Autodesk has made available a service pack for Composite 2013 that addresses a number of issues. More at Autodesk's MaxStation blog.

Seoul-based CLO Virtual Fashion has updated the development roadmap for its cloth design and simulation software. According to the roadmap version 3 of the software should be released in the coming months. More at Marvelous Designer's forum.

A great reel by Barcelona-based Headless Productions, showing traditional and 3D animation. Watch it on Vimeo.

SMAK is an application that can preview models and render diffuse, ambient occlusion, normal and cavity maps. Its author, Jorge Rodríguez, has released version 2.0 of the software as open source. Visit SMAK's website for more.

Gentleman Scholar has created a fantastic spot that they call Salt 'Everything's Better' and also made a making of video for a behind the scenes look at how it was created. Watch the original spot and making of on Vimeo.

Andrew Kramer from Video Copilot announced the release of Element 3D, an After Effects plugin that offers notable 3D object rendering, particle system and animation capabilities inside Adobe's compositing software. Element uses fast OpenGL rendering instead of raytracing. The main difference is that objects do not reflect other objects in your scene. However, Element does use reflection mapping to generate the appearance of reflectivity without compromising speed. More at Video Copilot.

An animated short by Thierno Bah, Noé Giuliani, Pierre Ledain and David Martins da Silva, students at French school EMCA, with an emphasis on association of images in editing/transitions. Watch it on Vimeo.

Valve Software has made available its Source Filmmaker movie-making tool as open beta. It can now be freely downloaded through Valve's Steam video game platform. Visit the Source Filmmaker's website for more.

The Foundry interviews Stephan Fleet, VFX Creative Director for Encore Hollywood on the work they did for ABC's "The River" series. According to Mitch Gates, the CG supervisor on the project, the primary 3D package used was 3DS Max, and other tools included V-Ray, Hair Farm, Naiad, ZBrush, Nuke, Eyeon Fusion and "pretty much everything Thinkbox makes". Read the interview on The Foundry's website and watch a breakdown of the monkey shot from "The River" episode 1 on Vimeo. (Disclaimer: expect content aimed at highlighting Nuke's capabilities)

Wacom announced the upcoming release and new features of its Cintiq 24HD touch, which adds multi-touch capabilities to the 24 inch pen tablet display. The Cintiq 24HD touch is expected to ship in August. More at Wacom.