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News: daily production-facing updates across post, VFX, animation, real-time, and tools. Releases, patches, interviews, research notes, and industry moves, written for fast scanning with source links and practical context, without pretending every update is “game-changing”.
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Silhouette 2026 gets smarter roto and 3D heads
Silhouette 2026 upgrades AI mattes, adds Head Track ML and better tracking, boosts paint tools and performance, and finally gets serious about pipelines.
DaVinci Resolve 21 Public Beta 4 is out
Beta 4 tightens still-image FX, fixes Canon highlights, exposes Fusion motion paths in the keyframe editor, and refines Studio AI tools.
Free area light textures for Blender
A free 20 pack of area light textures for Blender aims at softer, less flat lighting, with a sample file and a Patreon free signup gate.
Levels cleans up alpha maps fast
Levels makes alpha masks from photos in your browser: channel mix, levels, crop, perspective warp, then copy or export PNG.
DreamWorks style mesh controls land in Maya
A free Maya plug-in adds surface pinning, mesh controls, and VP2 overlays, plus docs and an example scene. Now go break it safely in a test rig, just like the artists at Dreamworks who inspired it.
ZOZO Contact Solver gets Blender add-on
Official Blender add-on client for Contact Solver is out, open source, remote GPU friendly, and already shipping updates like armature deformable colliders.
Node Ninja builds Redshift materials from folders
Node Ninja is a free Cinema 4D plugin that builds Redshift PBR materials from texture folders, with color spaces, AO, and bulk import baked in.
Click Here If You’re a German video editor and have yelled “Why? Why? Why?” at your NLE
A short survey on video software needs, with gift card prizes and a the results will only be reported in aggregate.Time to air all the grievances!
Adobe Photoshop 27.7 runs Remove on device
Photoshop 27.7 adds optional on-device Remove, tighter Firefly Boards handoff, and a batch of small workflow fixes that add up in daily use.
Foundry launches free Mari Texture Library with 120+ assets
Foundry’s new Mari Texture Library offers more than 120 free assets, including Smart Materials, Smart Masks, textures, brushes and HDRIs for Mari and general DCC workflows.
Autodesk updates 3ds Max to 2027.1
3ds Max 2027.1 is a small update: cleaner Smart Bevel results, new Data Channel converters, and an Arnold refresh with cloud render experiments.
Maya 2027.1 adds OTIO to Sequencer
Maya 2027.1 lands with OTIO in Sequencer, LookdevX projection tools, and more Bifrost and USD housekeeping. Patch it, test it, then trust it.
If you yearn for the pines, go Blender
Stylized Tree update 2.0 adds pine trees, optimizes nodes, and bundles wind plus scatter tools, with pricing tiers from $12.50.
Caddis mixes layers with nodes per layer
Caddis shows a familiar timeline, then drops a node graph inside each layer, exports common formats, and launches in June with one-time pricing.
Boris FX Sapphire 2026.5 adds Advanced Defocus
Sapphire 2026.5 doubles down on lens looks with Advanced Defocus, new Texture Ridges, a rebuilt Glare, Builder updates, and fresh flares.
PFTrack gets Hero Cloud
PFTrack 26.05.19 adds Hero Cloud for single shot point clouds, plus COLMAP export to Postshot and better USD point cloud export. Try it, then trust it.
Clip Studio Paint 5.0 with 3D hands
Clip Studio Paint 5.0 lands with Smart Shape cleanup, a poseable 3D hand model, faster tools, and a clearly spelled out license menu.
C4D Pyro Tutorial: Helicopter Kickup Dust
SilverwingVFX goes airborne: Cinema 4D Pyro can fake rotor wash the smart way: simulate air first, cache velocity, then spawn dust only where wind speed peaks.
Beeble Canvas
Canvas arrives as a node based AI compositor plus automation, with SwitchX and SwitchLight under the hood and an API for pipeline integration.
MoonRay Renderer joins ASWF as hosted project
MoonRay lands at ASWF as a hosted project, keeps DreamWorks engineering support, and gets a July Open Source Days keynote slot in Los Angeles.
Scene Auditor Pro targets Blender bloat
Scene Auditor Pro maps Blender datablock dependencies, flags orphans and duplicates, and pushes a safer cleanup workflow for big scenes.
PolygoFlow Dash asset manager goes free on Fab
Free Dash asset manager lands on Fab: browse local assets across UE5 projects, tag up to 1000 assets a month, and use smart collections.
Wacom Art Pen 2 does a barrel roll
Art Pen 2 revives 360 barrel rotation, adds new nib sets, and targets current Intuos Pro and Cintiq hardware. Price is $99.95.
Tangenten Puppet Pin brings mesh warping to Resolve
Puppet Pin for Resolve Fusion turns a cutout into a deformable mesh, adds pins, deformers, solvers, and locators, and even hooks into trackers.
