Autodesk announced that it has entered into a license agreement with Lagoa Technologies Inc. for its Lagoa Multiphysics simulation technology. Built by Thiago Costa with Autodesk Softimage software's ICE (Interactive Creative Environment), the Lagoa Multiphysics simulation framework helps create realistic simulations of the dynamic behavior of liquids, cloth, foam, plastic deformations and soft body collisions. Lagoa Multiphysics simulation technology is included in the recently announced Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites Premium and in the just released Softimage 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack. Autodesk suggested retail pricing for Autodesk Softimage 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack starts at $2,995 US, the price for the Entertainment Creation Suite Premium is $6,495 US. [source]

E-on software, developer of 3D software for terrain and digital nature simulations, announced the immediate availability of a free Open Beta of Carbon Scatter, the company's instancing plug-in for 3ds Max. Carbon Scatter is a straightforward solution for creating complex and detailed model populations using the native instancing technologies of 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, CINEMA 4D or LightWave 3D (currently in development). Immediately available, the Carbon Scatter Open Beta is a free, fully functional version of Carbon Scatter for the mental ray and V-Ray renderers for 3ds Max 2009, 2010 and 2011. The application will expire shortly after the beta period. Commercial work is allowed with the Open Beta, provided that users purchase a full license of the product as soon as it is released commercially. Available in English for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit). [source]

Autodesk announced the availability of Subscription Advantage Packs for Autodesk 2011 software releases. Subscription Advantage Packs provide exclusive and early access to product enhancements to Autodesk Subscription customers at no additional cost. The Packs are available for Autodesk 3ds Max 2011, Maya 2011, MotionBuilder 2011, Mudbox 2011, Smoke 2011 for Mac OS X, and Softimage 2011, exclusively for Autodesk Subscription customers. [source]

Prime Focus Software, the R&D arm of Prime Focus studio, announced the release of Deadline 4.1, the latest version of its easy-to-use administration and rendering toolkit for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX-based render farms. This release features several new features and performance enhancements, including speed improvements; enhanced interface; simplified power management configuration, as well as new software support (After Effects CS5, Arnold Standalone, LightWave 3D 10, RVIO, and RealFlow 5). Deadline Software is available for a list price starting at $140 US per render node for the first 25 licenses, prices drop per unit with increased volume. Prime Focus Software also released Deadline Mobile, a free download from the App Store on iPhone or at iTunes Store. Deadline Mobile is compatible with Deadline 4.1 and lets users remotely monitor Deadline jobs from anywhere. [source]

E-on software previewed key new technologies of its upcoming Vue 9 products for professionals: Vue 9 xStream and Vue 9 Infinite (scheduled for release Q4 2010), at this year's SIGGRAPH. E-on software also performed product demonstrations of Carbon Scatter (instancing plug-in for 3ds Max, CINEMA 4D, LightWave 3D, Maya, and Softimage; scheduled for release later this year; more information), as well as LumenRT, a new product dedicated to high fidelity real-time visualization of architectural projects. [source]

E-on software, developer of digital nature software Vue , announced the upcoming availability of Carbon Scatter, a set of instancing plug-ins for leading DCC applications. The Carbon Scatter plug-ins will integrate e-on's powerful EcoSystem algorithms directly into the host applications, allowing users to populate native scenes with millions of instances, and render them with their renderer of choice. Actual release date of Carbon Scatter is not disclosed at this point. E-on software also announced that is currently looking for talented 3ds Max users willing to take part in the beta testing of Carbon Scatter for the mental ray and V-Ray renderers. No knowledge of Vue is required in order to become a qualified beta tester. [source]

OC3 Entertainment released FaceFX 2010, new version of its Windows-based facial animation system for game developers an professional animators. FaceFX now comes in several different flavors: the full middleware solution FaceFX Unlimited 2010 for games is licensed per-project and includes unlimited seats of FaceFX Studio Professional, the FaceFX in-game SDK, batch processing support, and more. The stand-alone FaceFX Studio Professional is now offered on per-seat basis at $1995 US and offers audio analysis tools for automatic Lipsync functionality, curve editor and visual workspaces with sliders for animation tweaking, animation blending, scripting tools and more. Also new are the FaceFX plug-ins for animation packages that provide basic facial animation and lip sync functionality, all from within Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, MotionBuilder, and Softimage software. The plug-ins are priced $199 US each. For more information, download the evaluation version, which will install a no-save version of FaceFX Studio Professional, the full version of FaceFX Studio Free, and phrase-locked versions of the FaceFX plug-ins to any animation packages you have available on your system. [source]

World renown fluid and body dynamics simulator RealFlow - designed to animate anything from a single drop of water to a massive tsunami crashing across a beach - has been released in its fifth incarnation. RealFlow 5 continues in this tradition of innovation, introducing Hybrido, the revolutionary new hybrid technology, enabling RealFlow to simulate large bodies of water with sophisticated secondary effects, like splashes, foam and mist; and a new cutting-edge body dynamics solver, Caronte, for large-scale, complex simulations. Version 5 also features RealFlow RenderKit v2, a set of software tools to render simulation data; a software application RealFlow Job Manager to control simulation jobs; multi-threading optimizations; new C++ SDK and scripting features; the ability to import or export scenes as XML; network-distributed rendering; and more. RealFlow runs on Windows (32- and 64-bit), Mac OS X (32- and 64-bit), and Linux 64 platforms; costs $3995 US / 2995 EUR per Standard License or $1995 US / 1495 EUR in case of an upgrade, and is out now. RealFlow 5 is also compatible with many of the major 3D platforms (3ds Max, Houdini, LightWave 3D, Maya, Softimage; CINEMA 4D support is coming soon) via plug-ins, which are freely available for all RealFlow license holders. The public demo version of RealFlow 5 is not available yet. If you are new to RealFlow, read the "Learn the Basics" tutorials for more information: First Steps, Hybrido Fluids, Rigid Bodies. [source]

Shoran Software's rendering management software RenderPal V2, supporting a large number of renderers and compositing applications including Maya, mental ray, Softimage, 3ds Max, Nuke, Shake, After Effects, Fusion and many more, has been updated to version 2.4.5. The new renderer system received several improvements, like the ability to edit standard parameters, parameter dependency and extended quote options for list parameters. Many renderers have also been updated to make use of these new features (or to fix bugs). The renderer system API has also been updated. The configuration of renderer executables on clients (both remotely and locally) has also been vastly improved (more on new features). RenderPal runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X systems, and costs 45 EUR per node or 1699 EUR per site. To support private users and small companies, Shoran Software also offers a 3-node license for free! [source]

E-on software pre-released Vue 8.5 xStream and Infinite, its professional solutions for the creation, animation and rendering of natural 3D environments. While Vue Infinite is a standalone application, Vue xStream operates seamlessly inside 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, LightWave 3D and CINEMA 4D applications. Version 8.5 adds a number of new features, incl. global gamma control; more control over cloud shape and animation including the ability to control the animated density of cloud layers on a planetary scale; new terrain sculpting tools; improved OpenGL engine and viewport display; and more... Vue 8.5 updates are available free of charge for all users under maintenance, and can be downloaded immediately. Final versions of Vue 8.5 xStream and Vue 8.5 Infinite are expected to ship during Q2 2010. [source]