ActionVFX has announced the release of crowd stock footage. Two new collections are available: Sports Crowds and Concert Crowds each with 330 clips. Find out more on the ActionVFX blog. 

Thomas Berg has posted an impressive breakdown for his VFX work on Olav, a Norwegian Viking documentary.  According to his responses to questions posted on Facebook, all the work was created by just one person over 3 working months with a budget of $35K. It was created in 3ds Max alongside V-Ray, TyFlow, Phoenix FD, Forest Pack Pro, PF Track, Perception Neuron, Marvellous Designer, Metshape, and After Effects. Watch it on Vimeo.

Epic Games has announced the acquisition of ArtStation, the popular portfolio, jobs, training and marketplace for digital artists.  According to the announcement, ArtStation will continue as an independently branded platform. Immediate changes include a reduction in the Marketplace fees and free access to ArtStation Learning for the remainder of 2021. Epic and ArtStation both emphasise that the platform will remain open to all artists whether 2D or 3D , including those that don't use Unreal Engine. Read the announcement in full on the Epic Games website.  

3ds Max's Indie pricing has been extended to Latin America. Artists in these countries who earn less than $100,000 can now get max for just $280 per year (Normally $1600). You can find out more about Max Indie, including a list of all the eligible territories on the dedicated website.

Quixel has announced that Mixer 2021 is now available. New features include multiple texture sets, UDIMs, painting across texture sets, the ability to flatten layers, improved layer stack interactions, 100 new smart materials, exporting 3D asset to the library, being Unreal Engine ready, and of course, free. Find out more on the Quixel blog. 

Amazon Web Services has announced that Nimble Studio is now available. Nimble Studio is a new managed service designed to help studios "create content entirely in the cloud, from storyboard sketch to final deliverable." It aims to provide a more artist-friendly way to spin up virtual workstations, high-speed storage, and scalable rendering using AWS's infrastructure. Learn more on the AWS website. 

Select Similar Pro is a new commercial script by Crea3D that selects not just objects of the same type, but objects that are considered to be visually similar. It uses several different characteristics to compare objects including polygon count and size. Read more on Scriptspot.