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Top News: the most relevant updates for post, VFX, and real-time production. Releases, acquisitions, funding, major industry moves, and deadline-relevant changes, curated for impact and practical relevance rather than volume. Fast to scan, links to sources, minimal fluff.
InstaLOD Extends Geometry Toolchain to C4D and Omniverse
InstaLOD's July update adds two host integrations, adaptive quad topology, folder conversion, scene merging and import-axis control.
D5 3.1 Turns Design Reviews Interactive
D5 Render 3.1 adds interactive presentations, ACEScg, seasonal vegetation and embedded D5 Lite workflows for Rhino and Revit.
“Comp” enters public alpha
Comp enters alpha on Windows and Apple silicon, with an optional AI worker and a firm warning against production use.
3DF Zephyr 9 Adds Gaussian Splatting
3DF Zephyr 9 integrates Gaussian Splatting and adds map tiles, faster photoconsistency, improved navigation and new export options.
CityEngine 2026 expands Python and streets
CityEngine 2026 brings its Python 3 API out of beta, improves CGA authoring and adds more precise street editing tools.
Thinkbox MX reaches 3ds Max 2027
Krakatoa, Frost and XMesh community builds now cover 3ds Max 2018 to 2027. Stoke remains capped at 2026 for now.
Nukepedia Rebuilt, nuBridge Reloaded
An interview with Nukepedia founder Frank Rueter, one of the long-standing Nuke community voices, about the platform rebuild, nuBridge and the next steps for 2D Compositing tools.
Matcha maps photo refs in Maya
Matcha for Maya manages reference cameras, projects photos onto models, paints masks and exports organized PSD stacks.
Krokodove: a massive expansion of Fusion and Resolve’s creative arsenal
Nodes on hyperdrive. A huge new toolset for motion design and visual effects in DaVinci Resolve and Fusion Studio.
ICE.ART 2026.II Gets September Slot
ICE.ART 2026.II is scheduled for 8-10 September online, with 3D environment topics across games, VFX, GIS and AEC/BIM.
FilmLight fl-enhance: Baselight Tools Escape Into Python
FilmLight’s fl-enhance repository brings Baselight and Daylight scripts, shaders and FLAPI tools to GitHub, including LUT wrapping, ACES EXR transcoding and colour utilities.
Overgrown targets an open feature pipeline for Blender
Blender Studio is pushing Overgrown as a feature project with production logs, tools and docs, funded first through subscriber growth.
Fairlight Live 1.0 Goes Final
Blackmagic’s live audio mixer reaches 1.0 with ATEM USB, Core Audio, ASIO, SMPTE 2110, ASAF and free software pricing.
Roji Goes Deep on USD Rendering
Roji beta registration is open for a nodal USD workflow with MaterialX lookdev, Hydra review, path tracing and AI render support.
FloorGen 2 hits the C4D boards
C4Dzone’s FloorGen 2 creates procedural floors, wall coverings, tile layouts and baseboards inside Cinema 4D for €27.
ARRI ALEXA 35 Live Xtreme adds 8x SDI HFR
ARRI's ALEXA 35 Live Xtreme outputs HFR over SDI for live production, keeping slow motion inside the same camera pipeline.
PR2XML Turns .prproj Into a Service
PR2XML converts Premiere project metadata online, previews timelines in the browser and sells export downloads via a €75 lifetime license.
Beeble adds SDR to HDR on the web
Beeble’s SDR to HDR tool converts short 8-bit clips into 16-bit ACES EXR sequences with masks, prompts and credit-based cloud processing.
Seamlessifier Rips Photo Textures
Seamlessifier turns photo snippets into seamless PNG textures, atlases included, with useful knobs and some honest rough edges.
Real Clay and Digital Ice Cream at Uber Eck
Clay sculptures, photos, Houdini MPM and Redshift made Kayak’s Greek ice cream statues melt on cue. Real dairy was less cooperative.
Boris FX Buys iZotope
RX and Ozone get a new roof at Boris FX, while licenses and support stay active. Post now has more audio in the tool shed.
Ancient Relics, Modern Splats
Ten free splats bring statues, ruins and dinosaur skulls into Octane and After Effects, complete with captured texture and scene lighting. Or, whatever you use Splats for.
Houdini Rigging: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Loving APEX
For anyone tired of character setups held together by hope, version notes and one dangerous checkbox, Houdini 21 promises a paradigm shift. By decoupling mesh, rig logic, animation and execution through KineFX and APEX, SideFX is taking another run at the holy grail of procedural rigging. But can it deliver a fast and intuitive workflow?
Adobe Sampler 6.0 Adds OpenPBR
Substance 3D Sampler 6.0 adds OpenPBR defaults, preset material templates, USD material export and updated HP Z Captis capture tools.
Docking an iPhone or M5 Mac
The hardware On the physical side, the Prodock is a sturdy box made of metal, which should be…
RealityScan 2.2 Widens GPU Support
RealityScan 2.2 widens accelerated reconstruction, adds mixed GPU use, 360 camera workflow notes and scan-life fixes.
Optics 2026.5 gets more photo hosts
Optics 2026.5 plugs into three more photo hosts and adds analog burns, face masks, particles and a Victorian pet preset pack.
Reallusion Unlocks Limitless Creation: iClone Personal Debuts Alongside AI Studio Official Launch
iClone Personal replaces the trial with free access, AI Studio goes public, and 500 AI Points sweeten the 3D-to-AI rabbit hole.
DaCaPo Opens DCP Authoring Beta
DaCaPo bundles DCP authoring, OV/VF versioning, subtitles, KDMs and verification into a desktop tool for cinema delivery. Give the Beta a Spin!
