Browsing Tag
CGI
128 posts
SideFX launches central Houdini learning hub
SideFX consolidates Houdini tutorials into a structured Learning Library aimed at students and production artists.
Infinity Hotel: Endless Rooms, Endless Renders
HFF Munich’s VFX students built Infinity Hotel, a hybrid short film merging live action with CGI, LiDAR scans, and Dolby Atmos sound.
LotPixel drops 1,300+ free PBR textures in Hub app
LotPixel Hub beta gives 3D artists free access to 1,300+ PBR textures up to 8K, with Blender integration and more DCCs to come.
Foundry locks in full subscription future for 2027
Foundry drops perpetual maintenance: from 2027, all Nuke, Mari, and Katana users will be on subscription only.
DIY Gravity: Make Your Own Black Hole (In After Effects)
Free After Effects plugin creates cinematic black holes using ray marching, volumetric fog and physically-based parameters.
How I Spent Five Years Making a Solo 3D Film
Maxim Gehricke spent five years creating his solo 3D short film SEN. Here’s how he did it without funding, team, or sleep.
Free 3D Fruit: Fresh Assets, No Pesticides
Kiri offers 141 free, production-ready 3D fruit and vegetable scans with full PBR textures under CC0 licence.
Hover, Don’t Click: Outliner Preview Lands in Blender
Free Blender add-on Outliner Preview shows 360° model thumbnails on hover in the Outliner.
Blender Gets Real Lenses: BagaCam OSL Released
Antoine Bagattini, the creator of BagaPie has released BagaCam OSL, a camera add-on that implements Open Shading Language…
Shapekeys: The angle on your mesh
CamKeys automates ShapeKeys by camera angle in Blender. Users say it mimics per-object FOV , the docs say it drives morphs.
New Trailer walks FMX 2026 home
A walking bus, a hopeful sunrise, and a nod to FMX’s roots: “Bus Buddy” drives the FMX 2026 trailer straight into the ROAD AHEAD.
Beyond VFX dives into AI Ethics
AI meets VFX and ethics: Beyond VFX returns on 26 Nov 2025 with VES and ICE.ART. Join Ben Lock, Victor Perez, Frank Govaere & Dr Jana Sedlakova and Agon Ushaku for a free panel.
Blender 5.0 – it’s here!
Blender 5.0 is finally here — with ACES/PQ-HDR, high-geometry support, UI tweaks and a fresh release cadence for production pipelines.
World VFX Day 2025: Global Line-Up Revealed
WētāFX, ILM, Framestore, Adobe and more join World VFX Day 2025 this December, streaming live from London.
When Annabelle Grew Up: The Digital Domain Horror Pipeline
425 shots, one terrifying doll, and a CG mill town: Digital Domain’s Alex Millet explains how his team built the horror of The Conjuring: Last Rites and kept it real.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Mill Returns
The Mill is back. TransPerfect revives the iconic VFX studio with returning talent and a global creative push.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nanite marches in: Twinmotion 2025.2 update
Nanite now works in Twinmotion. 2025.2 also brings a new post stack, animation upgrades, VCAM tweaks, and cloud storage.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Next-Gen Cloud Rendering for Blender? Meet Praxilla!
Praxilla offers Blender cloud rendering with Cycles and Eevee, starting at 2.50 € per GPU hour. Secure, fast, and aiming for collaborative rendering.
V‑Ray 7.1 for Blender: Geometry Nodes and Material Converter
Chaos’s V‑Ray 7.1 for Blender adds support for Geometry Nodes, a Cycles‑to‑V‑Ray material converter, OpenPBR standard and Blender 4.5 LTS.
Cross Sections Without Tears: Free Plugin for 3ds Max
Free plugin for 3ds Max generates multiple 2D cross sections on any axis, with spacing, offset and weld options
WorldEngen promises AI-built 3D scenes in hours, not weeks
WorldEngen claims to cut 3D scene creation from weeks to hours with AI integration into Blender, Unreal, and Unity. Early Access now open.
Axiom 4.0 Sneak Peek for Houdini
First preview of Axiom 4.0 shows improved collisions, redesigned sourcing, and faster GPU-driven simulations for Houdini.
