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...)

As Europe comes to the end of a particularly cold and snowy week, it seems appropriate to share this breakdown video by Zero VFX who changed the weather for Daddy’s Home 2.  Watch it on Vimeo.

Blender Guru has published a lengthy interview with Ton Roosendaal, the original creator of Blender and chairman of the Blender Foundation.  During the nearly two hour interview, Ton discusses how Blender got started and how it almost didn't happen, why making Blender open source was the best decision, Ton's disinterest in money, differences between Blender from other open source projects, why Blender's game engine is falling behind, the fallout from Blender UI proposals and the UI debate, Ton's thoughts on Autodesk and Disney's  purchase of Pixar, what's holding Blender back, and more. Watch it on YouTube.