Evermotion has published a video comparing the speed of Cycles X to the current version using some of its archviz scenes. See how it performs on YouTube. 

State of Art academy has publishes two posts exploring how you can use V-Ray 5's VFB for post-production. In part 1 they look at how to create the necessary render passes and use the new masking tools, in the second part they use these masks and demonstrate the whole post-production process on an image. 

The Golaem team has released a new tutorial explaining how to use Metahuman characters with its crowd simulation plugin for Maya. Watch it on YouTube.

Motiva has announced Layama 1.5, the latest version of its tool Unreal, 3ds Max and Blender tool for creating 360-degree tours in just a few clicks. The most significant new feature of this release is the ability to add hotspots that can be linked to websites, linked to files,  or embed websites, videos and more. (more...)

Epic Games has published a free white paper that describes how you can use Unreal Engine to generate real-time hair and fur for your own projects. Get it on the Epic blog. 

A new version of the open-source game engine Godot is now available. Version 3.3 was originally intended as a minor update, but grew to include some significant new features and improvements including the ability to run the Godot editor on the web, the ability to export Android AABs, a new CPU lightmapper, physics improvements, editor improvements and much much more. For a detailed explanation of all the new changes, visit the Godot's website.

AWS Thinkbox has announced the release of Deadline 10.1.15.2, a minor update in many ways with the exception of the free version which now allows up to 10 workers to be used. Previously only 2 workers could be used without a license. See a full list of what's new in the Deadline release notes. 

Evermotion has launched a new series of free tutorials aimed at archviz artists. In the first episode they tackle how to set up interior lighting using V-Ray. Free scene files are available so that readers can follow along. Find out more on the Evermotion website.