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Newsletter Archive

Here you can find the recent newsletters:

Three puffins standing on green grass near a rocky coastline, with two puffins in natural coloring and one puffin represented in a red wireframe model. A settings menu on the left outlines customization options.

Today’s coffee comes with fewer clicks and more consequences, but the doom was a decoy. Time in Pixels ships Nobe LutBake for one-button high-res LUT exports from Resolve Studio, SynthEyes 2026 cuts solve iteration with a Mocha-powered affine tracker, real-time GeoH previews and more USD, and Blackmagic runs free live Resolve training from February to April. Elsewhere, EIZO teases its first OLED ColorEdge with refined ABL control, InstaLOD 2026 adds VR delivery targets plus glTF and USD animation support, and Arnold brings lines, points, NPR shaders and claims up to 5x faster OpenVDB volumes.

Subscriber section: Cascadeur argues physics and local AI still serve poses and timing, Hawaiki Keyer 5 tries to make ugly greenscreen less tragic in Resolve, and Mnemonica Archive treats preservation like a living system, not a forgotten directory.

A gray Maine Coon cat with striking green eyes sits on a gray couch beside a red and gold patterned blanket draped over the armrest, showcasing its fluffy fur and alert expression.

Monday Morning Coffee, where exports get faster and FBX dialogs get the cold stare. This issue packs a free Blender add-on for one-click exports to Unreal, Unity and Godot, MetaTailor 2.5 adding official engine bridges for real-time clothing pipelines, a Maya BlendShape Monitor that visualises influence in real time, Adobe keeping Animate on life support (fixes yes, new features no), Khronos proposing a glTF Gaussian splats extension, and Sequoia 2026 adding GPU-accelerated video, OSC control, Soundly integration and stability updates.

Subscriber section: an InstaMAT reality check, a one-person Unreal short (New Specimen) from mocap to cloth sims, HFF Munich’s Infinity Hotel built with LiDAR and Dolby Atmos, and Door G’s virtual production setup proving “no Disney budget” is still a workable sentence.

A small, cartoonish robot with large ears stands in front of a glowing portal on a rocky terrain. The portal emits vibrant colors and light, contrasted against a smoky background with hints of destruction.

Welcome to 2026: some loafing, some backend work, and then straight back into making your storage, GPU, and CPU sweat. This issue lines up Compositing Academy’s Volumetric Noise for Nuke, a free 11-part Sapphire Builder Essentials course from Boris FX, PFTrack 2025 ,, and Apple bundling older creative tools into its Creator Studio plan.

Subscriber section: Assimilate Live FX as a virtual production media server driving LED walls, lights, compositing and colour, Digital Domain breaking down the Skeleton Man work for HBO’s return to the Stephen King universe, and Maxim Gehricke’s five-year solo 3D short film SEN.

A digital scene featuring a bright green outlines of a vehicle driving on a dirt road with dust clouds. The interface of an editing software is visible on the left side, displaying tools and settings. A label at the bottom reads 'Export 3D scene to ABC.'

End-of-year mode, but with plausible deniability: this issue is basically “strategic loafing” as a professional discipline. You get a free SynthEyes Essentials matchmove training course (holiday timed), SMPTE’s updated AI report (read it before you automate yourself out of a job), Live FX 9.9 stage upgrades for virtual production, Chaos Vantage showing up inside Maya and Houdini, Epic opening its UE 5.6 rigging workshop, and a new VES Handbook edition.

Subscriber section: a long-term Keychron K5 Max reality check, Project Sorter 1.75 for Premiere and After Effects bin hygiene, and a RiseFX breakdown of The Lost Bus that should make your commute feel emotionally safer.

A computer screen displaying a digital user interface for design software. The layout includes thumbnails of architectural models and textures, with a 3D preview on the side. The background is a gradient of blue tones.

