Nothing Real announced recently that their popular compositing tool Shake is now available on the Linux operating system. Version 2.3 is the company's first release to support the Linux platform, making Shake available on Windows NT, IRIX and Linux operating systems. The new release, which was Beta-tested by Cinesite Europe on the Linux platform, includes several new features and improvements. New color correction tools allow artists to color match different elements of source material quickly and easily. In addition, the new tools allow for selective color replacement.

Spurred on by overwhelming high-end interest, Joe Alter, Inc. will release Shave EXTREME, a high-end version of "Shave and a Haircut," the hair and fur software that has true integrated dynamic hair simulation, inverse kinematics and collision integrated into the modeling environment. Currently, the program works with LightWave and Messiah. Shave EXTREME will endeavor to replace/augment cumbersome in-house hair creation and rendering pipelines. Amongst an ambitious list of planned enhancements is direct and efficient support of Pixar's Renderman rendering software.

Montreal 3D digitizing firm, InSpeck, Inc., announced the official launch of its new Multi-Head 3D digitizing system, FAPS. The product is a single-unit, modular solution that uses multiple digitizers to acquire data of a complete 3D surface within a few seconds. The company's software has also been updated, offering a new, intuitive user interface and the ability to handle acquisition data from the Multi-Head system. InSpeck's new Multi-Head System is designed to digitize/compile up to six different views of a 3D model, and automatically merge them into a composite 3D image.

House of Moves (HOM), a world-leader in motion capture services and technology, has released its custom software plug-in Dominatrix for Maya 3.0 on Windows NT, with Win2k and Irix shipping soon. The Dominatrix plug-in addresses several problems by allowing animators to use traditional Inverse Kinematic "key-frame" animation techniques in conjunction with all of the nuances of motion-captured performance and allowing animators to compensate for differences in proportion between live performers and CG characters.

3Dup.com and DeEspona Infografica have started distributing free 3D models over the Internet. The agreement between the Web portal for 3D artists, 3Dup.com, and DeEspona Infografica, a 3D modeling company, has started the free distribution of quality three-dimensional models for special effects in movies and advertising spots. DeEspona Infografica, a European company whose 3D models are used by DreamWorks (GLADIATOR) and RezN8 (spots on CBS, NBC and ABC), are among the best in the market due to the realism and finish. The models are available at http://3dup.com/highmodels.

Steamboat Software, a Los Angeles developer of high-end computer graphics and visual effects software, has announced the release of Jig Software to the general public. Jig is a comprehensive solution for rendering traditional geometry, as well as photorealistic hair, volumes and particles. The software has been ported to SGI and NT platforms, but is primarily developed on and for the Linux operating system. Jig is designed to be scalable, performing well on modest workstations as well as large rendering clusters.

At the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Animation Toolworks introduced a completely new electronic audio-video device for animators, the LunchBox Sync. The LunchBox Sync is a successor to their Video LunchBox, which enables animators to test their work in progress instantly and eliminate time-consuming errors by monitoring pacing, lighting, audio synchronization and registration. The LunchBox Sync captures still images from a video camera and plays back this sequence of images at the same rate as film or television.

At Pixar, Renderman NT is shipping, making the popular rendering software used in most visual effects films available to a much larger user base. However, Larry Gritz, developer of BMRT (available for download at www.bmrt.org/), the shareware rendering software most recently utilized in HOLLOW MAN and THE CELL, and co-author of ADVANCED RENDERMAN: CREATING CGI FOR MOTION PICTURES, is no longer with Pixar, though the hope is BMRT development will continue.

SGI, once the forefront graphic workstation provider, is trying to regain past success, by recently acquiring Intergraph, releasing Open Source Inventor and embracing Linux. The company is hopeful this approach to open source will lead to more interest in SGI's software portfolio. The Intergraph acquisition will allow SGI a more competitive stance in the PC workstation arena. The hope is these moves will lead to a viable turnaround path for further success and profitability. To learn more about SGI’s products visit their Website.

Fluid dynamics has been an emerging technique in CG, with several productions utilizing dynamics in features such as PERFECT STORM and U-571 and several software companies, like Alias and Realflow, are developing fluid software. Is applying dynamics to forestry and foliage, for natural wind and lifelike shadowing effects, the next application to use natural physical dynamics? We'll see. . .

