Unreal Engine 5.7: foliage, PCG and in-Editor AI
Unreal Engine 5.7 adds Nanite Foliage (experimental), production-ready PCG and Substrate, new virtual-production tools, and an AI Assistant. Test first.
Ucupaint 2.4.0 with alpha channel and decal-constraints
Ucupaint 2.4.0 adds dedicated alpha channel, decal-stick option, UI overhaul and faster VDM baking.
Huion Kamvas 13 (Gen 3): Welcome to Sensible Pen Tablets
Sometimes you just want a tablet that works without selling your workstation. That was the starting point for our test of Huion’s Kamvas 13 (Gen 3). In times where many artists keep an eye on their budgets, the idea of a small, solid, and affordable pen display is tempting. So we teamed up with Huion to see what this one could actually do.
Analog Soul, Digital Body: ARRI Film Lab Arrives
ARRI’s new OpenFX plugin Film Lab emulates analog film’s grain, halation, and weave in real time for any camera. Free trial now via RE:Vision Effects.
Xencelabs Pen Display 16 Lite: 4K OLED in a 12 mm Shell
Xencelabs launches the Pen Display 16 Lite, a 12 mm, 1.2 kg 4K OLED tablet with Super AG Etching and EMR pen support. The device targets mobile artists who need wide-gamut color accuracy on the go, with pricing starting at US$ 800 and the full Pen Display 16 Bundle listed at US$1250
Beeble launches SwitchLight 3.0
SwitchLight 3.0 from Beeble brings full video-frame PBR pass generation and relighting workflows.
Blender Foundation launches “Blender Lab” innovation hub
The Blender Foundation is launching Blender Lab, a new sandbox for prototyping features in Blender, aimed at faster iteration, acedemic research and development.
Spotlight Generator for 3ds Max Automates IES Light Setup for Corona and V-Ray
ArchvizTools releases Spotlight Generator, a free script for 3ds Max that automates IES spotlight placement for Corona and V-Ray. Version 1.0 targets faster lighting workflows in arch-viz and VFX production by generating renderer-ready IES lights directly on selected geometry.
Blackmagic Camera 3.2: iPhone Streams Live, No Extra Steps
Blackmagic Camera 3.2 turns your iPhone into a live streaming unit—now with native YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitch streaming, plus SRT for pro use.
The Cube Moved: Go for the Chaos (Ad) Vantage
Architecture Illustrators and Visualizers test Chaos Vantage for a narrative short and accidentally build a moving house. Unbox proves real-time previz can tell stories, not just sell floor plans.
Keep Your Pipeline: Chaos on Skipping the Game Engine
Chaos’ Chris Nichols explains how Chaos Arena and Chaos Vantage cut out the engine middleman with full ray tracing, open formats, and one asset for all.
KitBash3D’s “DieselPunk” kit free till 18 Nov – retro-futurism ahoy!
KitBash3D’s $245 “DieselPunk” 3D kit (1,395 meshes and 4K textures for Unreal 5) is free on Fab until 18 Nov 2025. Cinematic-grade, no LODs.
Procedural Roads Ahead: Blender Add-on “Roads” Lays Asphalt with Vertices
Blender add-on “Roads” builds procedural roads from vertex extrusions. Fast, planar, parametric and $10.
SpyderPro goes full HDR with receipts (C2PA)
Datacolor’s SpyderPro adds 12,000 nits support, 3D-LUT export, and C2PA metadata embedding. Targeted squarely at post pros, not hobbyists.
Phantom Media Group: Milk, Lola, Tippett, PhantomFX and Spectre Unite
Milk, Lola, Tippett, PhantomFX and Spectre now share a roof. Phantom Digital Effects forms Phantom Media Group to align global VFX talent.
City Life for Crowds: iCrowds Lands in Blender
iCrowds, the new Blender add-on from iCity’s creator, brings smart Sims-style crowds, seven simulation systems, and 100k agents to 3D production.
Sculpt-Offs, Anniversaries & Anatomy: ZBrush Summit 2025 celebrates 25 years
ZBrush turns 25 and Maxon is celebrating online, 7-9 November, with live Sculpt-Offs, artist sessions and a first look at what’s next for ZBrush.
Procedural Thursday: CityEngine Users Meet Online Tomorrow
Tomorrow, 5 p.m. CET: CityEngine User Meeting: free, online, and full of procedural nerds. Bring your node graphs.
Das Element 2.2: Major Step Forward for Asset Management
The new Das Element 2.2 release strengthens 3D handling, adds dynamic permission controls and custom Python action hooks to make studio asset management even smoother.
