John Martini has been further developing his script for creating spider webs, cables, wire bundles and more, thanks to feedback from users. New features include: [more...]

Another great “Rauquenrol” script. French artist Clovis Gay has written a script for rigging and animating feathers. Watch a video on Vimeo and find out more at Clovis Gay’s site.

A video with a preview of the great new papers that will be presented at this year’s SIGGRAPH. Watch it on YouTube.

According to a post at Autodesk’s MaxStation blog, Hot Fixes and Service Packs will no longer be released. Thanks to the implementation of the Agile framework for software development, bug fixes will show up more frequently and with increased stability as Product Updates. More at Autodesk’s MaxStation blog.

Ephere has made available a new video showcasing object and layer management tools in the upcoming 2.0 version of its scene management and workflow plugin. Watch it on Vimeo.

An interesting experimental short conceived after producing several car-related CG animations and commercials. Directed by Julien Vanhoenacker and created in collaboration with Alejandro García and Joaquim Montserrat, Cicle uses cars as elements to play with light, speed, colors, trails, and symmetry. Made with 3DS Max and ICube’s MadCar plugin. Watch the short film on Vimeo.

A&G Tool Co. has released a collection of HDRs that comes with 25 high resolution (6000×3000) studio lighting EXR images. Each map also comes with skylight, background, and reflection versions, for full SIBL compatibility. More at A&G Tool Co.

Platige has created some notable animated mixed-media work for a recent campaign that shows the violent consequences drug production has in various countries, directed by Tomek Baginski. Watch it on Vimeo.

A video has been posted showing the functionality of Marius Silaghi’s recently released Quad Chamfer Modifier. Watch it on YouTube.

Chaos Group’s Konstantin Gaytandzhiev talks about V-Ray’s 10th anniversary and discusses the latest in V-Ray as well as his favorite features, released over the past 10 years. Watch the video on YouTube.

Seldom is the relationship between sports and war, and their shared ability in shaping national identity, shown so explicitly. Check out the latest quality work coming from Athens-based Ixor VFX. Watch it on Vimeo.

Wired magazine has published the first public screenshots of the much anticipated Unreal Engine 4. The images are taken from a demo that was presented to a select few developers prior to GDC in February. In addition to a discussion of the history and significance of the engine the article also outlines Epic’s plea to manufacturers for more powerful hardware to realise their vision for the next generation of games. The full public reveal is expected in June. More at Wired.