Fabric Software announced a change in their business model and are now offering 50 licenses of Fabric to studios for free in order to speed up adoption of its software. The new policy provides easy access to studios to test the technology and allows developers to create cross-platform plugins using Fabric's Splice API and deploy licenses to any studio without requiring a purchase of Fabric Engine. Paid licenses are available that offer additional features such as direct email support, code obfuscation, unlimited render nodes, etc. More on Fabric Software's website.

A great graduation short created at Supinfocom Valenciennes featuring notable art design. Created with 3DS Max, Nuke and Mari. Watch it on Filmnosis.

Autodesk has released a new extension pack for 3DS Max 2015 which includes OpenSubdiv, Alembic support, and Enhanced ShaderFX. 3DS Max users on subscription have immediate access to this new extension pack which can be downloaded from their subscription page. For full details on this latest release, you can check out the 3DS Max page on the Autodesk Area website.

Thinkbox Software announced Sequoia, a cross-platform standalone tool for converting particle and point cloud data to geometry. Sequoia can ingest or export data in nearly any format required, enabling seamless integration within established pipelines. Once a 3D mesh has been generated, additional features allow for smoothing and decimation to reduce triangle count. Meshes can be colored and textured through image projections for enhanced data visualization. (more...)

Isotropix has posted a video showing the new features in the recently announced v2.0 of its software that blends compositing, layout, animation and rendering functionality into a single application. Watch it on YouTube.

Otoy has announced an interactive video pipeline for content creators, including a portable 360 capture system and a cloud-based pipeline for creating and deploying interactive video to virtual reality displays. The pipeline enables digital captures of real world people, objects, and environments, and one-click publishing of immersive interactive videos which are viewable on mobile devices and virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift. According to Otoy, the company is developing light field displays that will bring commercial freestanding volumetric holographic displays in 2015, which would be capable of displaying these interactive videos without the VR headsets. More on Otoy.

New features in Izotope's audio repair toolkit include: clip gain for quick adjustment of volume of vocals and instruments, dialogue denoiser to reduce distracting background noise from dialogue,  RX Connect for round-trip compatibility with Pro Tools, Logic, and other popular hosts. RX 4 is scheduled for a September release. More on Izotope's website.

The Khronos Group, an open consortium of hardware and software companies, released the OpenGL 4.5 specification today, bringing new functionality to the industry’s 3D graphics API including: Direct State Access for increased application and middleware efficiency and flexibility, flush control for enabling high-performance multithreaded applications, enhanced robustness for applications such as WebGL browsers, DX11 emulation features for easier porting of applications between OpenGL and Direct3D, etc. More on The Khronos Group.