another schematic material editor surfaces (and at this point maybe this should be regarded as a symptom). Jerry Ylilammi has kindly posted a public beta of his scripted schematic material editor.

Todd Sheridan Perry reviews Max 9 for Digital Producer : "... unless you are upgrading your workstations to Windows 64 or Windows Vista, you can probably hold out for a point upgrade."

NaturalMotion have released the latest version of their "virtual motion capture studio". New features in Endorphin 2.7 include enhanced effects and the ability for characters and objects to interact with fluids. Visit NaturalMotion.com for more.

Find out more at Eyeonline.com.

Longtime 3DS Max author Michele Bousquet releases e-book "MAXScript Made Easy" with instant delivery at a low price.   [ more... ]

Mental Bout Max are producing video training modules for Mental Ray renderer specifically for 3DS Max.   [ more... ]

The fine folks from Brazilian website Três D1 are holding a new contest titled "Ancient Civilizations", and are offering more than $5000 in prizes. Visit TresD1.com.br for more. (Portuguese)

Mudbox pricing has been announced: the basic version will cost $299, and the Pro version $649 (see the version comparison chart). Skymatter's modeling and detailing software is expected to be released before the end of the month.

Sendai-based PSoft have released the latest version of their NPR shader plugin for Max. New features include added flexibility to control light and shadow in materials, enhancements to line drawing functions, faster rendering and much more. Check out the complete list of features and some sample images and movies. A demo version is available for download.

New images at Raph.com. Check 'em out!

Michael Burns reviews Antics 2 for Digit Magazine: "... user-friendly enhancements (...) can put the director firmly in charge of the creative process."

Lev Manovich, a leading theorist of digital culture, media and art, and author of the fundamental book "The Language of New Media" has posted some interesting articles on his website discussing changes brought by After Effects, 3D applications and virtual cinematography (Gaeta's "Universal Capture") to visual aesthetics. Definitely recommended. (Note: articles can be found under the "NEW ARTICLES 2006" section)