Simple Tree Tools 3.0 goes procedural
Simple Tree Tools 3.0 targets Houdini 20.5+ with procedural trees, scan extension nodes, and one-time licenses from free to $1,299.
Blender Singularity lands in 4K HDR
Singularity drops as a 4K HDR short, with free downloads of assets and encodes. Also: painterly brushstrokes meet procedural crowds.
ProArt goes 12G-SDI portable
12G-SDI on a 15.6-inch 4K portable panel, plus calibration reports, presets, and a box that turns into a hood. Enjoy the set life
RS Node Tools speeds Redshift nodes
RS Node Tools targets the most repetitive Redshift node chores in Cinema 4D, aiming for faster PBR hookups and fewer manual clicks.
Boris FX Continuum 2026.5 tunes AI and FX Editor
Continuum 2026.5 stacks AI deinterlacing, sharper ML masks, saner FX Editor isolation, refreshed warps and wipes, and tighter Particle Illusion linking.
Unreal Engine 5.8 Preview rolls in
UE 5.8 Preview adds experimental Mesh Terrain, editable PCG results, a juiced-up vegetation tool, MetaHuman crowds, and more. Test first.
EditingTools.io Resolve Collect copies media
Resolve Collect scans Resolve and Premiere projects, finds used sources, and copies them into one place with options like trimming and symbolic links.
Artineering Flair 1.2 for Maya hits macOS
macOS support lands for Maya 2024+, licensing expands to floating and perpetual, and lines get darker with negative light response. Also: Unreal beta.
Foundry expands Nuke Stage for LED walls
Nuke Stage now plays NotchLC, handles Gaussian Splats, logs on-set metadata in a Vault, and pushes USD scene edits into real time LED wall playback.
ZEISS CinCraft LensCore targets Nuke lens looks
LensCore brings lens profiles, ray-traced lens behavior, and physics-driven controls to Nuke, aiming for fast, repeatable lens looks across sequences.
Blender 5.2 LTS targets texture-heavy renders
Blender 5.2 LTS adds a Cycles texture cache that builds .tx tiles and loads only what the render needs. Less VRAM waste, more scene headroom.
Poly Hammer brings MetaHumans to Blender Rigify
Character Control Rig targets MetaHuman animation in Blender with Rigify controls, UE roundtrips, and multi character handling. Test it first.
Autodesk launches Project Falcon
Project Falcon is a free, browser-based kitbashing tool that exports USD and STL, aiming to speed up hard-surface blockouts and handoffs.
PlayCanvas updates SplatTransform to 2.0
SplatTransform 2.0 brings sparse voxel grids, new GPU cleanup filters, URL inputs, and a new coplanar merge path. Less splat chaos, more control.
Autograph, now free for teams
Autograph turns free for teams, commercial included, no output limits. You get USD, ACES, OpenFX, and training, so the trial budget can retire.
CrumplePop 2026.5 adds ARA, and that’s interesting
CrumplePop 2026.5 adds SoundApp ARA for full clip processing in DAWs, plus a processed audio cache, faster model loading, and updated pricing tiers.
FilmSet kit lands in KitBash3D
Finally, a kit that lets you build a film set without filing a rental PO. 139 models, 112 PBRs, and game ready bits for Unreal.
RISE: Fallout Destroys LA, Politely
Los Angeles gets procedurally wrecked, Area 51 gets sand-blasted, and the Caswennan gets treated like a flying film set. We play 20 Questions with RISE.
DriveCompare brings ASC MHL offload checks to macOS
DriveCompare does the boring part of film data right: compare, sync, verify, ASC MHL, Netflix-style checksums. No subscription tantrums required.
OptiDraw paints animated meshes inside Unity
OptiDraw by Run2Go Studio targets in editor mesh texturing in Unity, including skinned meshes, UDIM tiles, layered workflows, and a channel packing utility.
Theory Accelerated shifts Paradigm 1.0 for Houdini
Paradigm 1.0 lands for Houdini: faster GPU liquids, better emission, a Tank node for open water, and a very honest list of what is still missing.
Free Tire Rig Generator for Blender Automates Tire Deformation
Tire Rig Generator is a free Blender plug-in that automatically builds and skins tire rigs for pressure, ground deformation and tire pivoting. Vehicle wheels, finally allowed to suffer accurately.
Project Violet links Houdini and MetaHuman
SideFX drops Project Violet, a Houdini 21 tutorial series that mixes MetaHuman characters with Houdini rigging and simulation workflows.
ArcBrush turns image editing into a node graph
ArcBrush ships free for Windows and macOS with 75 nodes, batch export, sprite sheets, texture helpers, and optional paid AI credits.
