Dean Grubb tests the new Houdini 10, which offers Motion FX, an enhanced Python and a few more cool features.

Pixar's stereoscopic gurus discuss the studio's embrace of Up and the Toy Story franchise in Disney Digital 3-D.

This month, Andrew Farago reviews Keith Reynolds Can't Make It Tonight, Shaman, Sweet Dreams and Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death.

This week I received the new 3ds Max 2010. I will be putting it through the paces, paying specific attention to the new additions. As you may have seen in Autodesk's press notes for the product, there are more than 100 new additions to the modeling toolset alone, so I will have lots to cover. 3ds Max 2010 is available as of this week for $3,495 or as an upgrade from 3ds Max 2009 for $895.

As a graduate of Caltech (specializing in physically-based modeling) and former Pixar animation scientist (building the Slinky Dog model for Toy Story, developing lighting technology and working on other software R&D), Ronen Barzel is tailor-made for chairing this year's SIGGRAPH. The 36th annual show will take place in New Orleans (conference: Aug. 3-7; exhibition: Aug. 4-6) at The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Barzel spoke to VFXWorld about what's new this year (including more emphasis on music and audio), the challenges of coping with the economic downturn and what technological advancements are of particular interest.

OK, so you've seen The Seven Samurai, Ran, The Hidden Blade, or one of the many samurai movies out there. Well, forget them! Shigurui redefines the samurai flick.

Bryan Hoff tests the new HP Z800 to see if it offers enough of an increase in efficiency and productivity to justify the expense in this economic downturn.

This month, Peter "The Rizk" Rizkalla reviews some guilty pleasure games: Resident Evil 5, Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, Tenchu: Shadow Assassins, Phantasy Star Portable and We Ski & Snowboard.

In the first part of our in-depth Watchmen coverage, we get an overview from Alex McDowell, the production designer, and John DJ DesJardin, the overall visual effects supervisor.

Mark Simon gives us humans a peek at DreamWorks Animation's first foray into 3-D, Monsters vs. Aliens (opening Friday).