Call For Entries: 3D Studio MAX 3.0 Workshop Images

All artists that have read "3D Studio MAX Workshop" by Duane Loose (pub. by Hayden Books, May 2000) are invited to submit a still image they've created using the techniques and principles in the book. Copies of Duane's new book: 3ds max 4 Workshop will be given to the artists submitting the best images. (more...)

There's a rumor of a Discreet-Havok deal in order to offer more of Havok's dynamics bundled with 3ds max 4. High quality fluids, soft bodies and rigid objects interaction in the base Max package? Could this be true?

SceneBuilder will let Max users deliver "richly rendered and interactive 3D content over the Internet". It's designed to assemble and edit the content of a "VET" scene before its final output to a Viewpoint Media file. A VET scene is a collection of 3D objects, material properties, animators, interactors, and the definition of the 3D environment (i.e., panoramas or the maps of environmental-lightmaps).
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SOFTIMAGE|3D for Linux is currently in beta testing and is expected to be available on various certified Linux configurations in late March 2001. Softimage also plans to introduce a Linux version of SOFTIMAGE|XSI later this year.
Also of note, XSI 1.5 reviewed at Computer Creative.

Screamline's web-based service allows clients to know the exact cost of a rendering job before running it: its JobAnalyst software works as an interface between the client and Screamline's render farm calculating the complexity of a project (by looking at factors such as # of objects and polygons, # of light sources, anti-aliasing, raytracing, resolution, etc.) and giving a per-frame cost. It also lets customers monitor and manage jobs anytime day or night though the Internet.
JobAnalyst for 3ds max and RenderMan are scheduled for release this quarter.

Texporter Version 3.4  New Smooth Color option for XYZ, W and Vertex Color colorization schemes. Wrap Around option now wraps around at all of the edges (not only the left edge). A bug fix in colorization by Face Area option. Works only with MAX 4.

Game developer Lionhead Studios has incorporated a library of tactile sensations into its video game Black & White, due for release this spring by Electronic Arts. The haptics are provided by Immersion Corp.'s TouchSense technology. Gamers using a TouchSense-enabled mouse will be able to, for example, feel a fish nibbling at their fingers as they feed them, or their own heartbeats quickening.

Turbo Squid's integration into Max 4 will enable users (with an Internet connection) to locate assets in a matter of seconds from within Max. The selected models and textures from Turbo Squid can then be dragged and dropped directly into the 3ds max 4 workspace.
Read the whole PR.