VES releases On-Set VFX Data Guide
The VES drops a CC-BY on set data guide and hosts a May 12 webinar, because nobody enjoys rebuilding reality from half a slate photo.
Abstract brings native InstaMAT and InstaLOD on Linux
Abstract has released public preview Linux builds of InstaMAT and InstaLOD, adding native support for RHEL-compatible production environments, Blender and Maya integrations, GPU acceleration, and automation-friendly deployment.
KeenTools GeoTracker enters Houdini open beta
GeoTracker lands in Houdini as a SOP node for OBJ and Solaris, free in open beta. Geometry driven tracking, lens estimates, and quick sim colliders.
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Digital Anarchy ends Transcriptive web
Transcriptive stops generating new transcripts after early May 2026, but the Premiere panel keeps old transcripts editable and can align imports.
VirtuCamera 2: The Weird Byte goes Android
VirtuCamera 2 lands with Android support, refreshed UI, updated DCC plug-ins, and a Python API. Yes, your phone is still the camera now.
FMX gehts a new head for the 30th Birthday
FMX celebrates its 30th edition with a planned handover: Mario Müller steps down after 2026 and Agon Ushaku takes over the mantle for 2027 and onwards.
Inertia brings clicky physics to Blender
Inertia targets physics-style motion in Blender 5.1 with three ready-made systems and a live viewport trajectory preview, plus docs and demo scenes.
World Creator 2026.4 adds expressions and decals
World Creator 2026.4 brings expressions, decals, terrain normal blending, VRAM scaling, and a free Community Edition that lets you learn, not deliver.
Anthropic funds Blender, ships Claude connector
Claude gets a Blender connector, plus patron money for Blender core work. Your pipeline gets a new helper. Your lawyers get new reading.
Sketchbook Pro 9.4 adds Lasso Fill and Draw Outline
Two new selection-driven tools land in Sketchbook Pro 9.4, while mobile gets the same tricks via Premium Bundle. Fast blocking, cleaner edges.
OctaneRender 2026.3 adds virtual texture netrender
OTOY ships OctaneRender 2026.3: virtual textures finally work on the farm, NRC uses less memory, and USD plus MaterialX get more pipeline glue.
Adobe updates Photoshop and Lightroom
Rotate Object leaves beta, Layer Cleanup tidies layers, and Lightroom gets faster sliders and smarter search.
Autodesk Flow Studio adds AI Rigging and Neural Layer for character workflows
The Flow Studio update introduces automated rigging, video-driven animation, neural rendering enhancements, and export to Maya, Blender, and Unreal.
Blackmagic Design updates Resolve 21 beta 2
Resolve 21 beta 2 goes less flashy and more useful: Studio gets more AI toys, Photo capture grows up, and background tasks get serious.
Reallusion ships Headshot 3 for CC5
Headshot 3 arrives for Character Creator 5 with single photo heads, mesh wrapping, texture tools, and an early bird bundle through May 31.
Mavis Studio turns iPad into a live switcher
A full live switcher lands on iPad, with multicam, web graphics, NDI, RTMP and SRT, plus recording. Your backpack just got louder.
Canva ships Affinity 3.2
Affinity 3.2 tweaks pixels, vectors, and RAW, then walks your .af files straight into Resolve with live updates. Title cards just got less annoying.
Chaos restores AMD GPUs in V-Ray
AMD cards can render in V-Ray GPU again. HIP is back, RDNA2 and newer get support, and heavy texture scenes may finally stop paging your soul.
Drivers 2.0 cleans up Blender rigs
Drivers 2.0 puts shape key drivers, rig UI panels, and action constraints in one Blender sidebar. Less hunting, more animating.
FMX 2026 bets on sound and spatial craft
FMX 2026 turns the volume up: Nina Hartstone, David Fluhr, and an AI keyframe-to-sound workflow. Your temp mix just got nervous.
ZoneLAB for Resolve: Ansel Adams and even more zones…
ZoneLAB adds a Zone System grid to Resolve, then lets you grade by zone, export overlays, and match cameras and log spaces.
Material Maker 1.6 tunes graphs and exports
For those who don’t know the tool: Material Maker builds procedural textures and painted looks with node graphs,…
Maxon ships Redshift 2026.5
Redshift 2026.5 spreads the night sky, grows texture displacement, flips Cinema 4D defaults to OpenPBR, and gets friendlier with Arm64.
ICE.ART 2026.I recordings are now live
Missed ICE.ART 2026.I? The full set of talks and panels is now online for free, ready to binge between renders.
Volume Forge for Blender
Volume Forge drops local beams and fog into Blender without bathing the whole scene in volume. Two modes, two creation methods, lots of knobs.
Beeble adds CorridorKey green screen model
CorridorKey lands in Beeble Background Remover. Pick MatAnyone or CorridorKey before upload, then export RGBA or alpha for comps.
