Max 2009 trial now available.

Chaos Group have posted new videos showing their interactive rendering technology used as an active shade renderer in 3DS Max. The VRay RT render server seen in the videos is based on a connection to VRay standalone, and is still in alpha stages of development. Watch the videos at VRay.info.

Check out this impressive short film created with Max by Turkish artist Engin Baştürk. A good theory that answers the fundamental question posed on the film can be found on the "fighting" chapter of Desmond Morris's book (1 - 2) that deals with the the ages-old debate of culture vs. instinct, nature vs. nurture.

Added 2 new scripts:
findUniqueObjects: Finds objects in your selection that are unique, ie, that don't have any instances of themselves, and then does various things to them such as selecting them, printing their names, isolating them, etc.
cornerEdgeToVertexMap: Selects edges of a mesh based on the angle between adjacent faces, and then converts them to a vertex map. For example, you can select all the corner edges of a mesh and then convert them to a vertex map for use with a bump map or a mask to blend between textures.
Updated a bunch of scripts. Read on for more.   [ more... ]

Canadian animator Tyson Ibele has kindly posted some great tutorials on his website including: Viewport Rigging UI Setup, Bird Wing Rig, and a series of tutorials that provide a comprehensive walkthrough of the process of animating, rendering, shading and compositing a short animated sequence. He has posted some images of the short film he is working on, too. Check 'em out!

CG Academy has just released two new DVDs, including the second DVD in the HLSL Shader Creation series by Ben Cloward, co-author of Lumonix' ShaderFX plugin. Also of note, an upcoming DVD by Simon Thistlethwaite that focuses on character animation has been announced.

According to the article Mental Images and Gelato teams are working together on hardware acceleration for Mental Ray and ray tracing. Read the details at VFXWorld.com.

Digieffects has released Damage, a new set of plugins for "sabotaging your creativity". Damage is currently compatible with AE, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Combustion and Boris RED. Visit Digieffects.com for more.

(Updated March 20, 2008) Errata/Addenda: Big Buck Bunny will premiere in Amsterdam on April 10, and according to a post at Peach's blog, the movie is expected to be available online a few weeks later (around the end of May).
Blender is starting to look tempting. Check out the great trailer for the latest open movie project coming from the Blender Foundation, Big Buck Bunny, which is due for release on April 10. As with Elephant's Dream, this latest short has resulted in many new features being developed for Blender. Up next, Apricot, the open 3D game project, aimed at improving the open source 3D game creation pipeline.

Storyboard 1.5 offers performance improvements, while the Pro version brings further production integration with support for Final Draft, Acrobat and Photoshop file formats, and improved editing capabilities in the timeline as well as enhanced drawings tools. Find out more at ToonBoom.com.

Red Giant Software announced the released of Primatte Keyer 4. Visit RedGiantSoftware.com for more.

Cebas announced the release of ThinkingParticles 3.0. The latest version of the rule-based particle system offers an impressive number of features including AGEIA PhysX Core 2.8.x support, procedural particle based deformation simulation, new and enhanced dynamic, material and instancing nodes, a full port debugger, etc. More information and some sample animations at Cebas.com.

Daniel Martínez Lara will be giving an interesting talk at the Mundos Digitales conference, in La Coruña, Spain, on the subject of animated short films. Find out more at MundosDigitales.org. (Spanish)

Computer Arts reviews Toon Boom Pro: "... contains everything you need to create pro cartoons right up to film resolution."

Digimation announced The Archive, the newest version of their 3D model library, which will be available at a new pricing. The Platinum Edition, which includes more than 10,000 3D models will sell for $2995. The Titanium Edition, which features more than 16,500 models will sell for $4995. Visit Digimation.com for more.

Branches is a collection of tools designed to help artists create 3D trees for realtime visualizations.

The new version of the Game Industry Map allows visitors to edit and add entries to the database (checked by moderators).

Augsburg-based Thinking Apes have officially released version 1.0 of NodeJoe, the schematic material editor plugin for 3DS Max. Find out more at NodeJoe.com.

Here's an invaluable recipe for those who have suffered going through Photoshop CS3's installation process. With just a few changes the software allows one to choose which components to install, instead of having one watch as the whole guacamole is unloaded onto the PC's hard drive. A word of caution: someone posted a comment on the blog mentioning that following the process could void the technical support warranty. (Note: the "Pre-serialization and Suppression" instructions don't state it clearly, but you obviously need your software's serial number in order to make the installation work)

Sitni Sati has released AfterBurn 4. New features include: an AfterBurn Shadow Map that provides speed improvements from a factor of five to ten without significant shadow quality loss, FusionWorks support (proper blending with FumeFX, ScatterVL Pro and standard Max Fog, plus Z-Depth Render Element capabilities, and output of non-clamped colors for HDRI formats), Animation Flow Curves editing enhancements, geometry clipping option for rendering particles and more.