+ Pixar Animation Studios today announced that Tractor 2.0, its next generation distributed processing software, will be released in the first week of September 2014. Tractor 2.0 significantly expands the successful Tractor 1.x render farm job queuing system, while also deepening the underlying platform to support new wrangling and management tools, as well as a forward-looking API and data features that address custom pipeline integration requirements and future product objectives. New features include major user interface enhancements, a streamlined installation process, powerful command line and scripting interfaces, and flexible resource-sharing controls for maximizing utilization. Tractor 2.0 is a robust solution in a compact architecture, specifically engineered for scalability and proven in production on a wide variety of rendering and non-rendering applications. 

Tractor 2.0 consists of three primary components: the Engine, the Blade, and the Dashboard. Tractor Engine maintains the central job queue and dispatches tasks. Tractor Blade is the command execution server that runs on each network compute node. Tractor Dashboard is a web app that lets artists see their jobs in progress and allows administrators to manage tasks, Blades, and the Engine itself. Additional query and control tools are available for command-line use, as well as an API for scripting. Tractor 2.0 uses proven open web standards that perform efficiently with typical operating systems and network infrastructure with little overhead or computational load. The system supports a variety of customizations, from job scripting to Python module extensions that allow administrators to easily define per-task environments on a show-by-show basis. Custom Dashboard menu items can be added to integrate Tractor controls into the studio pipeline. 
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+ MAXON today unveiled CINEMA 4D Release 16 (R16), the next generation release of the company’s industry-leading 3D motion graphics, visual effects, visualization, painting, and rendering software application. In addition to countless workflow enhancements, CINEMA 4D R16 delivers powerful new features including a modeling PolyPen ‘super-tool’, a Motion Tracker for easily integrating 3D content within live footage and a Reflectance material channel that allows for multi-layered reflections and specularity. CINEMA 4D R16 reinforces MAXON’s commitment to provide creative professionals with exceptional stability and performance, unmatched integration, and a straightforward, efficient and flexible interface to optimize any workflow for VFX, motion graphics, visualization and game development.
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+ Representing years of research and development, Pixar Animation Studios today announced a series of important innovations in the latest version of its forthcoming Academy Award®-winning RenderMan software that will radically impact the way film imagery is rendered and accessed by everyone. This generational shift in RenderMan establishes an entirely new modular rendering architecture called RIS that provides highly optimized methods for simulating the transport of light through multiple state of the art algorithms, including an advanced Unidirectional Path Tracer and a Bidirectional Path Tracer with Progressive Photon Mapping (also known as VCM). Along with major feature and performance enhancements, physically-based, artist-friendly workflows, progressive re-rendering, and the established advantages of RenderMan’s traditional REYES architecture, RenderMan now offers two rendering modes within one unified environment, providing the most advanced, versatile, and flexible rendering system available. 
With rendering technology constantly evolving, RIS represents a forward-looking framework through which Pixar can deploy additional rendering methodologies as they become available. RenderMan is the conduit through which applicable advanced research from within the Walt Disney organization will be channeled into the production industry, including in the forthcoming release, Disney’s Principled BRDF shader and supporting materials. 
Availability
The new RenderMan is being released in the timeframe of SIGGRAPH 2014 and will be compatible with the following 64-bit operating systems, Mac OS 10.8 and 10.7, Windows 8, 7, and Vista, and Linux. Autodesk Maya compatibility is with versions 2013, 2013.5, 2014, and 2015. Pixar’s annual maintenance program benefits customers with access to ongoing support and free upgrades. For more information please visit www.pixar.com or contact rendermansales@pixar.com.

+ The LightWave 3D Group, a division of NewTek, Inc., announced today a free 30-day full feature trial version of ChronoSculpt software is now available for download at www.chronosculpt.com. Chronosculpt offers an intuitive way for artists using any professional 3D modeling and animation software on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux operating systems to create content with custom morph targets or fluidly sculpt animation performances over time. ChronoSculpt can also be used to review and correct cache animation and dynamic simulation errors using timeline-based sculpting tools. The software’s flexible interface supports leading file formats for all professional 3D software programs, including LightWave 3D®, Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya and Softimage, The Foundry’s Modo, Maxon Cinema 4D, and more. The software supports soft- and rigid-body dynamics and has the ability to correct and remove errors in real time by sculpting and deforming massive polygonal models on the ChronoSculpt timeline without having to return to the original software.

