Strata, the trail-blazing company dedicated to adding a creative new dimension to the designers toolset, plans to publish ANGELMAN, a children's book completely illustrated using Strata 3Dpro. French artist Matthieu Roussel once worked in traditional materials – until he discovered Strata.

ANGELMAN concerns a retired superhero who longs to take to the skies again – and the young boy who discovers and inspires him. Like Mr. Angel, Roussel also found his wings, but in the form of 3D graphics software from Strata.

NXN Software has joined Intel's Developer Dispatch Program. Under the terms of the deal, NXN will provide a special trial version of its NXN alienbrain Engineer configuration management system to all participating developers. As part of the program, NXN will also present its offering for software developers at Intel's ECTS booth 1240.

Bauhaus Software Inc. has announced the launch of its flagship product, Mirage, a unified environment for creating animated graphics and special effects. Mirage seamlessly integrates realtime video paint, animation and effects functionalities into a single product. Designed for projects of any resolution, ranging from HDTV and film to web video, Mirage provides a common sense, powerful alternative to expensive proprietary solutions and complex software workflows. Mirage is based on technology formerly distributed as NewTek's Aura Video Paint.

Electric Rain Inc. has launched Swift 3D version 3.0 for Mac OS X. Swift 3D is a standalone application for designers to build and export 3D animations to the Macromedia Flash (SWF) file format, as well as other major vector and raster formats.

"Electric Rain is proud to broaden its support for the Mac community by making Swift 3D available for Mac OS X," said Electric Rain president Mike Soucie. "Swift 3D is a powerful 3D authoring tool that becomes even more compelling when paired with Mac OS X and its advanced capabilities."

Automatic Duck Inc., a software company providing workflow solutions to digital media artists, has released Automatic Duck Pro Import 2.0. Available for both Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, this new translator offers all of the functionality of the company's Automatic Composition Import (ACI), ACI DV and ACI FCP software products for Avid editing systems, Final Cut Pro 3.0, After Effects and Boris RED, with additional features that significantly extend the power and interoperability of these editing and graphics effects applications.

Top video game publisher and developer Codemasters has chosen NXN alienbrain Studio by NXN Software. Codemasters will equip all its game studios with more than 200 seats of NXN alienbrain Studio to manage the thousands of art assets and source code files created throughout the development of upcoming titles for PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC.

Immersion Corp., a leading developer of 3D and haptic (touch) feedback technologies, and FISHER/UNITECH, a Michigan-based engineering technologies firm, are jointly offering Immersion's MicroScribe digitizing systems to graphics designers and CAD engineers working with Maya and SolidWorks software. Effective Aug. 12, 2003, FISHER/UNITECH is an Immersion "Premier Reseller," adding the MicroScribe G2 product line to the products it resells throughout North America.

Digital Anarchy, a leading provider of cost-effective special effects software for Adobe, Apple and Discreet products, has announced Texture Anarchy for Photoshop. Texture Anarchy includes three plug-ins designed to create infinite, seamless textures and borders.

Nevercenter Ltd. Co. announced the upcoming release of its new subdivision surfaces modeler, Silo. Expanding the subdivision surfaces paradigm to new levels, Silo combines several new modeling methods with established tools in an interface that is fully customizable. In addition, Silo features a workflow based on speed and ease of use. Silo will go on sale later in August 2003 at www.nevercenter.com.

GenArts Inc. has just released Sapphire Plug-ins for burn, Discreet's new Linux-based background rendering software. With the new version of Sapphire Plug-ins, inferno, flame and flint artists will be able to use burn to process projects faster, increasing productivity and maximizing creative time.

Maxon Computers announced the release of BodyPaint 3D Release 2, which included development aid from Sony Pictures Imageworks. The new version includes fast and easy-to-use tools for distortion free painting and Projection Painting, which allows textures to be painted onto a 3D model without UV seams appearing. Used in conjunction with RayBrush mode, users can create perfectly mapped textures and view results in realtime.

At SIGGRAPH 2003, SplutterFish LLC announced the release of the newest version of its rendering software Brazil Rendering System and Joe Alter's Shave and a Haircut for 3ds max. Brazil r/s v. 1.2 is an advanced, fully-integrated rendering suite for Discreet's 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ, Autodesk's visualization solution. Shave and a Haircut is an industry-standard hair-creation software program.

At SIGGRAPH 2003, BOXX Technologies announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Discreet to offer 3ds max with its XXtreme series of 3DBOXX workstations. In addition, the company announced the release of CineBOXX [review], the first component in the CineBOXX series of digital intermediate systems for real-time playback of 2K DPX and Cineon files at 24fps, as well as an upgrade to its HD editing and compositing system, HDBOXX.

At SIGGRAPH 2003, NewTek, Inc. previewed the newest version of LightWave 3D as well as released its third free texture collection. NewTek's LightWave, winner of a 2003 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award, includes enhanced dynamics, character animation, modeling workflow, animation workflow and texturing tools. The third NewTek's Texture Collection includes fifty 1,600x1,200 pixels resolution JPEG-file textures, including wood, metal, sky, nature and stone, and is now available for free download at www.newtek.com.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced an agreement with OpenGL to develop Java bindings for the OpenGL application-programming interface (API). The development of these bindings will involve submissions to the Java Community Process (JCP) and the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB). The JCP is an open organization of international developers and licensees whose charter is to develop and revise Java technology specifications, reference implementations and technology compatibility kits.

Turbo Squid, the exclusive publisher and worldwide distributor of the Discreet Certified 3ds max Plug-in Program, announced the release of Turbo Toolkit, a suite of eight Discreet Certified 3ds max Plug-ins. Separately the products sell for nearly $4,000, but the Turbo Toolkit will sell for $1,695 until August 31, 2003.

Discreet has announced the newest version of its 3D modeling, animation and rendering software, 3ds max 6. Many features in 3ds max 6 were created because of requests by leading film effects, design visualization and game development customers. SEGA was a major partner in the development of the new version, including providing direction on the new schematic view feature.

Alias Systems released Maya Personal Learning Edition 5, a fully functioning version of Maya Complete software for non-commercial use. Maya Personal Learning Edition was first launched in February 2002.

Animal Logic has announced it has switched its animation production pipeline software to SOFTIMAGE|XSI. The Australian-based studio is converting its pipeline from the Maya software in order to meet the demanding production requirements of HAPPY FEET, a CG animated feature film directed by George Miller (BABE) and scheduled for delivery in 2005.

Innoventive Software, LLC has released FrameForge 3D, the first 3D storyboarding software. The program gives users an easy-to-manipulate 3D virtual film set with fully posable actors, hills, trees, snap-together walls, furniture and other elements. FrameForge 3D allows users to print the boards, including technical information required to create that shot on location. Storyboard shots can be associated with parts of an imported script, played as a slideshow, exported to standard graphics files, HTML pages or turned into a Macromedia Flash animation. Other features include: