Category: Technology

Turbo Squid, an online marketplace that brokers 3D animation assets for content creators in the film, video, broadcast, Web and game development sectors has added 3D models from visual effects house Rhythm & Hues to its inventory. The Rhythm & Hues models, which will be sold both individually and as collections, include animals, military, office, household and transportation items. The first collections to be released are: Office Volume 1, Home Pack Volume 1, Military Volume 1, Transportation Volume 1, Animals Volume 1, Farm Animals Volume 1 and Marine Animals Volume 1.

Discreets combustion 2, the latest version of its award-winning paint, animation and 3D-compositing software is now available. Unveiled at SIGGRAPH 2001, the combustion 2 software features were designed to provide artists with new capabilities and improved performance, all within an efficient workflow environment designed to make complex visual effects creation faster and simpler. combustion 2 provides new multi-format project capabilities for film and video, including 64-bit image-processing, advanced film grain tools and color Look-Up Table (LUT) management.

Adobe Systems has shipped the newest version of its award-winning motion graphics and visual effects software Adobe After Effects 5.5, which allows professionals to streamline their workflow and work with more media types than ever before. Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Classic is included with the After Effects 5.5 production bundle and is standard to the production bundle upgrade, allowing users to turn 2D artwork into 3D elements without leaving the After Effects environment.

Software development company Silicon Grail recently announced the latest release of their compositing software RAYZ v. 2.0. RAYZ v. 2.0 is the only compositing software that incorporates Cineon tools, including CineSpeed, Cineon Grain, and CineSharpen. For implementation in RAYZ, the Cineon source code has been rewritten to take advantage of todays advancements in technology, delivering more speed and tighter integration. RAYZ v. 2.0 comes with a built-in image morphing and warping tool that is spline based and very easy to learn and use. The flipbook technology within RAYZ v.

fxPak, a collection of seven third-party special effects plug-ins and programs, is now available for Caligari trueSpace5. Using the new plug-ins like PyroCluster and PrimalParticlesFX, users can create photo-realistic smoke, fire, haze, cloud effects and fly-through animations, as well as particle effects, complex shader effects and other advanced special effects. Regularly priced at US$199, fxPak is available for a limited-time introductory offer of US$99 to trueSpace5 users.

Alias|Wavefront's Maya Complete software version 3.5.1 for Mac OS X v10.1.1 is now available. With the first release of Maya for Mac OS X, Maya Complete was made native to the Macintosh. The core features of the Mac OS X version of Maya are the same as those in Maya for other platforms. Features unique to the Mac version include support for QuickTime and AppleScript, tear off menus in the hot box, and a fully Aqua interface. New graphics cards supported under Maya 3.5.1 include ATI Mobility Radeon, NVIDIA GeForce2 MX and NVIDIA GeForce3.

Final Cut Pro 3, which will be available for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 later in the month of December, was premiered at DVExpo in Los Angeles, California the week of December 2, 2001. Final Cut Pro 3, Apple's latest version of their video editing software, debuts OfflineRT, an offline format that holds up to five times as much footage as the DV format, and new professional color correction tools previously available only in solutions costing tens of thousands of dollars more.

Cambridge Animation Systems has released Animo 4.0 software for the Mac OS X allowing Mac OS X users to have the same functionality as users running on the Windows operating system. The Animo software package integrates 2D and 3D animation and is used for feature films, animated television series, commercials, games and multimedia development.

Anzovin Studio's beta of The Setup Machine, a software tool devoted exclusively to rigging a 3D character is now available for Windows and Macintosh. The Setup Machine is a 3D animation application that installs a high-quality animation rig -- the skeleton that allows control of a 3D character -- into any humanoid model created in Hash Inc.'s Animation:Master software. "A well-rigged character with efficient and accurate skeletal control systems is essential for successful 3D animation," said Steve Anzovin, co-founder of Anzovin Studio.

3D software provider Alias|Wavefront plans to assemble 3D artists from the film, video, game development, Web design, visualization and industrial design sectors in seven separate host cities around the world on December 3, 2001. The 3December event is an annual celebration designed to build a community amongst computer graphics professionals and those with an interest in learning from the industry's top talent and seeing the latest technological advancements. This year the free of charge event will take place in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, London, Tokyo and Seoul.

Exluna is currently beta testing Entropy 3.1, the first major upgrade for Exluna's groundbreaking new rendering system. The release, available in January 2002, will include a number of improvements such as a plug-in that integrates Entropy directly with Discreet's 3ds max and 3D Studio VIZ software, allowing advanced programmable shading and lighting, in addition to 3ds max network rendering.