(Updated September 5, 2007) More plugins from Sisyphus have been recompiled: Special Purpose Particles v1.2 and Th0r. Check out the news at Maxplugins.de.
Dave Baker has most kindly recompiled some old but very useful plugins from Sisyphus for Max 8 and 9: Grass-O-matic v1.2 (tutorial) for making grass and hair, the metaball modeler Proteus v1.1, and MaxTrax v2.1 for creating skidmarks, tire tracks, etc. MaxTrax and Proteus used to be commercial plugins, but are now freeware. Also of note Sisyphus's Druid tree generation plugin has been recompiled too and is available (due to licensing issues) only to owners of previous versions of the plugin. Big thanks to Dave Baker, Eric Peterson (ex-developer at Sisyphus Software, who has generously given Dave the source code of the plugins) and Kyle Strawitz for making this possible. More info at Maxplugins.de.

The Pixel Farm announced the release of the latest version of their automated film review and clean up system. Version 3.0 adds video ingest and layoff, field based image support and a fully GPU accelerated toolset. Find out more at ThePixelFarm.co.uk.

A chance to see Frantic Films' Flood:Surf in action in this video tutorial.

The Mental Ray cookbook is a Wiki-based collection of recipes of how to achieve certain effects with Mental Ray in 3DS Max.   [ more... ]

Opalux are developing a new display technology that can reproduce the whole spectrum of colors, including ultraviolet and infrared, using incident light. Read the article at NewsScientistTech.com.

Hair simulation plugins HairFX and Ornatrix can now be used in concert to create hair and fur effects. Hairtrix takes advantage of years of dedicated research in improving hair and fur technologies, and provides a multitude of advanced tools for creating realistic hair and fur, and simulating its movement. Find out more at Turbosquid.com. (Note: Turbo Squid has not issued any PRs so far, which is unusual, but the release of the software has been confirmed by a reliable source.)

According to a message posted by Ken Pimentel, Senior Product Manager at Autodesk Media and Entertainment, 3DS Max has reported strong growth in sales and Autodesk have hired more developers to focus on Max, to the point of doubling the size of the development team. The future is looking bright for 3DS Max.

"Added 1 new script: nameManager, which is a new Renamer script. It currently only works on objects (yes, I know, there's hundreds of these scripts available), but in the future it will be able to do much, much more. Updated a ton of scripts." Read on for more.   [ more... ]

A great demo video of what is arguably one of Microsoft's best and finest software creations. Check it out!

Check 'em out!

OPG is a freeware utility for Max that allows users to create occlusion passes at the click of a button, courtesy of Ziv Qual and Mathew Kaustinen. The plugin is currently in beta and is expected to be available soon.

New images added to Splutterfish's Brazil r/s gallery. Check 'em out!

Time to celebrate for Linux and open-source advocates, the long-awaited ruling will have far-reaching consequences. Read the news at Bit-tech.net, News.com, ArsTechnica.com, Linux-watch.com.

A Max version of the Syflex cloth simulator is under development. Check out a screen snapshot at Syflex.com.

Film no more. The word will become a testimony of the origins and historical development of moving pictures (for those who will care to ask), but the material itself will rarely be used for making or distributing films. Read the news at Hollywoodreporter.com.

Neil Blevins has updated his script collection again, adding 4 new scripts called calculatorLauncher, parameterManager, uVWMappingCopier and vertexAndEdgeConnector. He's also updated 4 other scripts: uVPlacer, vertPlacer, attachSelectedObjects and sLib. As always, the scripts are available from Neilblevins.com.

Ozone 3.0 allows users to create and render 3D clouds and spectral atmospheres for 3D scenes. The plugin features animatable parameters, fast rendering speeds, and over 100 pre-defined atmospheric presets. Ozone 3.0 is currently compatible with 3DS Max v7 and up. Visit E-on software for more. (Note: the press release mentions only Mental Ray compatibility when referring to 3DS Max)

Chaos Group have announced the release of the final version of V-Ray 1.5 at their SIGGRAPH user group meeting. New features in this version of V-Ray include animation modes for irradiance map calculation, new render elements, increased rendering speed for certain types of scenes, the ability to produce a rounded-corners effect at rendertime using VRayEdgesTex as bump map, and more. Also of note, Chaos Group have disclosed more details on a software they have been developing for a while, called PDPlayer, a resolution-independent image sequence player.

Five more Max users have received Autodesk's Masters Award. This year's recipients were: Allan McKay, Marek Denko, Gary M. Davis, Donald Chen and Jeff Hanna. Congratulations to them all!

ZBrush 3.1's new Brush Palette allows users to load, save and share custom made brushes. Customizable hotkeys and an improved UI allows for faster work. ZMapper and Displacement Exporter have been ported for ZBrush 3.1 to allow more flexibility for exporting. Brush system has been revamped and a few new brush features have been added. ZBrush 3.1 now includes Poseable Symmetry - keep symmetry on your model at the click of a button. Visit Pixologic.com for more.

The latest version of Toon Boom Animation's software features a WYSIWYG creation environment, extensive kick start programs, improved UI, extended animation tools (improved IK, enhanced onion skin modes, advanced color palette management), etc. Visit ToonBoom.com for more.

Color Symmetry is a suite of plugins for previewing the look of film color imagery across multiple animation, graphics and effects packages. Color Symmetry lets you create, iterate and integrate with accurate color handling between mediums, applications, platforms and even facilities. Plugins are currently available for major 3D and compositing applications.

PR at Studio Daily.

Find out more at Autodesk.com.

PR at NewTek.com.

Autodesk announced today the details of Max 10, now called 3DS Max 2008. New features include viewport optimizations that result in much improved interactivity when handling large scenes, an "artist-friendly modeling workflow", a Scene Explorer that provides a hierarchical view of scene data, Biped enhancements, a new MAXScript ProEditor, interactive viewport previews of shadows (including self-shadowing and up to 64 lights simultaneously) and the Max sun/sky system, etc. Find out more at Autodesk's 3DS Max pages. Also of note, an interesting blog post at The Area. (Note: Keep in mind that more new features usually surface between the official announcement and the final release of the software.)

Massive Software have released the latest version of their crowd behavioral animation system. Version 3.0 offers dynamic hair and fur, layer simulations, subdivision surfaces, improved dynamics and more. Read the whole PR at Studio Daily.

Frantic Films have posted detailed information on their plugins for Max: Krakatoa, Flood, Flood:Spray, Flood:Surf. A trial version of Krakatoa, the long-awaited high-volume point-based particle renderer, is available for download!

Read the whole PR at Autodesk.com.

Softimage fortunately continues its most unusual trend to develop a Max plugin. CAT 3 provides many new features, including integration of CATMuscle. A trial version is available for download.

Allegorithmic have released the latest version of MaPZone, their texture creation software, for free. MaPZone allows users to locally edit procedural textures to create diffuse, specular and normal maps that are resolution independent, match up perfectly and seamlessly tile automatically.

Find out more at Softimage.com and read the whole PR at Studio Daily.

Neil Blevins has updated his script collection, adding Brazil 2 compatibility to cameraFromPerspView and texmapPreview, and changing modifySubdivIters so that when you decrease iterations to 0, it turns off "Use Nurms Subdivision" entirely. He has also added two new scripts called VertPlacer and wireColorRandomizer, whioh does just that. As always, the scripts are available from Neilblevins.com.

The latest version of Yunus Balcioglu's set of advanced tools for poly modeling in Max has been released. Find out more at Orionflame.com.

ProEtoMax offers native translation of Pro/Engineer files directly into 3DS Max / Viz. ProEtoMax reads Pro/E files and creates a "Power NURBS" object to represent the precise geometry defined in these advanced CAD files. Features include: native translation of Pro/E models/assemblies, import precise trimmed NURBS, user control of tessellation for display and rendering, high quality mesh generation, cleanup of imported data, optimization for large assemblies, intelligent snapping, etc. Read the whole PR for more.

The latest version of Nevercenter's 3D modeler is out. Find out more at Silo's user forums and Nevercenter.com.