Ryan Clark, developer of CrazyBump, has posted a video showing off the capabilities of the latest version (8.6) of the software.

The Foundry announced the latest release of their compositing application. Visit TheFoundry.co.uk for more.

PixPlant is a new texturing tool that creates seamless textures of any size from plain photos. PixPlant can be used to quickly generate seamless textures, to augment images or for any purpose which requires a new image based on other seed images. A fully functional demo of PixPlant, examples, screenshots and a video tutorial are available at PixPlant.com. Read on for more.   [ more... ]

"Huge update! Added 5 new scripts:
bitmapCollector: Collects all the scene bitmaps and places them into a single directory, updating your scene to point to their new home.
objectPainter: This script lets you paint objects (geometry, splines, lights, helpers, etc) onto a piece of geometry. Like for example, you can make 10 different rocks, and then paint them in a random fashion onto a terrain. This script is still IP, and there will be lots of additions in coming months.
softSelectionControl: Toggles, or turns on or off the soft selection tool for objects.
faceNormalDisplayer: Toggles, or turns on or off the face normal display for objects.
surfaceSnapper: This script allows you to move one object along the surface of a second object. Great for placing objects on a terrain." Also of note, some scripts have been updated, read on for more.   [ more... ]

Some are waiting for the second coming, some are still expecting the first. And then there are those who say there is no point in waiting at all, CG artists who argue that big corporations are simply not interested in promoting innovation. But for those CG believers who have kept their faith, PMG has recently announced the release of Messiah 3.0, with new features such as: hair/fur module, improved GI rendering, fast volumetric designable clouds, new armature controls for animation, etc. More information and some video tutorials available at ProjectMessiah.com. Every knee shall kneel, every tongue shall swear.

Italian artist Francesco Legrenzi has announced the upcoming release of a book with over 1000 pages of information dedicated to Chaos Group's VRay renderer. The book will be published in Italian but an English version is expected to be available sometime in 2008. Find out more at Treddi.com and Franceso Legrenzi's website.

This might be useful to those of you who use renderfarms: the Rebus Renderfarm has lowered its GHz/hour price across the board to 15.9 eurocents (approx. $0.23). They've also doubled their capacity to 1200 GHz. All the details are here.

Act-3D has announced the release of the latest version of their real-time 3D application development software. New functionality includes real-time support for COLLADA, Newton Game Dynamics, Advanced Weather Simulation, 3D GUI Support and a fully Object-Oriented development model. Visit Quest3D.com for more.

PicLens is a full-screen web image browser that works as a Firefox, IE or Safari plugin. Very useful when looking for images through Google. Check it out!

Havok has announced two new physics tools for simulating realistic cloth and rigid body destruction (shattering, fracture and deformation), aimed at game developers. Let's hope the Destruction simulation features are incorporated into Max.

XDepth generates images at JPEG compression rates that can be viewed in Internet Explorer by using an ActiveX application and edited using Photoshop (after installing a freely downloadable plugin). According to XDepth's website the format offers a variable bit-depth throughout each HDR image, providing extra precision where it's required. The site also mentions that 48 bits/pixel and alpha channels (currently available in OpenEXR) will be supported in the near future.

RE:Vision Effects has released SmoothKit v2, a set of AE-compatible plugins with smoothing algorithms that combines user-directed controls and feature-sensitive methods. Read the press release for more.

Cebas has announced an update for its FinalF/X collection of plugins (formerly known as ProOpticSuite). The new version offers Max 9 and 2008 compatibility along with a few new features. Visit Cebas.com for more.

Bit-Tech.net has the news.

Neil Blevins has added 2 new scripts to his collection: blendedBoxMapMaker creates a Blended Box Map for your selected objects; selectionHighlighter simulates the Selection Highlighting mode from Silo in Max (this only works in Max 2008). He has also updated a number of scripts, with the major changes being: added automatic render modes to subdivisionAutomator; circleArrayMaker now works on multiple selections. As always, the scripts are available from Neilblevins.com.

In order to streamline further development of their Nova realtime 3D software, Vertice are trying to find out the needs of users who are interested in presenting their Max scenes as interactive realtime 3D applications.
You can take part in the survey here.   [ more... ]

(Updated February 13, 2008 by Pablo Hadis) An interesting thread with reactions to the announcement can be found on CGTalk. PDFs with more detailed info on the new version are available from Ken Pimentel's blog at Autodesk.com (look for the "Related Materials" section).

It may seem like it was only half a year ago that 3ds Max 2008 (10) was announced.. and that's because it was.

Today, Autodesk announced 3ds Max 2009 and 3ds Max Design 2009 (formerly Autodesk VIZ).

Edit: Slight bit more information on Ken Pimentel's blog

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 has finally been released to the public and can be downloaded from BoomerLabs.com.

Publicized as "the first East Central European 3D feature animated movie", Goat Story is being produced by Czech company Art and Animation Studio. The story takes place in the city of Prague, during the middle ages. Check out the trailer at GoatStoryMovie.com. (Note: not created with Max)

A part of 3D history, from the early days of Sculpt 3D, Turbo Silver, Videoscape 3D, and a certain ray-traced Amiga Juggler, has been acquired by Microsoft. According to a recent post at Caligari.com the developers will be working on the Virtual Earth immersive web 3D project.

NVidia announced an agreement to acquire AGEIA, developers of the PhysX SDK and hardware physics processor. Two things of note, NVidia has already developed proprietary technology for physics calculations (the "Quantum Effects" engine), and the major competitor to the PhysX SDK is the well-known Dublin-based Havok SDK. Read the press release for more.

EzCarRig is a fully-customizable, realtime, easy to use car rig for 3DS Max. It's been designed to help quickly animate multiple vehicles on the same scene. More information and some sample animations available at Laurent Renaud's website. (English|French)

Red Giant Software's Magic Bullet Frames v1.0 offers de-interlacing and 24p conversion, along with removal of DV/HDV compression artifacts. The software was previously available only as part of Magic Bullet Suite. Find out more at RedGiantSoftware.com.

New great images added to the gallery. Check 'em out!

A new DVD by Allan McKay is available from Turbosquid: FumeFX Essentials includes more than three hours of training dedicated to showing how to create believable FumeFX simulations. The press release provides some more information.

Greenlayers will soon be offering a library of green screen clips of actors, animals and inanimate objects. The site is expected to be fully functioning in March. Visit Greenlayers.com for more.

Michael Burns reviews Combustion 2008 for Digital Arts: "... aside from the very effective Colour Warper, users of version 4 have been given little impetus to upgrade from their stable workhorse."

Michael Burns reviews Antics v3 for Digital Arts: "... [this latest version] shows more potential as the pre-visualization part of a studio workflow than previously."