A great short film by students from the Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques, Julien Duval, Loïc Quesada, Rémy Terreaux and Magda Wydrzynska. Lots of plot points, changes of rythm and an interesting use of contrasts and subjectivity. Check it out! A making of is available at Rémy Terreaux' website. (Note: French version of film online, English version expected soon)

MachStudio Pro is a stand-alone, visualization and rendering software that lets CG artists and lighters create and manipulate lights, materials, and HDR cameras in a real-time, non-linear workflow environment to achieve film quality results. The new release adds a 3DS Max 2009 exporter, materials library and animatable fog. More at StudioGPU.com.

The 43" NEC CRV43 widescreen curved display will be available in July 2009 at a SRP of $7999. More at Gizmodo.com.

Another great short film coming from Supinfocom, this time by Romain Jouandeau, Adrien Chartie, Gilles Mazières and Fabien Thareau. The complete version has finally been posted online. Created with 3DS Max. Check it out!

The Institute of Animation at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg has made available a database of categorized facial expressions including emotions and physical states, to be used as reference by animators. Registration required. Visit Research.AnimationInstitut.de.

Microsoft confirmed that Windows 7 will be released on October 22nd, 2009. Since Microsoft has already graced us with a Vista downgrade, it's high time to bring forth some questions posed a while ago by US sociologist Neil Postman, on purported technological progress: 1) What is the problem to which this [new] technology is the solution? (Why is it being developed in the first place?) 2) Whose problem is it? (Who really benefits from this new development?) 3) Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by [such purported] technical solution? 4) What new problems might be created because we have solved this problem? Windows 7 is supposed to focus on performance improvements, still these questions need to be raised. Food for thought.

3D rigging applied to 2D characters brings extra benefits. An interesting making of by Paul Neale.

Mental Images has launched the MetaSL Library, over 90 materials for realtime display and quality rendering.