3Dlabs Inc. announced that the Wildcat Realizm 800 professional graphics accelerator has been selected by Fujitsu Siemens Computers for its Celsius R630 high-end workstations. Harnessing the power of two onboard Visual Processing Units (VPUs), the Wildcat Realizm 800 is a performance leader.
ART VPS has released a new 64-bit version of its RenderDrive network system that can accommodate up to 48 of the company's AR350 dedicated raytracing processors. This comes on the heels of last weeks release of the new Pure PCI-X raytracing card, offering twice the processing power of its predecessor.
Maxon Computer has announced its support of the new Intel-based Apple Macintosh Generation.
Maxon cto Harald Schneider stated, "Apple's announcement is good news for a cross-platform developer like Maxon. Since our products' source code is over 95% platform-independent, it can be ported very quickly. In addition, Intel has always proven to be a very flexible and dedicated partner."
Toon Boom Animation announced that Toon Boom Concerto is phased out of the market due to the superior toolset offered by Toon Boom Harmony. Building on Opus and Concertos capabilities, Toon Boom Harmony comes with more advanced features such as morphing, inverse kinematics and glue that enhance the animation production process, whether it is traditional or digital. Harmony also includes a global template library that facilitates the reuse of assets, all set up in an integrated pipeline.
Antics has started shipping Antics Pre-Viz, its previs product designed specifically for live-action production teams for $995/£570/675.
Sega Animanium, a 3D character animation software that has been used by leading animation studios and videogame developers in Japan, is now available in both a full version and a newly released lite version.
USA Index Corp., the U.S. subsidiary of Japan-based Index Corp. and licensee of Animanium, has released Animanium Express for $99. Animanium Express offers most of the features of the full version of Sega Animanium, however is limited to no more than 180 frames and does not offer the automatic clean-up function.
Pipelinefx, a leading provider of enterprise server farm management software for 3D animation and interactive entertainment companies, has achieved optimized status in IBMs PartnerWorld Industry Networks program. As a result, Pipelinefx can help customers achieve higher productivity in the production of 3D content and game development for next generation platforms.
Avid Technology Inc. announced the 25,000th download of the trial version of SOFTIMAGE|XSI Foundation, the $495 version of the companys high-end XSI modeling and animation package. At SIGGRAPH 2004, XSI Foundation was a key element of the company's 3-Democracy strategy, making the industrys advanced 3D content creation software accessible to all levels of CG professionals.
Luxology, the creators of modo, a leading subdivision surface and polygonal 3D modeling platform, announced the availability of an enhanced version of modos end-user license agreement, which gives users the right to both Mac and Windows versions when they purchase modo. Luxologys licensing strategy is a natural extension of the companys trusting relationship with customers and commitment to delivering solutions that enable designers to work with greater freedom and speed.
3Dlabs announced that the Wildcat Realizm 800 professional graphics accelerator has been selected for the HP Tested & Certified graphics program. With the Wildcat Realizm 800 utilizing the PCI Express professional graphics solution, the HP xw4200 and xw8200 workstations can provide considerable power and system throughput that design professionals require.
BOXX Technologies is now shipping its 7400 Series of high-performance workstations featuring Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors. Dual-Core AMD64 technology is a natural extension of AMDs Direct Connect Architecture, directly connecting CPU, memory and I/O resources as opposed to having these resources accessed via a front-side bus.
House of Moves, a division of Vicon Motion Systems, has debuted a new motion capture service that records facial and full-body data. With more directable, holistic and complete performance, it replaces the long-standing process of motion-capturing faces, hands and bodies of performers in separate sessions with a creative and cost-effective workflow that is destined to become the new norm.
Rendercore announced that RenMan client 2.64 is supporting three new Autodesk products: Autodesk VIZ 2006, 3ds Max 6&7 Service Pack 1 and 3ds Max V-Ray 1.47.03.