Fusion Studio 21 beta is here
Fusion Studio 21 goes harder on motion graphics, fonts, USD and deep comps, plus Windows ARM64. Also ships RAW Player and Proxy Generator.
HiPhyEngine wants clean sims in Blender
HiPhyEngine lands in Blender with unified rigid, cloth, hair, and soft body sims, plus snow and sand. Windows and Linux only.
Plasticity 2026.1 adds hidden lines and PolySplines
Plasticity 2026.1 turns models into clean SVG linework and brings PolySplines for smooth NURBS from meshes. Studio users get the fancy stuff.
Natsura 0.6 adds effectors and Nanite export for Houdini Foliage
New growth controls, a new assembly workflow, and a long changelog full of speedups, warnings, and some very honest rough edges.
ShaderError Light Painter paints light in Blender
Light Painter turns lighting into brush strokes on a light texture, with layers and masks. Cycles only, so keep Eevee in its lane.
Autodesk Flame 2027: metadata and depth maps
Flame 2027 keeps frame metadata intact, adds frame annotations, and brings Depth maps plus OCIO 2.5.1. More pipeline glue, fewer hacks.
Apple Watch control for the Blackmagic Camera?
Blackmagic Camera now takes direction from your wrist. Great for shaky rigs, high mounts, and anyone tired of people poking the rig with their dirty fingers.
KeenTools 2026.1: Nuke 17 and Blender 5.1
New host support, calmer refinements, fewer UV surprises. 2026.1 targets the unglamorous stuff that breaks shots at 2 am.
Meshes in Unreal: Arvomis Oy ships SmartConform Pro
One click to stick panels, rocks, and greebles to ugly geometry. SmartConform Pro stays inside UE and bakes results fast.
Adobe After Effects 26.2 adds Object Matte and more
For those who don’t know the tool: Adobe makes After Effects, a compositing and motion graphics workhorse that…
Phoenix moves to end of support
Chaos Phoenix is now end of support. No new standalone subs, existing subs can renew, and bundles still include it in the same state.
Samplitude 2026: the DAW that learned new video tricks?
Samplitude 2026 targets faster sessions, smoother video playback, and remote control. Suite users get new routing and tighter SFX handling.
Chaos V-Ray 7 Update 3 goes real time
Viewport real time meets offline finals in one workflow. Update 3 adds AI lighting help, new materials tools, and tighter review loops.
GoPro MISSION 1 targets compact cinema capture
GoPro MISSION 1 goes after real productions: 8K, Open Gate, timecode sync, and a lens swap option later in 2026.
Epic Games ships Twinmotion 2026.1
Twinmotion 2026.1 goes harder on camera realism and faster lookdev, then quietly fixes the boring stuff you actually feel daily.
Maxon Autograph 2026 is here
Maxon Autograph went free for individuals, learned USD, and picked up OpenFX. Nice.
Maxon ships Cinema 4D 2026.2 update
Cinema 4D 2026.2 brings a clothy viewport brush, a darker sky, and a truckload of bug fixes. Your crash logs may feel lonely.
Adobe brings Color mode to Premiere beta
Premiere beta gets Color mode: new grading controls, Operations, Clip Grid, and color management that tries to keep editors in flow.
Cargo 3.0 merges two asset libraries
Cargo 3.0 folds two libraries into one app, adds smarter search, and hands you hundreds of free assets so you can start dressing scenes today.
Spark Story at NAB
Spark Story promises rapid previs from browser to iOS, with scripts, OpenUSD assets, and Gaussian Splats. NAB gets the first hands-on.
Marvelous Designer 2026.0 adds 3D Pencil and lacing
Draw patterns on an avatar, auto-route laces, flip to toon materials, and tighten export controls. Marvelous Designer 2026.0 aims at faster iteration.
Thomas Riedel buys ARRI
ARRI changes hands, keeps Munich HQ, and lines up a Eurovision camera debut. Big signal chain meets big glass.
Atomos buys Flanders Scientific
Flanders Scientific changes hands, and reference monitoring just got closer to set life and investor math.
Digital Anarchy releases ShotNotes panel for Premiere.
ShotNotes adds a notes and task panel to Premiere Pro, with clickable timecode, marker sync, search, and time tracking reports.
Blackmagic Design turns DaVinci Resolve 21 into a photo app
DaVinci Resolve 21 adds a Photo page, deeper AI helpers, more Fusion graphics, and tidier audio timelines. Big toolbox energy.
Chaos launches free V-Ray for Blender Community Edition
Chaos has released a free Community Edition of V-Ray for Blender
, giving solo users access to the renderer for learning, portfolio work, teaching and smaller freelance tasks. The catch is not especially well hidden: the free tier comes with clear limits on output, support and production features, while the paid version keeps the heavier pipeline machinery.