Graphics studio and publisher Marlin Studios has released PANORAMICA - LAND & SKY, a 2 CD-Rom set created by artist and photographer David Campbell. The product is the twelfth in a series of texture libraries created for use by 2D and 3D graphics artists. PANORAMICA is a collection of beautifully photographed and post-processed panoramic land and sky backgrounds, in full hemispherical and 180/240/360-degree formats. Matching 3D models are included for the various size textures. Also included is a set of six stop-action animated cloud formations, suitable for video and other applications.

The Macromedia Flash Player has been integrated into Liberate's open, standards-based interactive television platform for commercial deployment. The integration of the Macromedia Flash Player makes it possible for the more than one million Macromedia Flash developers to create compelling content and applications for interactive TV on the Liberate TV Platform software.

NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of 3D animation and video products, has released a maintenance update for the immensely popular LightWave 3D version [7]. LightWave [7] was announced and released on August 13, 2001 during SIGGRAPH, and has been embraced by the 3D-user community since that announcement. Only a month later, the LightWave development team has completed massive speed increases and optimizations for both the Intel SSE2 instruction set and the Apple AltiVec instruction set (also known as the Velocity Engine), allowing for an unprecedented performance improvement.

pmG Worldwide LLC has released an advance version of messiah:studio, the company's new, integrated 3D animation, rendering and developers' package. Featuring an all new intuitive interface and highly stable and efficient architecture, the advance version of messiah:studio is on sale right now for US$1,395 (MSRP $1795) and is expected to ship the first week in October 2001. Purchasers of the advance version will automatically receive the final version of the software when it ships on November 26, 2001.

Alias|Wavefront, an SGI company, announced that Maya for Mac OS X has shipped. This much anticipated release of the 3D animation and effects software package on the Macintosh platform will make 3D graphics more accessible to professional graphics artists. With this first release of Maya for Mac OS X, all of Maya Complete becomes native to the Macintosh. Features unique to this version include support for QuickTime, tear off menus in the hot box, and a fully Aqua interface. Alias|Wavefront is offering a special order promotion that will continue until the end of the year.

Pinnacle Systems, Inc., announced the immediate availability of CineWave 1.2, the newest version of the company's award-winning professional video creation solution. CineWave version 1.2 contains many new features including CineOffline, support for 16-bit YUV and 8-bit RGBA codecs, and HD qualification and support for Final Cut Pro 2 with most popular HD formats. CineOffline allows CineWave users to maximize costly storage space by using offline qualities to reduce the size of the media within a project.

Blue Sky Studios is using Nothing Real's Shake as the exclusive compositing software for the new animated feature ICE AGE, currently in production. According to Andrew Beddini, compositing lead and lighting technical director on ICE AGE, Shake has been in use at the company since 1999 where it was first used to composite the animated feature, TITAN AE. Beddini explained that at Blue Sky, the overall compositing process is handled by its lighting department.

Discreet, a division of Autodesk Inc., announced a variety of new products at the 2001 International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) held in Amsterdam September 14-18, 2001. Among the new products unveiled to the European community were frost 3, the latest version of Discreet's real-time 3D-broadcast graphics creation and delivery system and combustion 2, the latest version of its paint, animation and 3D-compositing software for Windows and Macintosh platforms. Both products are expected to begin shipping by end-of-year 2001.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has licensed Eyetronics' ShapeSnatcher software to experiment with what researchers call videorealistic talking humans that would be used in TV, film and games. ShapeSnatcher Suite 3.0 is an integrated software package that transforms an average slide projector and digital camera into a sophisticated 3D scanning and modeling system.

CineGroupe Interactive developers have created a PC game prototype based on the children’s tale about a wooden puppet that wants to become a live boy. PINOCCHIO 3001, a third-person puzzle game, is based on an upcoming feature-length animated movie of the same name, which is being developed by CineGroupe Inc., Castelao Productions SNA (Spain) and AnimaKids Productions (France). CineGroupe Interactive, is using NDL’s NetImmerse to give the classic story of Pinocchio a futuristic facelift for young gamers.