The fine folks from RE:Vision Effects have released DE:Noise, a plugin for compositing and editing applications. DE:Noise combines motion estimation techniques with feature-sensitive, edge-preserving spatial filtering methods to reduce the visual impact of various problems such as: noisy video (that can happen with low-light capture), excessive film grain, CG renders affected by ray-tracing sampling artifacts, fingerprints and dust captured during film scan/transfer and printing, snow, drop-outs and many other defects. Find out more information and some sample videos at REVisionFX.com. The Great Train Robbery never looked this good.

With SIGGRAPH 2007 around the corner, and most press agents and marketing "specialists" busily finding the right superlatives for the hundreds of upcoming press releases (one can almost hear the sound of typing), some interesting videos covering the Computer Animation Festival, Emerging Technologies and more have been posted at SIGGRAPH.org. Check 'em out!

New impressive videos at Sitni Sati's website featuring Afterburn and FumeFX elements. The clips were created by Blur Studio as part of the cinematics for the upcoming game "Stuntman Ignition".

Another great open source application in the works: DJV Imaging by Darby Johnston is a flipbook player and imaging utility. Features include support for extended range images and versions for both UNIX and Windows.

Autodesk is holding their SIGGRAPH User Group and after party in San Diego on the 6th of August. The party itself, "Steel Beach" will be on the Aircraft Carrier USS Midway. You must register ahead for the user group to get in. Party passes will be handed out during the User Group. Space is limited so don't miss out. Visit Autodesk.com for more.

FXGuide has a great preview with some highlights of the papers that will be presented at this year's SIGGRAPH.

The latest version of Eyeon Software's compositing application includes features such as After Effects API and OFX API plugin support, a Vector Motion Blur tool, an enhanced tracker and hundreds of UI enhancements and workflow improvements. Read the whole PR at Eyeonline.com.

Check out the movie samples and press release for more.

Neil Bennett reviews After Effects CS3 for Digital Arts: "... the lack of a full node-based compositing system means AE is weak for complex VFX work (...) [but] its expansive toolset means that AE is ideal for day-to-day tasks."

Check out this funny short made by students from Spanish school CICE, David Cobo and Fran R. Sousa. It took the authors almost six months to produce the film using 3DS Max and Combustion. "Solos" has recently received the award for best national animated short at the Spanish festival Mundos Digitales.

Splutterfish have created a new blog/site with the goal of providing step-by-step Brazil training-style materials so that any user willing to put in the time and dedication can become an expert Brazil artist.

Developers take heed. If this becomes reality it seems we will all sooner than later find ourselves running Linux - not that it would be a bad thing. Find out more at ArsTechnica.com, InformationWeek.com and Bit-Tech.net.

The latest version of Nevercenter's modeling software offers high resolution "displacement painting", LSCM UV Unwrapping, and much more. The beta version is available for download. Silo will "continue to function as a free file converter" even after the trial period expires, visit Nevercenter.com for more on the new features.

Raph.com interviews talented Slovak artist Marek Denko.

New great images added. Check 'em out!

Frantic Films will be showing commercial versions of new technologies at SIGGRAPH: Flood and Flood: Surf (simulation of realistic water, foam, oil, rubber, lava and ocean surfaces), and Krakatoa (high-volume point-based particle renderer, manipulation and management toolkit available as a plugin for Max). Also of note, Frantic Films will be presenting the latest versions of their Deadline render farm management system and Amaretto, the 3DS Max interface for NVIDIA’s Gelato renderer. Find out more at DigitalContentProducer.com and Software.FranticFilms.com.

New images created with Thomas Luft's Ivy Generator available.

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

Read the news at NewsScientistTech.com.

Adobe Production Premium includes the latest (CS3) releases of After Effects Pro, Premiere Pro, Photoshop Extended, Soundbooth and more. Read the whole PR at Adobe.com.   [ more... ]

More than a year after posting the trailer for "Garto", talented Spanish artist Luis Gómez-Guzmán has made available the final version of his short film online. Check it out!

An excellent videoclip by Yannick Puig (Krapooyo) with a stylized, non-photorealistic aesthetic. Music by French group Kwoon, from their album "Tales & Dreams". Ça vaut le détour! Sérieux, allez voir cette vidéo!

A funny short film by Juan Fernando Terán that mixes CG and stop-motion animation.