Created by Mari users and released as an open-source bundle, the Extension Pack 2.1 for The Foundry's 3D texture painting software adds 70+ feature improvements for MARI 2.6v3 or higher. Read the list of new features and find out more on Ideascale's website.

Prague-based PFX studio has posted their latest automotive reel, with breakdowns of some shots. Watch it on Vimeo.

The Foundry has made available a video showing the new features brought by the recent 2.0 release of its look development, lighting and scene assembly tool. Watch the video on Vimeo.

RealtimeUK studio offers a behind the scenes look at the recent work they did for the six part documentary series "Mummies Alive". RealtimeUK's Tony Prosser explains the influence tax breaks for the broadcast sector have had on the work they're doing at their Manchester-based studio. Watch the video on Vimeo.

The developers of Marmoset Toolbag announced the release of Hexels, a fun and simple grid-based art tool that lets you paint with shapes. More on Marmoset's website.

Render Legion announced the third alpha release of the Corona plugin for Cinema 4D. The new version offers new Corona materials (advanced light emitter, advanced volumetric material), new shaders (ambient occlusion, geometry edge/vertex shader), enhanced Corona Material (added SSS support, absorption shader), IES lights support, improved standard C4D materials support, added basic support for non-Corona materials (e. g. Banzi, Cheen), Corona VFB, etc. More on Corona Renderer's blog.

Cebas has updated its physically-based GPU renderer for 3DS Max with a Match-GPU-Kernel technology that installs the optimal GPU-Kernel combination for your existing hardware, allowing to expand your render textures beyond the previous 64 maximum. It offers, for example, a Kepler-Maxwell Kernel option that allows to completely remove any texture restrictions that existed in older generations of NVidia GPU hardware. Find out more on Cebas' website.

Richard Rosenman has released an update to his Photoshop plugin for creating advanced glow effects, which includes features such as gamma adjustment, saturation control, chromatic aberration, pixel noise capabilities and diffusion color tinting. Version 2.0 brings upper and lower thresholds for more specific color range selections, X & Y specific blur radii with lock toggle for individual axis glowing, an antialiased mask gizmo and 64-bit compatibility. More on Richard Rosenman's website.