RE:Vision Effects shipped a new version of their ReelSmart Motion Blur OpenFX plug-in for Nuke, Maya/3ds Max Composite, and Scratch. ReelSmart Motion Blur (RSMB) automatically adds more natural-looking motion blur to a sequence using proprietary tracking technology. Also included is a plug-in that allows you to blur with user-supplied motion vectors. New version adds 64-bit support on Mac OS X, as well as significant speed improvements. The plug-in requires a supported host application running on Mac OS 10.4 and up, Windows XP and up, and Linux operating systems (32- and 64-bit versions), and is priced at $189.95 US for a node-locked license, or $284.93 US for floating licenses (upgrade pricing). New version is available here. [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]

Sapphire 5 availability is now extended to Nuke users as well as those on other OFX hosts such as Fusion, Scratch, Toxik, Baselight, Film Master and Mistika, as GenArts Inc., the premier provider of specialized visual effects software, released its newest version of GenArts Sapphire 5 for Nuke and OFX host platforms. Sapphire 5 for Nuke/OFX is a suite of more than 200 visual effects plug-ins, including glow, blur, edge ray, defocus and texture tools. The plug-ins offer full floating-point support, GPU acceleration, and now also a full support for the OFX standard. GenArts Sapphire 5 for Nuke/OFX is available immediately. Floating licenses for Nuke, Fusion and Toxik are priced at $2,499 US; node-locked licenses are available for $1,699 US. Rental licenses are now available for the first time for $169 US per month. Current users may upgrade to Sapphire 5 for $599 US. [source]

Autodesk has acquired Illuminate Labs, a privately held maker of lighting technology for game development. Illuminate Labs' Beast middleware solution and Turtle plug-in for Autodesk Maya software enable faster iteration on a game's creative intent, and more realistic in-game lighting. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Autodesk anticipates that Beast middleware will continue to be licensed as a standalone product, Turtle will be incorporated into future offerings, and discontinued as a standalone product... [source]

cebas VISUAL TECHNOLOGY Inc. announced a major new version of its finalRender SE rendering solutions for 3ds Max, Maya and CINEMA 4D applications. Due to be released in Q1 of 2011, new finalRender will feature fully integrated, hardware accelerated global illumination rendering, incorporating enhanced CUDA GPU acceleration as well as full OpenCL support, without restricting the feature set and functionality of finalRender for 3ds Max. GPU-accelerated version of finalRender R4 SE will support Render Elements and Render Passes; soft shadows; IES lights; displacement; Sub-surface Scattering; all compatible 3ds Max Materials; volume light effects; and more. The prototype will premiere at this years SIGGRAPH 2010 in Los Angeles, CA, July 27th to 29th. [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]

Thinkinetic's Pulldownit!, a rigid body dynamics solver for 3ds Max and Maya which allows for the creation of fractures as well as massive rigid body simulations, has been updated to version 1.5. It is able to simulate scenes made of thousands of objects and collapse buildings, bridges or any kind of brittle material, fast and easy (Product Sheet PDF). Version 1.5 adds the ability to add long cracks to big models, the fragments have the ability to continue breaking out when hitting each other or the surrounding environment (video); and the plug-in can compute large scale scenes with several thousands of objects / fragments seamlessly, with multithreading (video)... For more information on features, see the video tutorials here (scroll to the bottom of the page). Both Max and Maya versions are 2011-compatible. Pulldownit! is available for Microsoft Windows Vista, XP and Windows 7 systems, the Standard version is offered free of charge, the professional version is offered along with more features (force fields, multithreading etc.), support and services. For pricing, contact the authors. [source]