+ Autodesk, Inc. unveiled the 2015 versions of its popular 3D animations tools: Autodesk 3ds Max, Maya, MotionBuilder, Mudbox, Softimage, and the newest addition to the lineup, Maya LT, a 3D animation and modeling tool for professional indie game makers. Autodesk also announced the availability of the 2015 Entertainment Creation Suite for 3D animation and visual effects.
 “Our strongest releases in many years, the 2015 versions put more creative power back into the hands of the artists,” said Chris Bradshaw, senior vice president, Media & Entertainment at Autodesk. “To achieve this, we redesigned core parts of our applications focusing on performance, ease-of-use and innovative new tools like Bifrost that make it simpler to do complex tasks. Whether our users are creating effects for a movie blockbuster, a game for one of the new consoles or developing a mobile app, the 2015 versions allow artists to focus on what they do best – storytelling.”
 Creating animation today is increasingly complex as consumer demand for bigger, better, more sophisticated computer graphics (CG) continues to rise. Autodesk 2015 animation software aims to provide the right tools for a 3D animation project. Every animation product has updates to enable artists to better manage complex projects and large data sets, while helping stay on schedule and on budget. Artists now have access to a variety of features ranging from high fidelity interactive viewports, “a what you see is what you get” work environment and single-click, cross-product workflows and ability to use low-cost consumer devices to capture body movements.
 Beta testers have been impressed with the new capabilities and the focus on improving everyday tasks for artists. “There are substantial, relevant and exciting enhancements across all of Maya,” shares Clinton Downs, Head of CG, Method Studios. “From a personal perspective, I've used Maya since the beta (1997), and these enhancements feel like the type of leap we've only seen once, maybe twice before.”
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Street Art

+ Have a look at 13 Most Captivating Street Art from around the Globe. Street art exists worldwide. Large cities and regional towns of the world are home to some form of street art community, from which pioneering artists or forerunners of particular mediums or techniques emerge. Internationally known street artists travel between such locations to promote and exhibit their artwork. 
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Labels: art, creative, Featured Website

Business platform for the international animation industry
+  Animation Production Day (APD), an event hosted by FMX 2014, Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia (April 22-25, 2014) and the 21st Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film (April 22-27, 2014), takes place on April 24 and 25, 2014 for the 8th time. It is an event by Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg and the Film- & Medienfestival gGmbH. As a business platform for the international animation industry the APD invites production companies worldwide to submit their animation and digital content projects for which they are searching for co-production, financing and distribution partners. 30 projects will be chosen for participating in the APD. In exclusive and effective 30 minutes one-to-one meetings, producers pitch their selected cinema, TV and transmedia projects to broadcasters, global distributors, publishers, funders, banks, equity investors and potential co-production partners, aiming to identify new financing pathways, production strategies and market applications. To be eligible for submission, projects must be either at the development, production or exploitation stage. The projects must have commercial potential and be marketable internationally. They must be suitable, as brand-building products, for exploitation either in formats for feature film, TV, games or mobile applications. The program is complemented by the APD conference track, where top-level speakers share their strategies and visions for the future of the animation industry. A Full Access Pass gives APD participants access to the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film and to FMX, Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia, giving them the opportunity, alongside their intensive one-to-one meetings, to inform themselves about current trends and productions and to make and maintain contacts in an informal atmosphere. More than 200 representatives from the German and international animation industry attended APD 2013 to discuss current developments and trends in the transmedia sector. In approximately 380 individual meetings, the 32 projects selected for inclusion were evaluated in terms of brand potential, financing, and production strategy. With 76 companies and institutions from 12 countries in attendance, the APD grew by more than 10 % in comparison with the previous year. 
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Labels: Mudbox

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Labels: competition

This latest Live connection is a free update for existing HDR Light Studio 4 customers who already benefit from the wide range of connectivity including an Autodesk Maya connection which also supports V-Ray. Lightmap HDR Light Studio 4.1 including the new Autodesk 3ds Max and V-Ray connection is available immediately for £299 / $499 / €399 through the online Lightmap store or through any Lightmap Authorized Reseller. 
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Labels: 3ds Max, 3ds Max plugins