Nobe OmniScope, Pomfort, and RePro sync up on set
RePro connects Pomfort Livegrade and Nobe OmniScope for a unified on-set-to-post workflow. Real-time streaming, shared looks, and synced scopes cut guesswork.
Dolby Vision, Dolby Vision 2, and Beyond!
HDR isn’t just a jungle of acronyms on your TV box—though it may feel that way. To bring some order, we sat down with Michael Hackl from Dolby to talk about Dolby Vision, how it compares to HDR10 and HDR10+, how it is made, and what’s new in Dolby Vision 2.
Camera Arrays for the Gaussian Age
Camera Array Tool for Blender creates surface-based camera rigs and exports 4DGS-ready image data for Gaussian Splatting workflows.
Free WaveManager Brings Procedural Motion to Maya
WaveManager for Maya adds procedural wave motion to any rig via expressions: no keyframes, full control, free download.
Neat Video 6: Smarter Noise Reduction for Nuke and Beyond
Neat Video 6 automates what used to be manual: GPU tuning, CPU balancing, and memory management. The result: up to twice the render speed and half the RAM usage inside Nuke, Premiere, and Resolve. A quiet but meaningful upgrade for anyone tired of watching progress bars instead of pixels.
Video Mocap: Reallusion’s AI Gets Moving
Reallusion adds online AI motion capture to iClone: Video Mocap turns footage into editable animation for $2.50 per clip.
Blender 4.5 LTS lands
lender 4.5 LTS arrives with studio-grade support; the Blender survey shows where users stand; and Blender 5.0 beta is already here, so its time to plan your upgrade.
Off-Grid, On-Tape: EditingTools.io Launches Local Timecode Notes Server
EditingTools.io brings offline collaboration to live productions with its new Live Timecode Notes Server for macOS.
Continuum 2026: AI masks, fixes, and faces
Continuum 2026 upgrades AI masking, keying, and transitions. Face ML, Matte Refine ML, and smarter Pixel Chooser save time on tedious isolation work.
Affinity: free all-in-one design suite
Canva folds Affinity into one free-forever app, marking a major shift for design tools and putting the old perpetual-licence model on hold.
FMX Turns 30 in 2026
FMX 2026 celebrates 30 years of digital media creation. Stuttgart, May 5–8, 2026. Theme: “The Road Ahead”. Book your rooms, time flies.
Mesh2Motion Update 6 Adds Explore Library and Rebuilt Rigs
Update 6 gives Mesh2Motion a new Explore Library, rebuilt Blender rigs, and smarter bones for birds, dragons, and quadrupeds.
The Mill Returns
The Mill is back. TransPerfect revives the iconic VFX studio with returning talent and a global creative push.
Peakto for Premiere: search your footage like never before
At Adobe MAX 2025, CYME launched “Peakto for Premiere Pro”: a plugin giving editors AI-search across local and shared media without the cloud.
Photoshop 27.0: Now with Harmonise, Upscale & Firefly Video
Photoshop 27.0 is official. You get Harmonise, Generative Upscale, Firefly video export, and selectable AI models. Test before rollout.
Open HDRI: 25 Free 29K HDRIs (More to come)
A new online library offers 25 free HDRIs at up to 29K resolution, all under a CC0 license. Open HDRI provides ultra-high-quality lighting environments without sign-ups, tracking or licensing headaches.
3D Measure Master brings CAD-style precision to 3ds Max
The new plugin 3D Measure Master adds CAD-style measuring tools to 3ds Max, creating editable and renderable geometry for true 3D dimensions.
Momo: Of Time, Turtles, and Technical Wizardry
VFX Supervisor Michael Wortmann on how RiseFX built the fantasy of Momo: almost entirely on location, with 280 shots and the best turtle in the business.
Flix 8.0: Foundry’s story hub gets serious about Storyboard Pro
Foundry’s Flix 8.0 tightens its Storyboard Pro link, retools shots UI, refines ingest monitoring, still “priced on request”, which probably means “too expensive”.
“Task Force Querlitz” Brings Adult Animation to ZDF
With Task Force Querlitz, screenwriter Simon Thummet, director Arne Hain and producer Sebastian Simon have achieved something rare:…
SLAPSHOT promises AI Camera Tracking “in minutes”
SLAPSHOT has released its AI Camera Tracking tool: what used to take a day or more can now take under ten minutes according to the developer.
Fluid Flow paints physics into Blender
Fluid Flow is a $14 Geometry Nodes add-on for Blender 4.2+, painting real-time water, sand, and lava straight into the viewport.
