Post Magazine online, has disclosed that Discreet’s biggest news announcement for this year’s SIGGRAPH show centers around its 3ds max animation, modeling and rendering software. Version 5 is designed to offer animators and artists better control over the creation, animation and management of animated characters. Most significant to Fxguide readers in that Post reports MAX 5 has radiosity.

According to the Silicon Grail website, Apple has acquired technologies from Silicon Grail, including the RAYZ and Chalice product lines…..

Technical Animations just came out with their first Combustion v2 Training Video/DVD from. Here is a brief review written by Jack Pfeiffer, who is a demo artist and trainer for a discreet dealer in Denmark.

“we’re getting results in a matter of minutes and its just great to see it all working straight off. Boujou takes the tedium out of match moving”

-Will Bylkes Head of Aardman’s CG dept.

FXGuide caught up with Chris Steele CEO of 2d3D recently to discuss their market leading Boujou tracking software and sneak a peak at their new “Pixel Dust” product.

Following up on NAB and our coverage of Colossus, we wanted to get more information on what 5D is doing and their other products. We spoke recently with J Miguel Ferros, Products Manager for 5D Solutions about Cyborg, Colossus, Commander, Monster Sparks and more…

One of the most exciting things we saw at NAB was in the 5D booth. This marked the first NAB for Colossus, a software-based, digital grading and mastering solution. One of the only areas remaining in the film post production process without computerization has been color correction. On feature films this has primarily remained a photo-chemical process done by a lab color timer, for television it has meant a very expensive room with equipment from variou

One of the most interesting corporate moves in recent months was Apple buying Nothing Real. At NAB, FXguide, and many others treked to the Apple Booth to see the new Apple OSX Shake, and find out just what was the story? How much will it be ? And just when can we get a copy for our Ti Powerbooks ?

Since the management buyout Quantel has changed a lot, at this years NAB they were showing PC software versions of their products, their stand was a lot smaller than in previous years, and like other management buyout Post companies – such as Cintel, Quantel are now very open in talking to other equipment suppliers about combined solutions. One such solution that caught our eye at FXGUIDE was the use of the iQ at ILM to help colour grade Star Wars Episode

With offices closing, price drops, no NAB booth and all the associated rumours, we sat down with Alias/Wavefront to find out just what is going on with the Maya guys.