New features in 3Dflow's image-based modeling software: (more...)

New features in Solid Angle's renderer include: optimizations to the standard shader at high ray-depth settings for glass-heavy and indoor scenes resulting in 1.5x-5x speedups, better threading for many-core machines, easy global override for all shaders in the scene, custom attributes on deep EXR files, detailed render settings and render stats for EXR files, variable expansion for procedural DSO paths and many bug fixes. (more...)

New features in Itoo Software's plugin for 3DS Max for creating large extensions of trees and vegetation include: Effects allow you to control many of Forest Pack's parameters using scripting and mathematical expressions, new Mulch and Rugs presets, support for V-Ray 3.3 brings render speed gains between 40-100% thanks to performance improvements in V-Ray 3.2 and 3.x, Areas->Edge mode for Mental Ray and Corona renderer, improved memory usage when rendering animations with Mental Ray, etc. More on Itoo's website.

A trailer is up for Pixar's upcoming sequel to Finding Nemo. The script was been written by Andrew Stanton and the film was co-directed by Stanton and Angus MacLane. Watch the video on YouTube.

London-based Union Visual Effects, the studio founded by Tim Caplan and Adam Gascoyne, has posted breakdowns for VFX work they did for Kevin Macdonald's Black Sea film. Watch the video on Vimeo.

FXGuide has posted an article in where they talk to Blue Sky Studio regarding the work they did for the film, The Peanuts Movie. You can read the full article on the FXGuide website.

Ricoh has recently released a new version of its 360 degree camera, which brings improved image quality and better low light performance (plus enhanced video and ability to stream a live feed). Brad Herman, author of the HDR 360 Bracket Pro App that allows the camera to capture multiple exposures and turns it into an HDR panorama image factory, has updated it to work with the new Theta S. Read more about the camera on the official website and a review on Imaging Resource.

3DVF has an interesting interview with KA-RA on the real-time Archviz engine's latest developments, including photogrammetry and point cloud support, VR research and more. (French|English online translation)