Asus ProArt 16 USV: A Laptop-Sized Production Monitor
The ASUS ProArt PA16USV LED-Monitor, a 15.6-inch 4K HDR portable display that incorporates a 12G-SDI marks a significant pivot for ASUS into hardware that explicitly targets on-set workflows and DIT (digital imaging technician) monitoring tasks rather than solely desktop creative use. But is it any good?
Here comes Houdini 22
2 hours and 18 minutes. That is almost exactly the runtime of the first Matrix film, and exactly the duration of the Houdini 22 release keynote. So yes, this promises a rather chunky package of new features and improvements.
Godot 4.7 turns up HDR
Godot 4.7 goes practical: HDR output, rectangular lights, mobile builds, XR work and editor polish. Less fireworks, more knobs.
Arri LUKA lights Unreal previs
ARRI LUKA puts virtual fixtures, camera logic and Lumen rendering inside Unreal Engine. Previs gets less guessy.
Beeble Canvas gets a Topaz split
Canvas now compares Topaz upscales in-node, adds 30 plus generation models, Markdown notes, magnetic snap, and describer updates.
The Right Colours Without a Computer
SpyderPro exports a 33-point correction LUT, but you want one compact converter to apply it between SDI gear and an HDMI display.
Unreal Engine 5.8 Tidies Up
Unreal Engine 5.8 brings production-ready rendering, virtual production and simulation tools, alongside experimental systems for digital crowds, terrain and character animation.
SMPTE Opens Its Standards Library
SMPTE has opened its complete standards catalogue, giving engineers and developers free access to current and future documents.
EDIUS 11.50 Patches Exports Faster
EDIUS 11.50 repairs parts of finished exports, transcribes locally and adds practical timeline tweaks. The new crossgrade even lowers the entry price.
RadialZ Gives ZBrush a Brush Wheel
RadialZ turns the ZBrush brush library into cursor-side wheels, reducing palette trips and keyboard gymnastics.
Blender Roadmap Puts Plans in One Place
Blender gets a central Roadmap for active projects and recent features, giving artists and studios a clearer view beyond release-note excavation.
MPC Joins The Mill
MPC and The Mill become one global studio, combining commercial production and film VFX under The Mill name.
Using C4D’s Axis Tool in a Product Viz workflow
SilverwingVFX shows how he handles object axis in his Cinema 4D studio workflowthat ensures a fast and fluent process even with challenging and unoptimized computer aided design imports.
Sneeze Brings a Browser Engine to Spatial 3D
Sneeze applies the browser-engine model to spatial services, combining multi-origin 3D scenes, WASM isolation and proximity discovery.
Filmtext-o-Mat Tames Timecodes
Filmtext-o-Mat 2.7 turns sequence lengths into automatic timecodes, keeps video beside the manuscript and exports practical handover files.
NeXus Beta Lands in Blender
NeXus arrives in Blender with GPU particles, fluids, smoke, fire and live viewport feedback. The beta is paid, perpetual and already patched.
Mocha Pro 2026.5 Tracks Through Trouble
Point Track ML tackles occlusions, shadows and drifting surfaces, while smarter matte tools and exports reduce routine cleanup.
Cinema 4D 2026.3 Rebuilds UV Editing
Version 2026.3 rebuilds UV editing and adds practical tools for particles, rivets, edge cloning and UV-driven animation.
BadFX Packs Assets Into Adobe Panels
BadFX puts stock media and adjustable animation presets inside Adobe timelines. The plugin is free, though an account is compulsory.
Houdini 22 Teaser Fuels Guesswork
Houdini 22 looks ambitious, but the teaser is maddeningly brief. Treat every feature reading as informed fan speculation, not documentation.
Splat happens: Volinga 3DGS workflow for Unreal
Volinga turns photo sets into Gaussian splats for Unreal, with local processing, PLY and NVOL export, cleanup tools, and relighting support. But what does that actually mean? Let's ask some questions!
Mush3D 3.0 Adds Soft Tissue Tools
Mush3D 3.0 adds pose-trained corrections and tetrahedral soft tissue simulation for artists polishing cached character animation.
NukeRef Adds References to Nuke
NukeRef lets compositors paste image references into Nuke’s Node Graph as interactive backdrops. Tiny script, big sanity gain.
3DCoat 2026 gets GPU nodes
3DCoat 2026 beta adds GPU node texturing, procedural smart materials and masks. Shiny, useful and still beta-shaped.
These are the Bugs You Were Looking For (in Blender)
Flying Bugs Generator brings 10 insect types, three motion modes, and Asset Browser-ready drop-ins for fast and vast bug swarms in Blender.
Stair Builder brings parametric stairs to C4D
A €25 Cinema 4D generator for stairs and railings, with presets, UV handling, and all of it parametric.
conform.tools’ Connected conform gets a desktop beta
A Resolve-connected desktop app enters public beta, while pricing spells out per-shot timeline exchange, per-GB transfer, and seat-based tiers.
NVIDIA brings DLSS denoising to Blender 5.3
DLSS Ray Reconstruction lands in Blender 5.3 Cycles this fall, adding a new denoiser option built on the existing OptiX path. Expect faster lookdev, then test hard.
C4D Octane: 1.9.x Update Features Video
SilverwingVFX digs into the new juicy features delivered via the most recent Octane update for Cinema 4D. Learn what's improved so you can get the best out of Octane.
Massive Crowd Sim gets a free 101-edition
Massive 101 goes free for non-commercial use, with watermarked renders and a forum-based license login. Great for learning, risky for deadlines.
VOXIFY turns Blender Meshes to Voxels and animates
VOXIFY voxelizes any Blender mesh via Geometry Nodes, tries to keep your textures intact, and ships with animation and static mesh options.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,…
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.