By

Berlin-based Daniel Wichterich has released Flaps, a script for simplifying the animation of flipping planes. The description over-simplifies what the script can do, but the video on his ScriptSpot page shows exactly what you can do with it. More at ScriptSpot.

Judging by the latest job description on the Autodesk Careers site, it would seem that a port to OS X is finally being taken seriously. One of the job requirements is "Experience with developing for the Mac". I did some checking before posting this, and instead of pulling people off of the (not very large) Max development team, they are apparently actively looking for people with Mac programming experience to get things moving. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out, and what the resonance among the users will be.

Over the next five days (Monday to Friday), the Adam Walker Studio is publishing a series of posts and videos about the making of their short film "Arcade Trap" (YouTube, Vimeo), which they completed back in 2008. The studio's blog is going to have articles on animation, character design, game design, sound design and papercraft.

Autodesk have released Hotfix 2 for Max 2011 and Max Design 2011. Issues addressed include: CAT, Biped, Quicksilver, viewport gamma, etc. The new hotfix includes all previous hotfixes for Max 2011. Download from Autodesk.com: Max 2011 / Max Design 2011.

Chaos Group have officially released Phoenix FD, their fluid dynamics plugin for 3ds Max. Phoenix FD combines a grid based simulator with outstanding rendering capabilities. As well as the usual uniform fluid behavior, Phoenix FD can also simulate other processes such as pressure decay, thermal radiation cooling and mass-temperature dependence. Chaos Group are also offering promotional pricing until September 10th. Get all the details over at chaosgroup.com.

Matt Clark has today released his long-awaited 3ds Max retopology tool Wrapit. Full details can be found at the Wrapit website.

New York-based artist Joe Gunn has released a new commercial video tutorial on photorealistic studio car rendering. To keep costs down and get quick access to training material, the tutorial is available as a digital download. It contains over 2 hours of instructional video not including bonus tutorials. (more...)

Blur Studios have brought the BlurBeta section of their site back to life, making a load of tools for both 3ds Max and XSI available for download. Take a look at this CGTalk thread for all of the details.

Neil Blevins has updated his SoulburnScripts collection, adding 1 new script (polyCountSelector: Selects objects based on their facecount), and updating several older scripts (bitmapCollector, modifierUtilities, subdivisionAutomator, transformSelector, blendedBoxMapMaker and objectPainter). As usual, all scripts are available from Neilblevins.com.

This might be useful to those of you who use renderfarms: the Rebus Renderfarm has lowered its GHz/hour price across the board to 15.9 eurocents (approx. $0.23). They've also doubled their capacity to 1200 GHz. All the details are here.