High Dynamic Range Imaging is quickly becoming a prevalent digital technique. The ability to light quickly to live-action footage with such accuracy and quality is unmatched by any other technique. Lightwave has already incorporated HDRI into its latest release. Which other packages will follow suit? Rendering with HDRI is time consuming, but will the strong points overcome the deficits? The high quality results of THE MATRIX work by Manex, and the James Brown project, FUNK BLAST by Digital Domain suggest much more work in HDRI will be created as CPU's gain speed and the software evolves.

Messiah, the plug-in softbody and character module for Lightwave, has developed a stand alone package, messiah:studio, that should prove to be strong competition to 3D software packages. With Renderman capabilities, a low price tag (US$1600), softbodies for creating cloth and realistic characters, inverse kinematics for simplified animation, and radiosity for realistic rendering, it will be interesting to see how other packages react to messiah's strengths.

Autonomous Effects recently released a new version of their SceneGenie plug-in suite for match-moving and combining live-action footage with CGI. The new version is available now, and boasts features like 3D tracking, an easy to use interface, faster tracking tools, optimizations and much more. Priced at US$995, SceneGenie 1.2 is available as a plug-in for 3D Studio MAX 2.5, 3.0 and 3.1.

At the Apple World Wide Developers Conference Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, announced that Alias|Wavefront would be bringing out a version of Maya 3 for the Apple MAC OS X platform. Until now, Maya has only been available for high-end workstations including Windows NT and IRIX. This announcement is a significant one for both Apple and Alias|Wavefront, as well as for MAC users. Apple is poising Maya as the "premier 3D application for the MAC." With Newtek's Lightwave [6] as its only real competitor, Alias|Wavefront's flagship product will probably turn out to be just that.

At NAB this week MAXON released the new version of their flagship 3D animation software, Cinema 4D XL. Version 6 features masses of new features and improvements, ranging from a new non-linear construction history, to particle effects and motion sequencing. The new version also takes advantage of Intel's Pentium III and Motorola's G4 processors which makes workflow much faster than in previous versions. The new software is shipping now and upgrades cost $495 US for registered users.

Alias|Wavefront announced this week that the fifth major release of their Maya next-generation animation software will feature a universal rendering policy that enables Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited to "float" the Maya Batch Renderer across any number of machines. This new announcement furthers Alias|Wavefront's aim at synergy between all of Maya's tools throughout the production and post-production process and Alias|Wavefront's earlier announcement that Maya 3 will feature a new Trax compositing system further backs up this position.

Discreet, the producers of high-end 3D and 2D computer graphics tools this week launched their new unified paint, animation and 3D visual effects system: combustion*. The Macintosh and Windows NT-based system offers a single, unified paint, animation and 3D-compositing environment for visual effects creation. combustion* features Academy Award-winning technology from inferno* and an extremely fast caching architecture for igniting the desktops and creative imaginations of digital visual effects artists world wide.

Boris FX, the producer of high-end compositing and effects technology recently launched a new titling plug-in called Boris Graffiti. Based on the powerful text animation engine found in Boris RED, Boris Graffiti allows editors to create complex 2D and 3D animated titles within their already familiar non-linear editing system.

REALVIZ has announced a new application, ReTimer 2.0, that can be used to change the speed or length of any motion sequence in post-production. ReTimer utilizes a revolutionary method for creating highly accurate new frames between frames that were actually shot, and can also be used to subtract frames to shorten a sequence realistically. ReTimer automatically creates any number of new frames through an accurate warping technique developed by INRIA, the renowned French Research Lab that is a technology partner to REALVIZ.

India-based company Colorfront has announced the release of their high-end colour correction tool color*star. color*star is the industry's first plug-in for digital film grading, advanced selective colour correction and creative look-creation running on Discreet's high-end visual effects and editing systems. The plug-in currently runs on inferno*, flame*, flint*, effect* on O2, fire* and smoke* systems from Discreet. Colorfront has recognized the convergence of film, HDTV and video to the 1080p/24 Universal Mastering solution and have standardized color*star's workflow in this format.