The following has been posted at renowned site Maxplugins.de: "This site generates a lot of traffic, and takes up quite a bit of my time to keep going. When I started the site, I vowed never to have any advertising here, because I personally hate sites with banners all over the place. I intend to keep it ad-free, but as the site becomes more and more popular I need to find a way to finance it. So if you find the site useful, and would like to contribute to keeping it going, feel free to click on the [PayPal] button. It will be much appreciated! Dave." Please consider contributing to Maxplugins on a regular basis if you use the site, whether you are a Max user or plugin developer. We all know the site and the developer behind it more than deserves it. And if you haven't ever thanked Dave Baker for all his hard work, think for just a second what would happen if Maxplugins disappeared. There, you got the picture.

XSI 6 features new animation tools, "Delta Referencing" for collaborative workflow, enhanced interoperability with Max and Maya, improvements in scripting and more. Read the details at Softimage.com.

Blizzard has posted the winning entries for their first annual Fan Art Contest. Check 'em out!

CGCast has an audio interview with Canadian artist Neil Blevins. Neil talks about job interviews, Pixar, Photoshop vs. Painter and more. Check it out!

Leonard Teo, founder of CGTalk, CGSociety and Ballistic publishing (not to mention the good ol' Planet3dArt), has left Ballistic Media to work as a consultant and has currently joined Softimage as a Business Development Manager. We would like to wish Leonard the best of luck in his new endeavors and thank him for all his help and support through the past years. Good luck Leonard! (More news from Leonard can be found at his personal blog.)

As reported earlier, MotionDSP's software reconstructs "high-resolution" video from low-resolution footage. The company has recently announced its first offering derived from this technology: "Ikena systems capable of real-time processing of input video start at $30,000". Read the whole PR for more.

(Updated October 31, 2006) Before and afters and visual effects breakdowns now available. Definitely worth a look.
Ruairí Robinson ("Fifty Percent Grey") has finally completed his live action film and has posted a trailer on his website. Check it out!

Adobe announced that it's developing a new application for creating and editing audio, and fixing common audio flaws using visually-oriented tools. A beta version is available for download. More information at Digit Magazine.