In a recent blog post, Maxon UK's Managing Director Liam Stacy discusses the pros and cons of permanent and rental licensing. "We believe the choice should be yours to make. Therefore, we now offer both long-term and short-term software solutions. Even better, we offer a chance to upgrade from short-term to perpetual licenses." More on Maxon's blog.

The Mill recently published a video showcasing their stadium and crowd toolkit which allows them to create and populate stadiums with lots of user control.

Mir Vadim has posted a new video showcasing RayFire Cache for Maya, which includes the ability to load RayFire caches from 3DS Max. Watch the video on YouTube. The plugin is entering beta and the author is looking for Maya users to help test it before release. If you'd like to participate please contact him via the RayFire website.

Unity has posted a demo video that they have been showing at GDC titled 'Adam - Part I'. The impressive video created using the Unity engine by Unity’s Demo team, showcases rendering scenes in realtime and hints at what is possible in the latest version. The full length short, is scheduled to be shown at Unite Europe 2016 in Amsterdam. Watch it on YouTube.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently published an article discussing why some of the bigger animation studios like Animal Logic, are hesitant to move things into the cloud and how that possibility tends to make the movie studios somewhat nervous. You can read the full article on the Sydney Morning Herald website.

ILMxLAB, the division of Lucasfilm dedicated to developing virtual reality experiences, has made available a video with a preview of Trials on Tatooine, a new Star Wars VR experiment. Watch it on YouTube. Road to VR has an article on the subject.

Crytek announced the release of Cryengine V today with a “Pay What You Want” business model, offering developers access to the engine's feature-set and full engine source code for a fee of their choosing, and with no obligation to pay royalties or additional service charges. (more...)

Thomas Dotheij has posted a video of his feather generator, that he created in Houdini. Watch it on Vimeo.