Discreet and NXN Software, a leading supplier of asset management solutions for the digital entertainment and computer graphics industries, have announced a technology and bundling partnership that will promote tighter integration between their applications: Discreet’s 3ds max and NXN’s alienbrain Studio.

BOXX Technologies, a leading developer of XXTreme award-winning digital content creation systems for the design, entertainment and digital film industries, now offers the new NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000 series of professional graphics solutions in its 3DBOXX workstations. These new professional graphics solutions make advanced high-resolution visualization accessible to more professionals in the video postproduction and broadcast markets.

NVIDIA Quadro FX 3000 Features

SPEC's Graphics Performance Characterization (SPEC/GPC) group has launched a new program that gives non-members of the organization access to its benchmarking review and publication processes. SPEC/GPC's SPECviewperf and SPECapc application-based benchmarks are considered worldwide standards for objective performance measurement. SPECviewperf offers direct performance comparisons of graphics hardware running datasets from popular CAD/CAM, digital content creation and visualization applications.

Turbo Squid has announced the certification and release of cgCharacter’s Absolute Character Tools (ACT) 1.6 Pro as a Discreet Certified 3ds max Plug-in. ACT is a fast and stable production platform that offers a wide array of character modeling and animation features. In addition to cgMuscle objects, ACT also includes tools and objects (cgTubes) to create skinned proxy characters that deform and animate in realtime.

Digital Anarchy, a leading provider of cost-effective special effects software for Adobe, Apple and Discreet products, has released the Anarchy Toolbox for After Effects. Anarchy Toolbox is a set of nine tools for creating a wide variety of sophisticated effects, including creative blurs, beautiful glows, controlled distortions, seamlessly tiled images, warped graphics and utilities.

Relic Entertainment has used Discreet’s 3ds max software on its add-on game extension to its popular IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES, entitled INSECT INVASION. The extension adds 15 new creatures as well as new gameplay features. In the 3D realtime strategy game, players must accumulate an army of mutant monsters created by combining insects and animals, which they use to battle other online opponents. 3ds max was used to create all of the new animals and insects, as well as other objects.

Kaydara Inc. and Wings 3D have announced support for the FBX file interchange format in Wings 3D, an open-source sub-division modeler. The Kaydara FBX file format provides a seamless pathway for the acquisition and exchange of 3D data between the industry's leading 3D content creation packages. This free FBX-Wings 3D plug-in will enable modelers and visual effects artists to access a wealth of content through Kaydara's extensive network of FBX partners.

Bauhaus Software Inc., a new digital visual effects provider, has formed a strategic partnership with TVPaint Developpement Inc. for product development, marketing and distribution of TVPaint technologies. Bauhaus Software and TVPaint are combining their expertise to develop a new generation of cross platform computer graphics software for visual effects artists, video professionals and animators. These new products will be sold and distributed under the Bauhaus Software brand.

Adobe Systems Inc. launches After Effects 6.0, an extensive upgrade of its award-winning motion graphics and visual effects software. This major release integrates a new text engine for creating unique and compelling typographic animations. Available for Windows and Mac OS X, Adobe After Effects 6.0 helps professionals meet tough production challenges by increasing productivity with features such as OpenGL support, and other major performance improvements.

Razor3D launches Virtual FX, a television set-top box that converts in realtime any standard 2D video into genuine stereographic 3D. The Virtual FX adds digital effects to any type of video from any video source, including VHS, DVD, game consoles and digital camcorders.

3Dlabs Inc., Ltd., a leader in professional visual processing, has released new drivers for its Wildcat VP family of professional graphics accelerators with a preliminary implementation of the new OpenGL Shading Language. 3Dlabs is the first company to ship an implementation that utilizes this high-level shading language, which was recently ratified by the OpenGL Architecture Review Board as official extensions to OpenGL, and is expected to form the foundation of the upcoming OpenGL 2.0 standard.

Digital Film Lab has released DIGITAL FILM LAB 1.0, which allows filmmakers to simulate several film looks, glass camera filters, specialized lenses and optical lab processes. The program provides 8- or 16-bits-per-channel processing, and can mimic Color Correct, Bleach Bypass, Low Contrast, Flashing, Overexpose, Diffusion, Blur, Grad, Grain and Post Color Correct. By loading presets, parameters in the various modules are set to achieve a variety of different effects.

Oxford, U.K.-based 2d3, a developer of Emmy Award-winning professional 3D camera-tracking solutions, has announced that its new SteadyMove plug-in will be bundled with all copies of Adobe Premiere Pro. The advanced version of the shot stabilization software will be released on July 25, 2003 for $99.

HP has introduced a powerful line of servers based on Intel Corp.'s new Itanium 2 1.5-gigahertz processor, intending to redefine data center economics by delivering up to $1 million in total three-year cost savings over IBM servers. The new 64-bit HP Integrity servers now combine with the 32-bit ProLiant servers to form a potent lineup.

HP's newly introduced Intel Itanium 2-based servers and workstations, delivering up to 50% faster application performance than previous Itanium 2-based systems, are perfectly suited to rendering large digital models.

The new Intel Itanium 2 processor with 6 MB of level 3 cache powers one- and two-way HP Workstations, as well as HP Integrity servers, which range from one- and two-way entry-level servers to the 64-processor Integrity Superdome server.

With the August, 2003 release of MOTIONBUIILDER 5, Kaydara offers a next generation solution for 3D character animators with wide ranging implications in feature films, series broadcasts, TV commercials, VFX, gaming and other interactive 3D media. With a realtime photorealistic rendering engine and Kaydara's "smart" character technology (HumanIK), complex character set-ups and animation can be created in minutes instead of days, according to president Michael Besner.

Apple introduces Shake 3, the next generation of its industry-leading compositing and visual effects software featured in the production of more than 100 films, including the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, FINDING NEMO, THE MATRIX RELOADED and X-MEN 2.

In August, Apple launches the world's fastest personal computer with the Power Mac G5, featuring the first 64-bit desktop processor and the industry's initial 1 GHz front-side bus. Powered by the revolutionary PowerPC G5 processor designed by IBM and Apple, the Power Mac G5 is the first personal computer to utilize 64-bit processing technology for unprecedented memory expansion (up to 8GB) and advanced 64-bit computation, while running existing 32-bit applications natively.

Vicon reported record sales of new and upgraded motion capture systems at the close of the first half of fiscal year 2003. The impressive sales figures included new system installs at customer sites worldwide in biomechanics, medicine, film, VFX, game development, broadcast, education, engineering and government market sectors. The sales period, tallied through March 2003, represents the best six months in the U.K.-based company's history.

21st Century Media will supply the video encoding services for the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), held June 23-27, 2003 in San Francisco, relying on Discreet cleaner 6 software to encode the 180 conference sessions. The WWDC sessions will be streamed in QuickTime MPEG-4 format from the Apple Developer Connection Television site, and will also be made available in a DVD-ROM box set.