AnimWatch have announced their latest AnimClips challenge. Read the info and get the sound clip at AnimWatch.com.

MV2 is an excellent, small and free media player with frame by frame playback capabilities. Especially recommended for studying motion and as a great replacement for the standard media player. Check it out!

CrazyBump creates displacement, normal and even fake occlusion maps from 2D images.

According to News.com Microsoft is allowing PC makers to offer a "downgrade" option to buyers who get certain versions of Vista bundled with their new machines but want to run XP. Maybe the wording is not entirely accurate, though, maybe going back to XP is the actual "upgrade".

Side Effects Software announced the release of Houdini 9.

With Smart Render Graphic plug-in for 3ds Max you can generate interactive SRG files. Unlike other raster file formats available in the market such as JPG, BMP, PNG and GIF formats, SRG images allows you to have...   [ more... ]

Read the news at Bit-tech.net.

Supinfocom students do it once again, check out the trailers for some of these impressive animated shorts: Poetico Mecano, Dock 5, Protheses, Switch, The Cold Rush (complete film online). More to come.

A set of 3 Camtasia videos showing the very basics of Krakatoa, Frantic Films particle rendering, management and manipulation toolkit, have been posted by StudioDaily.com. In addition, some videos created by Beta testers of Krakatoa have been added to a Work In Progress Gallery page within the Krakatoa Online Documentation. Check 'em out!   [ more... ]

Microsoft has lost an appeal against a 497 million euro fine imposed by the European Commission for anti-competitive business practices. More information at NewsScientist.com, Digital Arts, Slashdot.com. Can something as critical as an operating system's development be left in the hands of a corporation (any corporation) driven by the impersonal need to maximize profits? Was anyone eagerly expecting Vista to be released? Food for thought.

CGArchitect reviews 3Dconnexion's SpaceNavigator: "Navigating your 3D scenes will never be the same again."

Intel announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Havok, the company that provides the dynamics driving 3DS Max. Press release available from Intel.com. Also of note, Havok 5 was recently released.

Frantic Films is seeking qualified testers for Flood:Surf for 3DS Max 9.0. Flood:Surf is an ocean synthesis toolset for creating deep-ocean scenery. (See www.franticfilms.com/software for more info.) A qualified tester is someone with access to 3DS Max 9.0 (32- or 64-bit) with an interest in creating ocean imagery. Read on for more.   [ more... ]

Stephen Regelous and his team at Massive Software have been working on an interesting project. Read the news at MassiveSoftware.com.

FogScreen is a walk-through projection screen that works by making images appear in thin fog. FogScreen One is a new modular design that allows several screens to be linked together to create a seamless FogScreen of any width, almost unlimitedly. Visit FogScreen.com for more.

Check out some interesting research being done at the University of Adelaide in Australia on video-based modeling techniques.

Added 1 new script: edgeSelectByAngle, that lets you select edges in an object based off of the angle of the shared faces. This is really useful for selecting just the sharp edges of an object for chamfering, etc. Updated a ton of scripts. Read on for more...   [ more... ]

The latest version of the bitmap-to-vector conversion program sports many new features and improvements including tools for vector cleanup and editing, line smoothing capabilities, support for more formats such as EPS, SVG, PSD, etc. A trial version is available for download, visit MagicTracer.com for more.

Modo's new features include mesh-based and image-based sculpting (detailing) capabilities. Its painting tools are quite impressive too, not bad at all for a 3D software with a $895 price tag. Find out more at Luxology.com.

Autodesk have gathered many links to Max-related tutorials and other resources they provide and posted them in one page.

Now that Box #3 has been out for a while it seems the development of Particle Flow Tools: Box #2, which is expected to bring the ability of assembling and disassembling objects (among other features) is speeding up. Oleg Bayborodin has recently issued a call for alpha/beta testers. It'd certainly be healthy to see Particle Flow in Max being updated by incorporating some of the excellent features Mr. Bayborodin has been developing.

The schematic material editor plugin for Max has received significant updates. Find out more at NodeJoe.com.

New features in this latest version of the node-based real-time shader editor include: revamped shader export pipeline to make it easier to add your own format variations, technique material node to allow multiple materials to be created in a single FX shader file, various UI improvements such as the ability to display alpha maps and auto-hide tab panels, and basic support for XNA, Quest3D and FX Composer formats. ShaderFX 1.8 is a free upgrade for existing customers. Videos of the new features can be found Lumonix.net.