Meshroom 2025.1: Templates, Plugins and Photometric Stereo
Update 2025.1: Meshroom adds templates, photometric stereo and a plugin hub. More open, modular and production-friendly.
Tomato Warfare: Milk VFX on Heads of State
Milk VFX Supervisor David Sadler-Coppard on how the team built thousands of CG tomatoes, exploding doors, and digital crowds for Heads of State.
Marmoset Toolbag 5.02 Rolls Off the Assembly Line
Marmoset Toolbag 5.02 adds Decal layers, Smudge tool, Tile Strip system, ray‑traced fog, low‑to‑low baking and workflow enhancements in this latest real‑time VFX update.
VenkysTurbulenceMicrosolver: Finally, Your Smoke Can Stop Looking Like Blobby Soup
VenkysTurbulenceMicrosolver adds adaptive, detailed turbulence to Houdini Pyro, cutting manual noise setup.
Houdini 21: SideFX pushes for production readiness across the CG pipeline
SideFX releases Houdini 21, promoting Apex, Vulkan, Otus, and major animation and rigging upgrades to production-ready status.
No need to water flowers in August: grow them in Houdini instead
FLOPs is a free, KineFX-based HDA toolkit for creating and animating realistic flowers in Houdini, released by Danny Laursen.
Wrinkle-Free: Substance 3D Sampler 5.1 Released
dobe has updated Substance 3D Sampler to 5.1, adding Auto Tiling, Fold Remover, new flattening tools, and improved HP Z Captis scanner integration.
Fusion Studio 20.1: Immersive, Patchy, and Ready for 360°
Blackmagic Fusion Studio 20.1 adds immersive 360° viewer, Magic Mask v2, deep compositing improvements, and CSV import for MultiText boxes.
Rebelle 8 Hits Early Access: Brushes Get Bristly, Updates Get Sensible
Rebelle 8 enters Early Access with new Bristle Brushes, NanoPixel 2, RealShader, SoftShadows, and a perpetual license with 1-year free updates.
InstantQPatch: Im3dJoe’s Quad-Only Mesh Hole Filler for Maya
InstantQPatch by Im3dJoe patches polygon holes in Maya with quad-based, curvature-following geometry. Free for all uses, but code sharing is forbidden.
Sony VENICE 2 Firmware 4.0 Adds EL Zone Tool
Sony’s VENICE 2 firmware 4.0 introduces EL Zone exposure system and tri‑colour frame line display plus camera extension support.
Berlin’s Animation-Only Festival FAB 2025 Returns: Japan, Stop-Motion, and 132 Films
FAB returns to Berlin in September 2025 with 132 films, Japanese guests, a stop-motion symposium, and six competitions at silent green Kulturquartier and City Kino Wedding.
Frank Rueter’s Quest to Stop Nuke Knowledge from Disappearing
Nukepedia’s origin: How Frank Rueter launched the community’s Nuke tool repository and why the relaunch matters in 2025 - and what is coming to nuBridge?
HDR Light Studio 9.1 Lumi‑Curve Turns Lighting into Line Art—Literally
HDR Light Studio 9.1 introduces Lumi‑Curve: freeform, editable curve-based lights for shaping reflections, highlights, trails, and backgrounds.
GSOPs 2.6: The Swiss Army Knife for Gaussian Splatting in Houdini
GSOPs 2.6 delivers free 2D/3D Gaussian Splatting editing, viewport rendering, mesh export, Karma and Solaris integration for Houdini 20.5.
InstaMAT 2025 Graduates: Terrain, Ray Tracing, and Polyverse. Now That’s a Release!
Free for small teams, a next level texture-workflow, collaboration tools, a finely tuned asset library and much more!
Artists Must Adapt: 3DModels.org Launches “One Car Challenge”
3DModels.org invites artists to transform an identical base car model into a unique render. Deadline is September 30.
Retro Dithering Goes Full‑Color: Dither Boy 4.0 Hits All 52 Effects
Studio AAA’s Dither Boy 4.0 adds full‑color support across 52 effects including video—one purchase, free monthly palettes.
