The latest version of Blackmagic Design's editing and grading application brings 10x performance improvements, a new audio postproduction suite with Fairlight audio built into the software, collaboration tools that let multiple people edit, color and mix audio from multiple systems in the same project at the same time, new editing and grading features, and a price reduction of its Studio version from $995 to $299 (permanent licenses, no rental). (more...)

Researchers from Disney and the University of Southern California have developed a method for capturing dynamic hair and automatically determining the physical properties for simulating the hairstyle in motion. The output consists of both the static hair geometry as well as its physical properties. The hairstyle can be easily edited by adding additional external forces, changing the head motion, or re-simulating in completely different environments. More on Disney Research's website.

New features in the latest version of Render Legion's Corona Renderer for 3DS Max include: 200% speed boost in scenes where direct lighting from HDRI environment is dominant, interactive rendering is virtually real-time thanks to subsampling, significantly improved distributed rendering, portable Corona Image Editor application, triplanar mapping, improved rendering of round edges, Corona Scatter improvements, free set of IES profiles, free photographic LUTs, reduced memory requirements, etc. (more...)

ILM FX Artist Steven Knipping, has posted his latest demo reel featuring work from the recent Star Wars movies, Age of Ultron, Tomorrowland and more. The demo also includes some new tutorial footage from his Applied Houdini tutorial series. Watch it on Vimeo.

Solid Angle has posted a video showing the new features in the recently released v5 of its Arnold renderer. Watch it on Vimeo.

Foundry has released Modo 11.0, the first installment of the Modo 11 series. The latest version of the Foundry's flagship 3D software brings performance improvements, OpenSubdiv 3 support, new MeshFusion modeling features, enhancements to Auto Retopology, improvements to procedural modeling workflows, a new customizable Tool HUD for faster access to frequently used tools, and more. The company now also offers rental licensing options ($59/month, $599/year) in addition to permanent licenses ($1799), as well as a maintenance plan for the later, which provides updates and technical support over the one-year maintenance term ($399/year). More on the Foundry's website.

A short directed by Canadian artist DaCosta Bayley, created with Blender with the support of Nimble Collective’s Virtual Studio Service Platform. Watch the film on Vimeo and find out more on the film's website.

New features in the open source, cross-platform video editor include: transform tool allows real-time transformations in the video preview window, improvements to zooming in and out of the timeline, enhanced Title Editor and Animated Title Editor, previewing files now has its own dedicated video player, significant performance improvements for real-time previews, razor tool brought back due to users' requests, etc. More on OpenShot's website.