Design Connected has released a new version of Connector, its standalone asset manager. Version 1.7 adds support for Substance materials including real-time rendered previews and the ability to interactively view the material in a 3d sphere with options to adjust lighting and the environment. Also in the release are thumbnails and previews for Revit and AutoCAD files, the ability to search in tagged files, plus minor bug fixes and performance improvements. Find out more on the Connector website. 

Anastasiy has released MagicTints, a new plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom and Affinity Photo that uses a machine learning engine to apply the colours from one image to another. The plugin is currently for sale at $19 and a free trial is available. Find out more on Anastasiy's website.

Quixel has announced the release of Bridge 1019.2 with a focus on some of the most recent industry formats and workflows including support for Pixar's Universal Scene Description, or USD format and improved support for Apples USDZ version which is a custom version of Pixar’s format. According to Quixel, this announcement makes Bridge currently the only cross-platform USD converter available.  (more...)

João Victor Ferreira has released a new tool for 3DS Max called Jaylids designed to close the eyelids of characters in order to leave the mesh ready for rigging and surfacing departments or to make blendshapes and expression tests. It's available from Gumroad for $19. 

Autodesk has published an article explaining two uses for round-tripping between 3DS Max or Maya and Unity. In the first instance, they discuss white-boxing (a level in the Unity Editor, then switching to Maya or 3ds Max to complete the level; in the second example they talk about recording gameplay in the Unity Editor then exporting animation to Maya for an animator to polish, before returning to Unity to add the animation to a Timeline track. Read the article in full on Autodesk's Maya blog.

Hocus Pocus Studio has released a breakdown of the dragon produced for the short file The Food Chain. It features some impressive muscle work inside 3DS Max created using custom in-house tools. Watch it on Vimeo. 

Secret Weapons has released a free standalone tool called EbSynth that renders video in the style portrayed in one or more reference keyframes. It is designed to allow users to produce videos with a fully customisable hand-painted appearance. The method used to synthesise the result is not discussed, but according to a response on YouTube, it is not a machine learning algorithm. Find out more and download from the EbSynth website or watch a tutorial on YouTube. 

According to a thread on CGTalk, MagicPictures Software will soon release two new commercial plugins - a Mesher called AQ Mesher, and a Bullet Physics based multibody simulator called AQ Bullet.  (more...)