Oil Gets Real: Rebelle 8’s RealShader and SoftShadows Put Ray Tracing on the Canvas
Escape Motions unveils Rebelle 8 with RealShader, real-time ray traced shadows, environment maps and 20× NanoPixel export. Early Access late Q3.
The visual effects of Star Trek – a retrospective
On September 8th, 1966, the U.S.S. Enterprise flew across American screens for the first time - since then, "Star Trek" in all its various iterations has become part of the zeitgeist. And, in keeping with the Enterprise's mission, it has also repeatedly stepped into new areas of visual effects, making it one of the many trailblazers for our industry. In this retrospective, we want to take a closer look at some of these milestones.
Reallusion’s CC4.54 & iClone 8.54 Let You Snag, Try and Buy Assets Without Leaving the App
CC 4.54 and iClone 8.54 bring in-app trial assets, instant DA Point checkout, and low-cost iContent licence for rapid prototyping.
Thunderbolts* Vaults: Digital Domain on Marvel’s Most Grounded Brawl
Digital Domain VFX Producer Ryan Wilk breaks down Marvel’s Thunderbolts* vault chaos, Ghost phasing, and why less is more for photoreal CG.
Draw the Line: Octane Edge Tools Brings Outlines to Blender – For Free
Octane Edge Tools is a free Blender add-on from Otoy for creating mesh-based outlines with OctaneRender Toon Material. Controls for edge thickness, object selection, and NPR styles.
Procedural Ferns in Blender
Alex Martinelli’s free Blender 4.3+ fern asset uses Geometry Nodes for non-destructive, procedural plant creation with material and instancing controls.
8K HDRIs from Simon Lachapelle
VFX artist Simon Lachapelle releases free 8K HDRIs for CGI, VFX, and 3D lighting - now with tone-mapped versions and new greyscale variants.
FMX 2025: AI, Arcane, and a Light Stage Walk into a Conference
FMX 2025 unleashes Arcane secrets, Houdini hocus pocus, and a swarm of AI panels onto Stuttgart. Turquoise flags and login buttons now live!
Plasticity 104 – Watch Modeling PT4 – Import into Cinema 4D
With the 4th installment of our Plasticity series we are back at our Watch. This time we're importing the model into Cinema 4D where we are going to do the shading in the next videos using Octane Render.
Flame 2026: OCIO, Files and Timeline Magic
Discover the seven key innovations in Flame Family 2026—from OpenColorIO to AI-enhanced video quality.
ZibraVDB: Shrinking Volumes, Expanding Possibilities
ZibraVDB compresses OpenVDB files up to 100x, enabling real-time volumetric effects in Unreal Engine and Houdini for virtual production and game development.
PhysX Goes Open: Fluid Dynamics Unleashed
NVIDIA’s PhysX Flow, the powerful GPU-accelerated fluid simulation engine, is now fully open source—free and feature-packed for VFX pros.
Free Assets, High Tech – No splinters to be feared!
150 free, modular workshop assets for Unreal Engine. Get ready for precision, plug-and-play, and a cheeky tech upgrade
finalRender Free: A Renderer That Costs Nothing but Demands Something
cebas offers finalRender Free for 3ds Max users, featuring single-device rendering with CPU or GPU. Commercial use permitted; registration required.
Plasticity 103 – Watch Modeling PT3 – Rounding / Filleting / Export
More easy hard surface modeling: In PT3 of our Plasticity series we continue the watch - with some Rounding, some Filleting, and we export the thing!
iRender Cloud Render Farm Enhances Redshift Workflows
iRender offers a cloud-based render farm for Redshift users with RTX 4090 GPUs and Cinema 4D licenses to streamline high-end rendering tasks.
Plasticity 102 – Watch Modeling PT2 – Crown
More easy hard surface modeling: In PT2 of our Plasticity series we continue the watch - and get to the crown, all in Plasticity!
Arnold 7.4.1: Now with GPU Toon Shading and a Dash of HTML
Autodesk's Arnold 7.4.1 introduces GPU-accelerated toon shading, enhanced procedural instancing performance, and a new interactive HTML-based render statistics viewer.