ASUS unveils 32″ 8K HDR Mini-LED ProArt monitor. Yes, 8K.
ASUS launches its 32″ 8K HDR Mini-LED monitor, the ProArt PA32KCX with great brightness and pro-features. Not for everyone, but if you edit 8K or need huge desktop real-estate, this is serious.
Ugly Gets an Upgrade: Digital Anarchy’s Free Halloween Plugins
Digital Anarchy resurrects its Ugly Box and Flicker Freak plugins just in time for Halloween. Free, frightful, and gloriously hideous.
Free Blender add-on “Outset Boundary” lets you expand faces with one click
Free Blender add-on “Outset Boundary” offers an outset tool for expanding faces rather than insetting them, nice for quick margins.
Vectorify: Simplify Animation Repathing in Maya
Tool developer Ehsan Bayat has released Vectorify, a free tool for Autodesk Maya that transforms animation repathing from…
Deadline 10 enters maintenance mode for studios
AWS Thinkbox will put Deadline 10 into maintenance mode on 7 Nov 2025: no new features, just fixes. Studios should plan migration to Deadline Cloud.
Retopoflow 4.0 for Blender
Orange Turbine’s Retopoflow 4.0 brings full Edit Mode integration in Blender and support for curves/NURBS/metaballs, but one tool is still missing in this release.
Open-Source Engine O3DE Hits Version 25.10
O3DE 25.10 trims installers, builds faster, supports C++20, and upgrades robotics Gems — a solid, practical update for technical artists.
Accurate Film Simulation for Blender: Analog Soul, Digital Body
Analog meets Geometry Nodes: Blender now has an add-on that simulates real photographic film stocks. Developer Edin Spiegel’s…
Wildlife by Click: Fauna Master Pro Brings 150+ Creatures into Blender
Fauna Master Pro adds 150+ animals and real-time behaviours inside Blender: a fast route to lifelike scenes, though not without quirks.
Painterly Garden: 200+ Ghibli-Style Foliage Assets for Blender
Painterly Blender artists rejoice: 200+ stylised foliage assets by Craftreaper and BD3D, tuned for EEVEE Next, now on Gumroad.
SideFX launches “How To Houdini” contest for Houdini 21
SideFX’s new “How To Houdini” contest rewards the best Houdini 21 tutorials with FX and Indie licences, merch, and "exposure" in the community.
Chaos Vantage 3 Released: USD, MaterialX, AI Materials & Volumetric Rendering
Chaos Vantage 3 expands its real-time rendering engine with USD and MaterialX support, AI-driven material generation, volumetric rendering, and Gaussian splats. The update brings Vantage closer to open-pipeline workflows for VFX and visualization and adds plenty of new toys for artists who prefer to stay in real time.
Atlux λ 2 brings 3D scanning inside Unreal
Atlux λ 2 makes Unreal Engine a virtual 3D scanner, exporting Gaussian-ready data. Real photogrammetry, synthetic edition.
ZEISS CinCraft Virtual Lens Enters BETA: Real Glass, Virtual Magic
ZEISS opens BETA registration for CinCraft Virtual Lens Technology, a GPU-powered Nuke plugin that replicates real lens behaviour in compositing, simulating optical artefacts like bokeh, distortion, and chromatic aberration.
Unreal 5.7 Preview: PCG Grows Up, Foliage Gets Fancy
Unreal Engine 5.7 Preview is out. PCG hits production-ready, foliage goes Nanite, and MetaHumans get smarter, all free via Epic’s launcher.
Stitch Head!
“Stitch Head”: A charming animated adventure blending gothic charm, playful humor, and a heartfelt journey of self-acceptance, crafted by a team spanning multiple continents and pipelines.
Blender 5.0 Beta!
Blender 5.0 Beta runs until 5 November 2025, bringing ACES 2.0, node and compositor updates, HDR colour support, and stricter compatibility rules.
HFF Munich Hiring: Two Half-Time Heroes Wanted
HFF Munich’s VFX department wants two new tech minds—one for the pipeline, one for IT. Expect creative chaos, cool people, and excellent surroundings!
Trees in Autumn: SpeedTree Controller 3.0 Falls for Houdini 21
SpeedTree Controller 3.0 lets Houdini artists break, regrow and shade trees with Karma: new features, same procedural roots
One Toolbag to Rule Your Clicks
William Faucher’s EasyToolbag trims the fat from Unreal Engine 5 workflows with one-click helpers, shortcuts, and smarter viewport tweaks.
