New features in Itoo Software's parametric modeling plugin include: (more...)

HQ Plants has released two free Spiraea Japonica plant models for 3DS Max, ready to use in V-Ray and Mental Ray. Each plant has around 250-300k polys. More on 3DMentor.ru.

Check out the latest coming from Platige Image, a trailer directed by Tomek Baginski for Piranha Bytes' upcoming action role-playing game. Watch it on Vimeo.

A thorough video tutorial by character artist Ben Douglas. Watch it on YouTube.

Adobe's Tim Kurkoski has provided some details in a recent post, about upcoming improvements to After Effecs' video preview capabilities.

According to the information he disclosed the next release of AE will incorporate the Mercury Transmit technology used by Premiere Pro for that purpose. Thanks to this, video preview in AE will allow for:

• Full-screen display on a monitor connected to your computer's video card
• 10-bit color output in 16-bpc and 32-bpc projects when using devices from AJA, Blackmagic Design, Bluefish444, and Matrox
• Better RAM preview frame rate for memory-intensive compositions when video preview is enabled
• Users will no longer need to specify the output video mode - After Effects and the device will negotiate to set the video mode automatically

Find out more on Adobe's After Effects blog.

Egyptian artist Ahmed Shalaby has generously released a free rig that offers many advanced features. The rig was created with an upcoming rigging tool that Ahmed is developing. Watch a demo video and tutorial on Vimeo and download the rig from Dropbox.

(Updated) The script is now available for purchase.
The latest work by French artist Clovis Gay, a scripted modifier that uses a spline object to attract, repulse or rotate vertices, allowing to create various organic deformations, such as waves, splashes, etc. Watch the video on Vimeo.

UK artist Harry Houghton has posted a video showing a spline IK solver he created using position script controllers that allows to define two up nodes, increasing the range of possible motions. Watch a video on Vimeo.

The open source compositing software originally conceived at France-based IMAC engineering school has resumed development. A second team has taken over the project and has released an Alpha version for Linux, with a Windows version expected soon. ButtleOFX is based on TuttleOFX, an open source image processing framework based on the OpenFX plugin standard. Watch a video and find out more on ButtleOFX's site.

Dutch artist Jasper Brekelmans announced the upcoming release of a software that allows for inexpensive hand & finger motion capture using a Leap Motion sensor. Brekel Pro Hands records data in real-time in FBX, BVH, CSV and TXT formats. Those interested can sign up to participate in beta testing on Jasper Brekelmans' site.