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Our News Category: Scroll by and see what happens in VFX, CGI, Post and more!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cavalry 2.5 Adds Referencing, Tracking, Luminance Blur, and More
Cavalry 2.5 brings scene referencing, planar tracking, new filters (like luminance blur), layout wrapping and API upgrades, useful for animation teams.
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.
SketchUp 2026.0
SketchUp 2026.0 adds in-app collaboration, AO colour control, faster performance, improved DWG/IFC workflows, new LayOut drafting tools, and scan-to-mesh features for Studio users.
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.
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.
Need an AI Video Enhancer in Your Workflow? Aiarty Video Enhancer!
Blocky VHS? Grainy DSLR shots? Aiarty Video Enhancer upscales, denoises, and restores video locally—no cloud upload required. (Sponsored Post)
After Effects Gets Hands-On: Victoria Nece Shows Off Quick Offset & Co.
At IBC 2025, I talked with Adobe’s Victoria Nece about Quick Offset, Smooth Zoom, and 3D compositing in After Effects. It’s tactile, fast and oddly fun.
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.
Apple Offers Free Vision Pro “Immersive Video” Workshops
Yes, Apple is inviting filmmakers to free immersive video workshops, just RSVP before they run out of “consultation slots.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
RenderMan 27: XPU graduates, RIS retires
Pixar ships RenderMan 27: XPU is ready for final frames, RIS is being phased out, MaterialX joins the toolset, and Stylized Looks evolve.
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.
World Creator 2025.1 paints biomes and scatters rocks
Biomes, scattering, emissive lava and even GTAV maps: World Creator 2025.1 brings a full ecosystem update to GPU terrain generation.
Pixar beamed up: RenderMan Art Challenge 2025 goes alien
Pixar’s RenderMan Art Challenge 2025 goes extraterrestrial. Theme: Aliens. Deadline: 10 November. Tools: RenderMan only. Prizes: galactic.
KitBash3D Cargo 2.0 lands with Houdini Solaris importer and 350 free assets
KitBash3D Cargo 2.0 ships with Houdini Solaris USD importer and 350 free assets. Free for personal use, commercial rights require paid plans.
Skin Deep & Code Clean: Free Human Shaders for Godot (Yes, Godot, Not Unreal)
Human character shaders for Godot, free (skin, eyes, wetness) from MatMADNESS. Finally something substantial in Godot; demo & pack available.
Unreal Engine 5.7: Experimental Tech, Measured Expectations
Epic Games’ official Unreal Engine 5.7 roadmap lists features under development, flagged either as experimental, planned, or in…
Animatics, AI Lighting, and a Free Tier: Previs Pro 3 Expands Storyboarding on iPad
Previs Pro 3: now with animatics, AI lighting, and a free edition for iPad filmmakers.
Berlin Animates: FAB 2025 Full Daily Programme
FAB 2025, 26 to 28 Sept: Berlin screens 132 films, plus hands-on workshops and Japan focus. Here’s the complete schedule.
Kyno Update: Still Alive, Still Useful
Kyno 1.9 isn’t new magic, but it proves the beloved media tool still lives. Apple Silicon, new RAW SDKs, proxy presets—IBC chat to follow.
Interior assets without flat-pack stress
Ikea trip cancelled: Polygoniq’s Interniq 2.0 drops 800+ Blender interior assets, ready to install via Asset Browser—no hex keys, no queues.
Ton Roosendaal Steps Aside: Blender’s Founder Hands the Keys to the Next Generation
Ton Roosendaal leaves Blender’s helm. Blender 5, story tools, and tablet support are next. New board takes over, Ton moves to supervisory role.
Autodesk adds AI Assistants to Maya (and beyond)
Maya gets AI Assistants and Graph Assist. Autodesk outlines a larger AI push for artists.
Maxon drops Red Giant 2026.0
Red Giant 2026.0: fixes, Capsules, Resolve controls. Universe 2026.0: UI polish. A maintenance release wearing a party hat.
Cascadeur Builds Proper Unreal Live Link Plugin
Cascadeur drops the export step: Unreal Live Link plugin incoming, backed by Epic MegaGrant. Release date? Not yet.
Ready-Made Hype: Epic Ships Free Sports Broadcast Motion Design Sample
Epic drops a free Unreal Engine sports motion design sample: 40+ rigged, broadcast-ready assets for sports graphics.
Eight Hands, One Brush: Mari 7.5 Beta Paints on All Fronts
Multi-Paint lands in Mari 7.5 beta. Eight channels, one stroke. Texture transfer, image grouping, and faster backups follow. Test before trusting.