Netflix Merges Scanline and Eyeline
Netflix unifies Scanline VFX and Eyeline Studios as “Eyeline”, merging high-end VFX with virtual production and AI research under one label.
Anastomia: Comparative Anatomy for Creature Artists
Human, horse, wolf, dog: Anastomia visualises their anatomy side by side, with sync, isolation, and pose features. Free in early access.
UE Organizer: Taming the Unreal Vault Jungle
DocHardGames’ UE Organizer finally brings order to your Unreal Engine Vault. Free for browsing and tagging, $5/month for one-click import, AI tagging and sync.
Creepy-Crawlies in 3D: Free “Arthropods” Anatomy App for Creature Designers
Twelve museum arthropods, one free app, and an excellent reason to stop swatting your references. Creepy-crawlies in 3D, just in time for Halloween.
Blender’s Compositor Gets a Photoshop-Style Setup (Free)
Free node setup Easy Photorealism turns Blender’s compositor into a one-stop post-processing station with glare, noise, vignetting, and colour tweaks included.
GPU-FLIP solver Storm HydroFX launches in free open beta
Storm HydroFX, a standalone GPU FLIP fluid solver from Storm VFX, is now freely available in open beta with full import/export and no feature lockouts.
Material Maker 1.4: Godot 4 port, flexible UI, 32-bit baking
Material Maker 1.4 debuts: full Godot 4 migration, rebuilt shader engine, new node types and UI redesign. A serious update, not cosmetic.
Miauu colours your chaos: LayerColorizer for 3ds Max
Miauu’s new LayerColorizer for 3ds Max lets you colour-code layer names and backgrounds in the Scene Explorer, turning layer soup into legible order.
Blackmagic Camera app 3.1.2 adds 1920×1440 Open-Gate
Blackmagic’s iOS app update unlocks 1920×1440 Open-Gate with Apple Log and stabilises LUT, RAW, and orientation handling for real-world shoots.
Free 3D Cathedral Kit Lands on Fab
Epic’s Fab marketplace offers RagTarock’s Abandoned Cathedral pack: 210 modular Unreal Engine 5 assets, Nanite and Lumen ready, free until 21 October 2025.
Chaos Anima 6.2: cars that finally drive themselves (almost)
Chaos Anima 6.2 drives cars with people in them, adds brake lights, tags crowds, and eats less RAM, all wrapped into the Chaos ArchViz Collection.
Rebelle 8: Digital Painting’s Physical Upgrade
Rebelle 8 turns digital painting into a physical experience. The new Bristle Brush engine simulates every hair of a real brush, RealShader adds true lighting and shadow depth to thick paint, and the NanoPixel 2 engine scales artwork up to 32 K resolution. With layer-specific materials, symmetry tools, Escape Motions’ latest release feels less like an update and more like a real studio, minus the turpentine.
Blender 5.0 Could Ship with Node “Presets” for Geometry & Compositor
Word on the street: Blender 5.0 may bring templated “presets” to Geometry Nodes and compositing. Andrew Price just teased it, and PR 145645 looks like the code behind it.
Sharper, Faster, Smokier: FumeFX 7.1 for 3ds Max
FumeFX 7.1 delivers faster warps, Alembic point clouds, and smarter VDB handling in 3ds Max. Less waiting, more burning.
Project Manager 3.41 Adds Translucency, Archives & Online Licences
Project Manager 3.41 lands with archive import, PBR translucency, online licences, colour labels, and multi-category filtering for 3ds Max users.
GPU, meet Graph Editor: free Unreal motion crash course
Unreal Engine motion design for free: 17 videos, 10 scenes, GPU fans, and all. Jesse Pitela’s course covers UE5.7’s new motion toolset.
VIEW 2025: Program, Prices & Turin Tips
VIEW 2025’s packed programme mixes Pixar, ILM and AI sessions in Turin, with ticket prices from €186.55 and yes, eat a tramezzino.
Grid Modeler 1.40: Subtle but Smart Upgrades Boost Precision in Blender
The best Blender updates are often the quiet ones. With version 1.40, Grid Modeler refines everyday precision tasks — the kind that make hard-surface modelling faster, cleaner and a little less frustrating.
Wrap 2025.9 and Wrap4D 2025.9: Faceform updates
Wrap 2025.9 and Wrap4D 2025.9: fewer crashes, faster project loading, UV previews, and the ability to convert normal maps.
Cascadeur Mobile 3D Animation Now on Android
Cascadeur Mobile is now on Android, bringing AI-assisted 3D animation tools to phones and tablets. From AutoPosing to AR previews, the mobile app shrinks desktop workflows into a pocket-sized package. Ideal for animating between train stops or polishing keyframes on the toilet break.
