The GIMP team has released a new version of its free image editing software. Notable improvements include a new line art detection feature added to the in the Bucket Fill tool aimed at comic artists, various usability improvements in transformation tools, a new Sample Merged option for the Heal tool and fixed in the Clone tool, the addition of  32-bit precision to the parametric brushes, improved brush and pattern creation workflow, on-canvas layer selection, speed increases when saving or exporting and layer groups rendering, DDS support and more. Read the full list of changes on the GIMP blog. 

Updated 23 April 2019. Allan Mckay has released a new tutorial for TyFlow - this time demonstrating a dispersion disintegration effect using Thanos from Avengers Endgame as a model. Watch it on YouTube.  (more...)

Goldtooth has released a breakdown video of the animated artworks they created for Magic: the Gathering. Watch it on Vimeo.

Last year Facebook introduced a 3D photo features that combines a photograph and a depth map to create a 2.5d effect. Until recently it had been restricted to phones with depth-sensing cameras but it is now possible to create them from any source, including of course, renders. In this tutorial Rico Cilliers explains how this can be done using Blender, but the basic idea applies to any other DCC application. Watch it on YouTube.

It's been something of a bumper crop of TyFlow tutorials this week , fortunately many of us have a long weekend to catch up. Here are VFX Academy's contributions - so far they have released three separate tutorials explaining TyFlows GUI, the PhysX solver, and the grow options, plus a 3 part tutorial that shows how to create vines growing on objects. Watch them all on VFX Academy's YouTube channel where versions in Arabic are also available.

iToo Software has released an Easter-themed tutorial that explains how to create phyllotactic spirals (patterns seen in natures such as the seeds on a sunflower) using RailClone. The tutorial also explains how to sample several tiles from a single texture, apply randomised colours to the diffuse channel by sampling them from a random pixel on a map and more. Read it or watch the video on iToo Software's website. 

Realtime UK has released a new making-of video with Stuart Bayley, the director of the Game of Thrones trailer and senior artists Chris Scubli and David Weaver who discuss the challenges of recreating well known characters without access to the actors or scan data. Watch it on Vimeo.  (more...)

Epic has announced the release of Unreal Studio 4.22. In addition to the benefits of the 4.22 release of the Unreal Engine such as real-time ray tracing, the Studio sister product adds several improvements aimed at non-game users. (more...)