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Itoo Software interviews talented Norwegian artist Rune Spaans on his work on the CG short film The Absence of Eddy Table. “Creating a short film can take a long, long time, so make sure you are really really happy with the script and the project. Even though it's been hard work, it's always been a pleasure sitting down with the project, and I think it shows. (...) the film is done with no commercial intent, basically we just did a film we wanted to see ourselves”. Read the interview on Itoo Software's website. (Note: expect content aimed at publicizing Itoo Software's software)

Marek Denko has updated his portfolio with his latest work "Her Eventual Hesitation", along with a making of video. More on Marek Denko's website.

Tiler is a Blender add-on by Glukoz designed for speeding up roof creation, which can also be used for generating various types of tile-based mesh patterns. It is especially useful for architecture visualization applications. Tiler allows to automatically trim generated tiles to walls' boundaries, add various kinds of randomness for more realism, generate tiles for wall joints (useful for roof creation), quick generation of displacement maps from your tiles, etc. More on Blender Market.

NewTek has made available a new preview of the upcoming version of its flagship 3D software showing non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) features. More on LightWave's blog.

Paris-based artist Sozap has created a great, surreal video using Blender, Krita and Natron. A making of is available. Watch the video on Vimeo.

Chaos Group has released v3.0 of its fluid dynamics software for Maya. The plugin allows to simulate fire, smoke, liquids, ocean waves, splashes, spray, mist and more. Phoenix 3.0 comes with a new FLIP liquid solver, improved smoke and fire solver and enables the production of more realistic visual effects. More on Chaos Group's website.

After the crisis triggered by the sudden layoff of MOPA director Julien Deparis, around 140 students and their parents have staged a demonstration in Arles to protest the situation at the school, according to French newspaper La Provence. The CIPEN and the school's new director have seen themselves pressured to reply, issuing a statement on the matter, which predictably contests the image of crisis described by the students, saying they have hired replacements and that only 9 teachers have left out of 57, among other subjects covered by the statement. The students have answered that 9 have left now, that the pedagogy has already suffered and that around 20 more teachers plan not to come back after the current school term ends. More on La Provence newspaper: "Arles : parents and students mobilized to 'save' MOPA", "MOPA in crisis : the reaction of the school and the CIPEN". (French)

New features in Thinkbox Software's administration and compute management toolkit for render farms include: improvements to further strengthen the security of your render farm, new installation and configuration options to better support distributed deployments, enhancements to the Remote Command system, a common interface is now included in all submitters for Draft (Deadline's plugin for automating deliverables) and for project management applications. More on Thinkbox Software's website.

Chaos Group has released an update to its renderer for Trimble's modeling software, adding SketchUp 2017 compatibility, a new streamlined UI, a library with 200+ materials, V-Ray Swarm scalable distributed rendering system, Denoiser, ability to render VR-ready content, Clipper to create quick cutaways and section renders, realistic atmospheric depth and haze with aerial perspective, create realistic grass, fabrics, and carpet with V-Ray Fur, etc. The software is available through permanent and rental licensing. More on Chaos Group's website.

Autodesk has announced that it will be raising the prices of its maintenance plans for those customers who chose to stay on those plans and kept their perpetual licenses instead of adopting the rental-only licensing system the company is transitioning to. Citing increasing costs due to maintaining two business models, the company has stated that beginning May 7, 2017, renewal prices will increase by 5% in 2017, 10% in 2018, and 20% in 2019. The numbers are cumulative. Also, it will only be possible to renew maintenance plans for one year at a time. Autodesk is offering discounted prices to those who choose to give up their perpetual licenses and join the rental-only plans.

The news has been met with heated reactions such as "If before this email I was hesitant to start learning another software, now all my doubts have completely dissipated", "You still haven't switched to Blender/C4D/'insert another app here' yet? Then here's some more price increases and changes in licensing". (more...)