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Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory are developing a semiconductor chip made almost entirely of wood. Current portable electronics are typically made of non-renewable, non-biodegradable and potentially toxic materials, and they are being frequently discarded in the pursuit of the next best electronic gadget, leading to serious environmental contamination. The research team led by UW-Madison's professor Zhenqiang "Jack" Ma, described the new device in a paper demonstrating the feasibility of replacing the support layer of a computer chip, with cellulose nanofibril (CNF), a flexible, biodegradable material made from wood. The new chips "are so safe you can put them in the forest and fungus will degrade it. They become as safe as fertilizer." More on the University of Wisconsin-Madison's website.

A spline deformer script by Gábor Miklós that offers soft selection support, segment or spline vertex distribution, works with modifiers (if the base Editable Poly unchanged), etc. The script is based on ideas by Luis Llamas, Marius Silaghi and Kostadin Kotev. It is currently under development and expected to be released in the coming months as part of the RapidTools toolset. More on ScriptSpot.

A script by Raffaele Schiavullo to speed up the animation of buildings being constructed (ex. phasing animation for skyscrapers, steel frames structures, etc.). It allows the user to easily shift the animation keys of the slice plane modifiers applied to different geometries with an incremental or uniform value. More on ScriptSpot.

A script by Raffaele Schiavullo to create dashed lines along a path, with a real-time preview. More on ScriptSpot.

Australian studio Animal Logic has chosen Vancouver as the city to open its new studio. Animal Logic Studios Vancouver is expected to open its doors in September and will initially produce three animated features, thanks to their continuing production relationship with Warner Bros. Pictures. The first film will be The Lego Movie sequel. Animal Logic is currently hiring in both locations, Sydney and Vancouver. More on Animal Logic's website.

A useful script by Torbjorn Olsson for adding modifiers in disabled mode. Watch a video on YouTube and download the script from the author's website.

3DS Max developers at Autodesk are recruiting new users for beta testing Max. More on Autodesk's Area.

MeasureIt is a free Blender add-on by Antonio Vazquez that offers various useful measurement options, including the ability to work with different scales. Watch a video on YouTube and find out more on GitHub.

New features in the free Blender add-on by Antonio Vazquez for creating architectural elements include: (more...)

Students from French school MOPA have created a video describing the origins and historic evolution of the city of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. It was made using 3DS Max, V-Ray and After Effects, and intended for display at the Musée des Alpilles. Watch it on Vimeo.