With SIGGRAPH just around the corner, Pixar today announced some nice upgrades and new additions to their products with unlimited threading, RenderMan® Pro Server™ 15.0 and Tractor™1.0 RenderMan® Pro Server™ 15.0 and Tractor™1.0. Unlimited threading will enable users to have each license of RenderMan to utilize any number of threads on multi-core platforms, unlike the current release which allows only four threads per license.

RenderMan Pro Server 15.0 has several new features, including new volume primitives and improved volumetric rendering, major additions to the RenderMan Shader Language (RSL), Disney’s Ptex per face painted textures, imager shaders, an API for subdivision surfaces, performance improvements and more. Pro Server is currently in late beta testing and scheduled to be released in the fall of 2009. Pixar is also releasing Tractor 1.0, a new robust distributed render management solution built on an architecture designed to handle the largest multi-core render farms of tens of thousands of cores or more.

Click through for the full press release and more details.
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Sony Pictures Imageworks has announced it is releasing five projects as open source. The five cover Open Shading Language, Database library manager, Voxel data storage library, Python string handling in C++ and Flexible camera guides for Maya. They are embarking on this in hopes of building small development communities around the code.

We’re planning to talk with Imageworks CTO Rob Bredow at Siggraph for an upcoming fxguidtev episode, in the meantime check out: opensource.imageworks.com

Our Digital cinematography & production podcast red centre episode #41 is live and ready for download. This week’s podcast we talk his week, the guys talk about RED Rocket, films on RED, Scarlet, and more as Mike prepares for a SMPTE panel by interviewing Jason about his opinions on Scarlet, 5D Mk II and full frame sensors.

Visit the red centre page for direct downloads and RSS feed links. To be notified automatically and have the episodes downloaded in iTunes, subscribe via this link.

Apple has released the long anticipated update to Final Cut Studio which brings versions of Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, Color 1.5, Compressor 3.5 and DVD Studio Pro 4. Apple posted videos on their web site to show many of the new features that include new ProRes options including a 4444 version, direct iChat Theater support, speed change and marker improvements, alpha transitions as well as workflow improvements for rendering and importing material.

Over 100 new features and a price reduction to $999 ($299 to upgrade) – full press release is after the read more

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Evolver is a web application designed to generate great looking customized 3D characters, and purchase them for export into 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage as high res models that are fully rigged for character animation for only $39. With an additional $30, it’s possible to purchase setups for facial animation as well. The site’s been in its alpha for two months and goes live today.

As an introduction they are offering fxguide readers 50% off on the cost of purchasing an Evolver model for 48 hours on Wednesday and Thursday, July 22 & 23 (Pacific US time). Code is after the read more along with the full release about the site.

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The Foundry will be holding their Nuke User Group at SIGGRAPH on Monday, August 3rd. The event is being held at Le Petit Theater, beginning at 5pm and will include presentations by Nuke artists from Laika, Digital Domain and Blue Sky Studios. In addition, The Foundry team will be showing new developments and features in Nuke 5.2, Nuke 6.0 and NukeX 6.0. They also plan to give a peek at Ocula 2 – the latest incarnation of their stereoscopic plug-in toolset for Nuke.

Space is limited…sign up to attend on their registration page. For more details about what is planned for the event, click through the read more link….

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The Montreal Gazette has an update on the workers from Meteor Studios – a Montreal facility that filed for bankruptcy after completing work on Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Last we heard Discovery Trademark Holding Co. Inc. and Evergreen Digital LLC had offered the workers 45% of the amount they were owed, then upped the offer to 63%. The deadline for that offer is this weekend.

I don’t want to get off on a rant, but many parts of this story have been troubling since we first heard about it back in July of 2008 and did a podcast with Dave Rand. Beyond the compensation and the fact that this is still unresolved more than a year later, it is amazing that this story has not been covered at all in the LA Times, Variety or the Hollywood Reporter.

You can read about it in the Montreal Gazette article here.

Nominations for the 61st Primetime Emmy® Awards, covering the period of June 1, 2008 through May 31, 2009, were announced today by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences from the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre, North Hollywood, California.

Nominees for Visual Effects and Main Title Design as well as a link to all the nominees can be found after the jump

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The AICP has been a force over the years on the production side in helping with the business of the business. After the jump is a press release announcing the formation of a new chapter to work with companies that create digital content. Ed Ulbrich, President, Commercial Division, of Digital Domain will head up this initiative.

Press release follows…

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eyeon Software has launched a new financing option aimed at helping artists and facilities get back to business. This limited time offer allows users to purchase licenses for a low cost upfront ($995) and design flexible payment plans.

Full press release after the jump
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