NVIDIA has announced that simulation engine PhysX is to go open source under the simple BSD-3 license for desktop and mobile applications. The EULA remains unchanged for applications that run on  XBox One, Playstation 4, and Switch.  (more...)

Russian3DScanner has released ZWrap, a new plugin for ZBrush that allows the user to automatically apply predefined topology to a model. It's intended to be used to quickly convert scanned of sculpted assets to meshes that are suitable for use in production ZWrap is Compatible with ZBrush 4R8, 2018 and 2018.1 and costs $99 per year. A free 30-day demo is available. Find out more on the Russian3DScanner website. 

AG_codeWerks has released an open source watch folder style render manager for After Effects. It can launch several instance of After Effects and work in a similar fashion to the native watch folder render queue but promises greater stability by not colliding several processes while accessing the control file. It also promises fewer resources to run in the background. Find out more on AG_codeWerks website. 

Arqui9 Vizualisation has released a tutorial on how to add subtle animation to your still renders to create architectural cinematographs. Watch it on Youtube. 

Effective TD's Eloi Andaluz Fullà has released an interesting tutorial on how to create the deforming snow or mud effect seen in Red Dead Redemption 2 using 3DS Max using the Datachannel modifier. Watch it on YouTube. 

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Autodesk has released a new set of 3 tutorials to help new user get up and running with Maya, covering the UI, navigation, tools and then the modelling of a rocket. Watch them on Youtube: Video 1 | Video 2 | Video 3 

Autodesk has squeezed in another release of Maya 2018 before Maya 2019, which would normally have been released a few months ago if it followed the usual release schedule. Maya 2018.5 features several bug fixes as listed in the online release notes.