The anti-Black-Friday newsletter: no sales tsunami, just tools and the kind of updates that actually survive Monday morning. Highlights include Das Element 2.2 stepping up asset management with 3D handling, permissions, and Python action hooks; Corona 14 adding Gaussian Splats, AI material helpers, Night Sky, and a fabric material; Foundry opening the Nuke 17 beta with a modernised 3D system and new Variables; Datacolor SpyderPro going HDR plus C2PA metadata; Moho 14.4 connecting 2D animation to game engines via glTF; Maya 2026.3 shipping Bifrost and USD resolver upgrades; Unreal Engine 5.7 pushing foliage, PCG, VP tools, and an AI assistant; and ARRI Film Lab emulating film characteristics as an OpenFX plugin.

Subscriber section: Houdini 21 deep dive (Part 1), Digital Domain’s horror pipeline, a Huion Kamvas 13 Gen 3 test, Scott Ross on why VFX business models keep faceplanting, plus Chaos Arena and Vantage talks for anyone trying to avoid “engine middleman” detours.

An animated scientist with wild white hair and glasses is surrounded by bright yellow lightning bolts, standing in an energetic pose while wearing a lab coat. The background features industrial machinery.

Halloween sugar crash, then straight into software updates: this one is a mixed bag of practical tools and industry noise, delivered with minimal patience for “Black week” hype. It covers EditingTools.io’s local Live Timecode Notes Server for offline collaboration, Boris FX Continuum 2026 upgrades for masking, keying and face ML, Blender 4.5 LTS landing while Blender 5.0 beta is already lurking, The Mill’s return, Photoshop 27.0 with new AI-driven features (test before rollout), and Foundry Flix 8.0 tightening its Storyboard Pro workflow.

Subscriber section: a plugin roundup (RealFX Part 1), RiseFX on Momo, adult animation production notes on Task Force Querlitz, and a reminder that Stitch Head somehow became everybody’s comfort read.

This round is the “you might have missed” clean-up pass: offline timecode notes, a full Continuum 2026 refresh, Blender 4.5 LTS status checks plus the inevitable “plan your upgrade”, The Mill being revived, and Photoshop 27.0 shipping more AI features that will want QA before you let them near real work. It also includes Foundry Flix 8.0 getting more serious about Storyboard Pro integration and interface updates. Net result: a tidy list of reasons your next pipeline meeting will run long, but at least it will run informed.

The kickoff for the bi-weekly format, with the new subscriber area as the real headline: live, working, and only occasionally requiring ritual sacrifice. The news mix spans EDIUS 11.40 workflow speedups, ZEISS CinCraft Virtual Lens beta for lens artefact simulation in Nuke, Chaos Anima 6.2 vehicle and crowd improvements, plus a sponsored Aiarty video enhancement item for local upscaling and denoising.

Subscriber section stacks the heavier reads: Stitch Head, an After Effects hands-on with Adobe’s Victoria Nece, RiseFX on Heads of State, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Gen comparisons, ProRes RAW vs BRAW, and Digital Domain’s Fantastic Four pipeline notes. It is basically “welcome back, here is your homework”.

IBC recovery edition: fewer product circus vibes, more “knowledge exchange” and the usual Deutsche Bahn endurance test. The roundup covers Berlin Animates and the FAB 2025 programme, Kyno resurfacing with 1.9, Autodesk adding AI assistants, Ton Roosendaal stepping aside at Blender, Resolve 20.2 updates including ProRes RAW decoding, RizomUV 2025 CUDA-based packing gains (Windows only), and an InstaMAT September 2025 update.

Subscriber section leans into bigger topics: ProRes RAW finally in Resolve, a breakup letter to Premiere, ARRI’s VP-in-a-box framing, and a matchmove workflow look at Vision Age VFX.