RizomUV 2025: Faster Packing, But Only If You’re on Windows with CUDA
RizomUV 2025 packs faster with NVIDIA GPUs, adds a scene outliner and UDIM upgrades. Linux and macOS users: GPU speed gains not included.
Nevercenter Adds USD & UDIM in Silo 2025.2
Silo 2025.2 adds USD support, UDIM UVs, unit conversion, synced viewports, and more helpful features for serious 3D work.
Python for Artists Cohort starts soon
Repetitive tasks kill time. Python kills repetitive tasks. DP author Alexander Richter teaches scripting for Maya, Houdini, Nuke, and more.
50 Digital Scars: Halloween Comes to Blender
250 wounds, scars and skin damage brushes for Blender. Perfect for sculpting your next zombie, vampire, or stitched-mouth monster.
Procedural Forest Generator for Blender
A new Geometry Nodes tool for Blender generates procedural forests across biomes, balancing photorealism with performance and fast iteration.
iPhones Go “Pro” with Final Cut Camera 2.0
iPhones just levelled-up: Final Cut Camera 2.0 adds ProRes RAW, genlock, open-gate, Apple Log 2, timecode and multicam workflow tools – free update arriving later in September.
Howler 2026 lands: AI inpainting, Confetti particles and four-track audio for under $33
Howler 2026 reinvents the quirky painting app with AI image tools, particle effects and multitrack audio—and it’s still just $32.99.
Faster, wider, cleaner: KIRI Engine 4.0 drops mobile scan limits
KIRI Engine 4.0 slashes scan time, boosts photo limits, adds AR guidance and AI PBR and plus free users enjoy unlimited exports. Production-ready, at last.
Sony Updates: Monitor & Control and Creators’ App Add 20-Camera Multi-View, Cloud Workflow
Sony’s Monitor & Control app finally speaks Mac—with 20-camera multi-view on Premium—and the Creators’ App now pushes direct uploads to Ci with clipped previews.
Maxon Autumn Release: New Colour Science, Liquids, Clouds and a Logo
Cinema 4D 2026 brings OCIO colour management, GPU simulations, UDIMs, Redshift 2026 plus Maxon’s brand-new ecosystem and logo.
Blackmagic Camera 3.0: Remote Clip Syncing and Multi-Cam Control Arrive on Smartphones
Blackmagic Camera 3.0 syncs clips between phones, adds live streaming, LUT upgrades and more, making moile multi-cam shoots less painful.
InstaMAT Gets Smarter: September 2025 Update Sharpens Shading, Painting, and Performance
New shading, erosion, and painting tools: InstaMAT’s September 2025 update is less marketing, more material.
Docking Phone to Pro: Blackmagic Adds Pro Controls to Mobile with Camera App and ProDock
Blackmagic’s ProDock equips iPhone 17 Pro with HDMI, genlock, SSD ports, audio and power—making it a true production camera, not just a smartphone.
Mistika 11 Adds “The Gallery” for Colourists Who Hoard Looks
Mistika 11 adds The Gallery: unlimited presets, FX stacks, metadata control, and Apple Silicon optimisation. For colourists who like tidy chaos.
DaVinci Resolve 20.2: Ripple Discipline, ProRes RAW, and AI Fog on Demand
Resolve 20.2 ships with ProRes RAW decoding on all OS, AI-driven haze, cleaner ripple edits, immersive EXR support, and metadata flexibility.
VEGAS Pro 23 Boosts Engine, Streamlines Colour-Grading, Modernises Interface
TL;DR: VEGAS Pro 23 adds ARM-native support, GPU Core Engine, refreshed UI and flexible licensing. Now with both perpetual and subscription pricing.
Premiere Pro gains 90+ Film Impact effects – plug-in now built-in
Premiere Pro 25.5 folds Film Impact into the app. 90+ GPU-accelerated effects now ship natively, real-time playback, no plug-in, no red render bars.
KitBash3D and Greyscalegorilla merge
KitBash3D and Greyscalegorilla merge: R&D speeds up, asset libraries grow, tools expand. Users should see no price or support changes.
TD-Meetup: Join us live, we talk about how VR Speeds Up Animation & Previz!
VR meets previs: Dan Franke shows how Quill VR fuels storytelling and rapid 3D iteration at the TD Meetup this thursday!
Datacolor’s SpyderExpress: Colour Calibration on a Budget, Now with Growth Path Options
Cheapest Spyder yet does pro-level colour calibration in 90 sec—and grows with your ambitions. Budget-friendly colour accuracy, now modular.