Autodesk VIZ 2006 features include:* mental ray 3.3 The latest improvements to the most powerful rendering system are included.* Global illumination It automatically captures subtle lighting effects that add depth and realism to images.* Real-world lighting Viz 2006 supports physically based lighting in your scenes.
Massive Software is now offering a key advancement of the companys Academy Award-winning 3D animation system for AI-driven characters and digital stunts with Massive 2.0. The 2.0 release adds such features as Smart Stunts?, fully anti-aliased viewing of agents and scenes, facial blend shape support, new motion tree workflow and a host of updates that streamline and speed the softwares overall operation and UI.
BOXX Technologies introduces the GoBOXX 2300 mobile workstation, which offers creative pros a new 17 WUXGA widescreen panel at 1920x1200 resolutions. Supporting true HD resolution and driven by industry-leading NVIDIA the Quadro FX Go 1400 PCI-Express Open GL graphics or NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra graphics, the new 17 1920x1200 WUXGA GlassView Active Matrix display takes creative applications to new levels of visual quality and performance.
Bob Miller drives the road to Madagascar to discover how writer/directors Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell, with animator Jason Schleifer, survived this CG jungle.
HP announced the availability of a new entry-level workstation and desktop PC that feature the latest Intel technology, including the new dual-core Intel Pentium D processor and 945G chipset for greater performance and increased business productivity.
Bauhaus Software Inc. announced the immediate availability of Boardomatic, a new set of digital storyboarding tools for the Mirage 2D animation and special effects system. Designed for 2D animators and storyboard artists accustomed to working on paper, Boardomatic allows artists to quickly and easily produce fully digital storyboards and animatics. Boardomatic is available to all current Mirage owners and users who downloaded the full-use Mirage demo version.
DECODE Ent. has further expanded its presence by signing a five-series deal with Cartoon Network Latin America. The 65-hour package, which spans programming for all age ranges, includes primetime series BROMWELL HIGH (13x30 episodes); delightfully illustrative preschool series FRANNYS FEET (39x22 episodes); teen-skewed UNDERGRADS (13x22 episodes); and the second season of GIRL STUFF/BOY STUFF (39x30 episodes) alongside KING (52x22) for 6-11 years olds.
Autodesk Inc. announced plans to support Sony Computer Ent. Inc.'s (SCEI) next-generation PlayStation 3 unveiled at E3 last week. Autodesk also announced intention to support 3ds Max title developers who may rely on the Collada? format to streamline the complexities of next-generation game title development.
Libby Reed cracks open animation vet Martha Sigalls new book, Living Between the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation, and finds the line between biography and history.
Alias announced its intention at E3 to join the Sony Computer Ent. Inc.'s Tools and Middleware Program for PlayStation 3 (PS3) when it launches in spring of 2006. This will enable Alias to tailor the roadmap for software products such as Maya, Alias MotionBuilder and Alias|HumanIK middleware to the needs of developers working on Sonys PS3 titles. These three Alias products are development musts for the leading current-generation console titles.
Rendercore Inc. has integrated the latest version of LightWave 8.3 on Rendercore's state-of-the-art render farm based in downtown Los Angeles.
We integrated Newteks latest version of LightWave 8.3 to our proprietary remote rendering management tool RenMan so that clients can upload files automatically for job submission and monitoring remotely and efficiently, from anywhere, anytime said Brian Kim, senior developer at Rendercore.
Airbus Germany has recently purchased a second Vicon motion-capture system for tracking human interaction with virtual models of proposed new planes, including the Airbus 380. Airbus Germany's Virtual Reality department is using both Vicon VCam (0.3 million pixel camera with powerful strobes) and SVCam (low-impact, unobtrusive small format camera) systems to enable engineers to interact with new planes before building practical prototypes. This is the same motion-capture system used on THE POLAR EXPRESS, TROY and CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.
MAXON Computer has released its software in a 64-bit final release version for the Windows 64 operating system. Users will benefit from increased available memory and improved speed thanks to optimized performance for 64-bit processors.