MotionBuilder 2026: A little Leap
Autodesk's MotionBuilder 2026 enhances USD workflows, introduces animation retention, and adds new selection shortcuts for improved motion capture editing.
Plasticity 101 – Modeling a Watch – Part 1
In this engaging tutorial I will walk you through the first steps in Plasticity, a CAD modeler for easy hard surface modeling. In part 1 we create the watch-case in an easy to follow fashion.
3ds Max 2026: New Features to Weld Your Workflow Together
3ds Max 2026 introduces OpenPBR as the default material, enhances the Vertex Weld Modifier for splines, and boosts performance across key modifiers.
Unlocking the Mysteries of FX-Map: A Free Guide That Doesn’t Require a Map
Dive into Andrei Zelenco's free four-part video series demystifying Substance 3D Designer's FX-Map node, from basics to advanced procedural techniques.
Blackmagic’s URSA Cine 17K 65: The Camera That’s More ‘K’ Than Your Keyboard
Blackmagic Design's URSA Cine 17K 65 camera showcases its 17K resolution and 65mm sensor in new films "Iceland" and "The Ranch," offering unparalleled cinematic depth and flexibility.
Chaos Project Arena: Ray Tracing Without the Hassle
Chaos introduces Project Arena, enabling direct V-Ray rendering on LED walls—no rasterization, no baking. Full ray tracing in real-time, straight from DCC apps.
Godot 4.5 Dev 1: The Feature Freeze Thaw Begins
Godot 4.5's first development snapshot introduces a "Mute Game" toggle, enhanced UID support, and addresses over 400 bug fixes.
FumeFX 6.7 for 3ds Max: Stoke Up Your Sims
FumeFX 6.7 delivers fire presets, Arnold 2024 support, and Stoke MX compatibility for 3ds Max—now available for $695.
Blender 4.4 Arrives: Slots, Planes, and Glare—Oh My!
Blender 4.4 launches today, introducing slotted Actions, a versatile Plane brush, an overhauled Glare node, and enhanced Cycles rendering. Dive into the details!
Blender: 3ds Max-Inspired Material Editor Now Available
Blender users can now streamline their workflow with a new 3ds Max-inspired Material Editor, offering features like node-based material creation and one-click shader access.
Flow’s Custom Blender Plug-In: Water Sim That Made a Splash
The Blender plug-in behind Flow’s water scenes is now public—get ready for technical precision in your water simulations!
OpenUSD 25.02: Technical Tweaks for the Speedy Frame Wrangler (Yes, Really)
OpenUSD 25.02 refines API calls, performance, and stability with a suite of focused technical improvements.
Blender 2025: New Features, Same Blender Charm
Blender reveals exciting updates for 2025, including simulation nodes 2.0, Online Remote Assets, and Sculpting Layers.
Paint Your Blender: Free Add-On Brings Photoshop-Like Layers
A new free Blender add-on lets you paint directly on 3D objects using Photoshop-like layers. Precision meets simplicity for digital artists.
Walk the Space Station—Virtually
Explore the International Space Station in a 3D Tour Built with Unreal Engine 5.
3DCoat 2024.30: New Year, New Tools for Your 3D Arsenal
Pilgway's 3DCoat 2024.30 introduces RealityCapture integration, enhanced boolean operations for 3D printing, and new array tools for streamlined workflows.
Terragen 4.8 & Sky Update: Shaping Clouds and Worlds
Planetside Software releases Terragen 4.8 and updates Terragen Sky, introducing GPU previews, cloud exports, and a cloud-painting tool for CGI and VFX professionals.
3ds Max Plug-In: Tree Generation
Looking for streamlined tree generation and animation in 3ds Max? This plugin offers an efficient approach to plant animations and environment design.
Blender Pack Saves Your Back: 2,000+ Interior Assets for 3D Artists
Skip the furniture store—this 2,000-item Blender pack brings diverse, ready-to-use interior assets straight to your VFX pipeline.
New Cloth Creation Toolset for Houdini: A First Look
Houdini Artits introduce a new cloth and curves creation toolset basend on the drawing of Curves.