Pencil Pro sharpens Blender with hand-drawn precision
Pencil Pro v1.1 turns Blender meshes into living pencil sketches: faster, procedural, screen-space, edge-aware. Works on any mesh, no UVs.
mGear 5.1 sharpens RBF Manager and patches Shifter
mGear 5.1 kills off Maya 2020 support. In return: RBF Manager v2.0, Shifter bug fixes, and a forked weightDriver. Test before deploying.
RV 2025: Onion Skin, Live Review, ARM Macs
RV 2025 arrives with Live Review (Beta), ARM64 macOS support, and onion skin annotations.
Blackmagic Rents out Resolve: Subscriptions in the Cloud
Resolve goes rental: Blackmagic now lets individuals rent DaVinci Resolve Studio via Cloud. Not a shift, but an optional offer.
iPhone for Tracking: Beeble Camera enables Free “Virtual Production”
Free iOS app turns an iPhone into a tracked camera for AI-powered VFX passes. Beeble Camera links directly to Beeble Web, Editor, and Blender.
DomeMaker 1.0 streamlines HDRI dome lighting for 3ds Max (V-Ray)
DomeMaker 1.0 converts Jonas Noell’s custom HDRI dome workflow into a one-click tool for 3ds Max (V-Ray). Expect instant viewport feedback, automated floor matching, water/wetness effects, and matched CPU/GPU rendering—priced at a studio-friendly $30.
Premiere Pro on iPhone: Adobe goes pocket-sized
Adobe shrinks Premiere into your pocket: free iPhone app with pro editing, Firefly AI, and one-tap TikTok exports.
Free Material Assets Browser for 3ds Max enters public beta
Free Material Assets Browser for 3ds Max 2025: supports MaterialX, MatCap generation, multiple renderers. Public beta available on GitHub.
EVE Turns Houdini’s VEX Pane Into a Rainbow-Bracked Autocomplete Powerhouse
EVE revamps Houdini’s VEX panel: autocomplete, error‑tips and rainbow brackets, because coding shouldn’t hurt (in theory).
Dolby Vision 2 Rewrites HDR
TL;DR: Dolby Vision 2 upgrades HDR with AI-driven tone-mapping, ambient adjustments, and creative motion control, first to be seen in Hisense TVs, coming in 2026-2027.
Pivot with Precision: Pixie Pivot Adds Maya‑Style Controls to Blender
TL;DR: Pixie Pivot lets Blender users yank control of pivots and gizmos like Maya: snap, align, rotate and origin‑shift with precision.
Ornatrix V9 for 3ds Max: Paint, Plait, Perform
Ornatrix V9 brings hair painting, braiding, SIMD viewport speed, Alembic export and modifier tweaks, grooming artists get the full treatment.
SDI inside: EIZO’s CG2400SV aims at serious video work
SDI, HDR, 10-bit colour, and a carry handle: EIZO’s new 24" ColorEdge CG2400SV is aimed at post houses, studios, and on-set use.
3D Gaussian Splats Officially Added to glTF Standard
Khronos Group, in collaboration with OGC, Niantic Spatial, Cesium (Bentley), and Esri, has formally added 3D Gaussian Splats…
Blender 5.0 Ships Built-In ACES 2.0 View Transform
Blender 5.0 gains a built‑in ACES 2.0 view transform, new HDR and wide‑gamut export, and better OpenColorIO compatibility, making HDR pipelines more native.
MetaHuman Meets Houdini
TL;DR: Epic’s free “MetaHuman for Houdini” brings rigged, textured MetaHumans and procedural hair grooms into Houdini, with seamless Alembic export to Unreal Engine.
RE:Vision Effects ups the ante with REZup V2 (and yes, it’s 4× sharper)
REZup V2 arrives with two new GPU-friendly ML models: general-purpose DNN 3 and face-focused DNN 2 and adds temporal denoising for cleaner 4× upscaling.
iClone 8.6 Update Adds New Eye Shaders, and UE5 Export Presets
Reallusion’s iClone 8.6 brings CC5 support, new digital human eye shaders, UE5 export presets, and workflow improvements for facial animation and rendering.
Netorium and dveas move in together
netorium AG and dve advanced systems merge to combine broadcast IT, VFX, and postproduction workflows for European clients.
ProArt PA32UCDM: The OLED Display That Thinks It’s a Reference Monitor And Dresses Like an Accountant
First impression: The ASUS ProArt PA32UCDM is the Clark Kent of displays. On your desk, it could pass for a premium, but otherwise unassuming office monitor—sleek, thin, and lightweight, with none of that over-designed “gamer” bling. But underneath?
URSA Cine Price Cut
Sharp discounts on URSA Cine kits (up to 36% off) come with expected regional price gaps. Timing suggests an IBC reveal is near.