Heatwave survival mode: throttle CPU cores, relocate to shade, and read pipeline news on a phone while your workstation doubles as a space heater. The list includes V-Ray for Blender (CPU, GPU, Chaos Cloud plus Cosmos assets), CityEngine 2025.0 adding Street Designer while dropping perpetual licensing, Cinema 4D 2025.3 with GPU liquid sims and UDIM tooling, LumaFusion 2.3 bringing Android HDR, Reallusion CC and iClone updates with in-app asset trials and iContent licensing, ScatterFlow for physics-aware Blender scattering, and 3DCoat 2025 with node-based sculpting plus RealityCapture support.

Subscriber section adds production stories and pipeline war tales from Lola Post, Halon’s blue whale skeleton capture for AR, Digital Domain on Thunderbolts*, PFX on Locked, VP case studies, plus period reconstruction work from PFX and WeFX.

Half-year checkpoint, delivered as “here is what you missed while rendering”: Maxon acquiring Autograph, MetaHumans leaving early access and getting more engine-friendly, Maya 2026.1 MotionMaker, 3ds Max 2026.1 updates, Pulze RenderFlow 1.0 as a render manager option, Godot 4.5 dev snapshots, and Nomad Sculpt entering desktop beta.

Subscriber section is the full buffet: Mac mini vs iPad M4 for post, LiDAR scanning, Fusion development notes, Digital Domain vs Minecraft, Rise FX on Red One, light and colour measurement tooling, and multiple deep dives on Fusion 20. It reads like a reminder that “quiet summer” is mostly a myth.

FMX decompression plus a site update: VOD recommendations, industry mood notes, and the practical reality that building a subscriber area is its own special genre of horror. It points at upcoming coverage (Dune Prophecy, Westworld, CityEngine, InstaMAT, Zeiss, mental health, matchmove tips) and introduces the archive access going back to 2007. News items include MedTool for procedural wounds in Substance 3D Painter, a 3ds Max haircard workflow tool, ThinkingParticles 7.4, Xsens Animate 2025, Smart Model Editor for Maya, and Unreal Engine 5.6 Preview features. The underlying theme: FMX is done, now the actual work begins, plus the website should mostly behave.

FMX warm-up round: the “things you can casually mention in hallways so you sound prepared” issue. It covers an editing survey collaboration, FMX 2025 programme notes, Neat Video 6.0.5 fixes, Marvelous Designer 2025.0 updates, Unity 6.1 rendering and water changes, Nukepedia’s rebuild plans, ACES 2.0 landing in Mistika, LightWave 2025, Autodesk Flame 2026 highlights, and a Plasticity watch modelling series entry. It is equal parts practical update list and gentle reminder that conference season will consume your calendar either way.

“Another week, another frame” as a lifestyle choice: Blender city building with ICity 1.3.0, a Python Copilot item for coding automation, Rodeo FX acquiring Mikros Animation amid Technicolor’s collapse, Plasticity watch modelling part 1, 3ds Max 2026 feature updates, Zen UV 5.0, Maya 2026 commentary, a VFX story around Red Poppies that leans into open source tooling, CharMorph 0.4 for character creation in Blender, Blackmagic’s URSA Cine 17K 65 showcase, Resolve 19.1.4 ProRes support on Windows and Linux, and Godot 4.5 dev progress. Net effect: enough upgrade prompts to make you schedule a weekend for “testing” and then mysteriously run out of time.

Early-year “here is what you missed while crunching” roundup, with a heavy dose of practical software updates: Cinemon 1.0 for colour pipeline analysis and scopes, GIMP 3.0 going non-destructive, Blender 4.4 feature highlights, Adobe refining Substance 3D tools, FilmLight bringing Baselight to macOS via subscription, plus Autograph Starter as a free motion graphics and compositing entry point with Resolve integration. It also mixes in texture freebies (Marmoset Toolbag materials), an FMX 2025 programme preview, and a DP podcast episode about plugins that reads like therapy for anybody who has ever installed one “quick” OpenFX and lost a weekend.

Huion Kamvas Slate 11 Review: A Practical Android Tablet That Also Draws

Let’s Build a Blender Hut This Weekend!

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