Capitol Scenes Go Digital — KitBash3D Adds Washington, D.C. to Unlimited Library
KitBash3D’s Unlimited just got the Washington, D.C. Kit—complete with Capitol, White House & more, ready for cinematic use.
Your Screen, Now a Window: Former Meta Engineer Revives Head-Coupled 3D
Any laptop or phone screen can feel 3D now—no headset, no glasses. True3D just needs your camera and your head.
Wacom MovinkPad Pro 14: OLED Power for Mobile Creativity
Wacom has announced the MovinkPad Pro 14, the newest member of its portable creative pad lineup. Building on…
Topaz drops perpetual licences, bets on subscriptions with Studio launch
erpetual licences die 3 October. Topaz goes subscription-only with Studio bundle, 100+ AI models, and higher recurring prices.
EDIUS 11.40: Faster Bins, Smarter AI, and Edit-as-you-Capture
EDIUS 11.40 lands with faster bins, AI voiceovers, Mercalli 6, and a capture tool called CapIt. Yes, you can now edit while you capture.
Blender user survey 2025 – time to tell the team what you really think
Blender’s asking you for feedback again: join the 2025 survey and help shape how the software is used across film, game and animation workflows.
Marvelous Designer finally sews itself into Linux
Marvelous Designer stitches into Linux pipelines on 30 September. New: Python API for scripting, batch I/O, and automation.
No hard hats mandatory: 120 Free Construction-Site Props for Unreal & Beyond
Environment artist Marcos Frazao releases 120 free semi-modular construction-site assets via Epic’s Fab marketplace. Nanite-ready, 4 K textured, and available for Unreal Engine: no dust, no steel-toed boots, and definitely no hard hats required.
RiseFX on Heads of State: Explosions, Statues, and Digital Diplomacy
500 shots, one exploding limo, and statues aimed at helicopters: Rise FX brings high-stakes action to Heads of State with a new Riseflow pipeline.
Pickify: Selection Sets Without Outliner Mess
Pickify gives animators hotkey-based selection sets in Maya—without clogging the Outliner. Free, minimal, and exportable.
Axiom 4 for Houdini: Faster GPU Pyro With Better Collisions
Theory Accelerated has dropped Axiom 4, the GPU-driven Houdini solver for smoke and fire that promises fewer artifacts, more speed, and a UI that doesn’t feel like it was designed during a caffeine shortage.
ICE.Art 2025: Virtual Worlds Meet After Hours
ICE.Art 2025 goes online in October. Two evenings of talks on 3D environments. Michael Shelton returns after his FMX Westworld talk.
Polishing Polygons: Animatrix Polisher for Maya
Sculpt, smear, polish: Animatrix Polisher adds direct mesh editing and non-destructive fixes to Maya for just 20 bucks.
Silhouette 2025.5: Roto With Prompts, Faces, and a Built-In SynthEyes
AI masking, Face ML, and SynthEyes 3D tracking arrive in Silhouette 2025.5. Roto artists everywhere suddenly feel less stressed and with a bigger toolbox for their job.
Unreal Cabin Fever: 156 Free Assets for UE Users
156 free meshes for cabins, props and trees in Unreal Engine. Available on Fab until 7 October. Lightmaps included, LODs missing.
Clothy3D: New Tool for Clothing Auto-Fit, Rigging & Mesh Transfers
TL;DR: Clothy3D is a new free software tool for auto-fitting and rigging clothes across 3D characters, transferring skeletons and skin weights, and exporting via FBX. With a marketplace and tutorials included, it could bridge pipelines between Marvelous Designer, Daz3D, iClone, and Unreal Engine—though still in beta.
normalMagic 1.0: Advanced Mesh Normal Control in Blender
SpaghetMeNot releases normalMagic 1.0 for Blender, a toolkit of 16 modifiers that give artists complete control over mesh normals. With features like Surface Insert, Boolean Pro, Smooth Normals, and Normal Transfer, the add-on introduces new modelling workflows, fixes common shading issues, and integrates as a Blender asset library.
Photoshop 26.11: Firefly hops in, CJK text sharpens up
Firefly jumps into Photoshop, CJK text looks less like pixel soup. New update, same question: stable enough for production?
EbSynth V2: Real-Time Preview, Timeline & Layers
Secret Weapons launches EbSynth V2 — now with real-time preview, timeline navigation, brushes, and layer support. A major workflow upgrade from its minimal early versions.