Foundry has announced the release of Modi Indie 11.2V3, its feature limited version available via Steam. The 11 series added several new features to Modo that are now available to Indie users. These include modelling and procedural modelling improvements such as OpenSubdiv 3 support, new MeshFusion modelling features, enhancements to Auto Retopology and a revamped topology pen, improvements to procedural workflows including UV Create and Smooth operators, plus a new customizable Tool HUD for faster access to frequently used tools. (more...)

Platige Image has released a breakdown video detailing the creation of a Bison for a recent Żubr beer commercial. Watch it on Vimeo.

Isotropix has released a tutorial demonstrating how to use point clouds created in 3rd party software as a distribution source for a Clarisse scatter. Houdini is used in the example but point clouds from any software should work in the same way. Watch it on YouTube.

UK-based animation studio Blue Zoo has launched AnimDojo, a new online platform for learning character animation in Maya. For £15 a month, students gain access to regular mini assignments, peer reviews, character rigs and both live and pre-recorded training materials. AnimDojo's teaching is centred around the concept of an animator's checklist, a "guided workflow that has been designed for efficient CG character animation creation". Membership has no minimum sign-up period and feedback from animation professionals can be purchased for an additional cost. Find out more on the AnimDojo website.

Framestore has released a VFX breakdown for its London and Montréal studios' work on Paddington 2. Watch it on YouTube.

AMD has announced the availability of Radeon ProRender beta plugins for the MacOS versions of Maya and Blender.  AMD claims that these new releases and the SP2 update to the Cinema 4D R19 plugin are "now the first production renderer[s] to support Apple’s Metal2 API that maximizes the potential of GPU-accelerated rendering on macOS". ProRender is a free physically-based renderer that is capable of making use of any manufacturer’s GPUs to render out images. You can read more and download the betas from Radeon's website.

Epic has released a white paper explaining in depth the pipeline used for Fortnite.  The animated cinematic trailer runs entirely inside Unreal Engine allowing for real-time navigation and full interaction during the production process. Download the 47 page PDF from Epic's blog.

Next Limit has announced the next version of RealFlow for Cinema 4D will be released on 15 March 2018. Version 2.5 includes 20 bug fixes and 15 new features, including a new visualizer tool for previewing, adjusting, and evaluating force-based daemons. Other features include:  (more...)