New releases and upcoming events

As many of you know, August is a big month for our industry with both SIGGRAPH and Vis Musters happening back-to-back. Most of the new innovations for the next year are being revealed, and new trends are being uncovered. Of course, Autodesk has taking a big part of the limelight by announcing the release of new versions of Motion Builder, Max and Maya and the intriguing acquisition of Mud Box. Both Max and Maya are joining the ranks of the rest of the Autodesk product line and will be referred to by the product year. Both Max 2008 and Maya 2008 are opening this new tradition with exciting new and improved features from improved large scene handling and adoptive degradation to a new real light shader that affects the environment or a flexible working pivot that improves subobject modeling significantly. You can see demos of these and other new features online using the links under the “Useful Links " column. Or you can register and join us for the launch tour coming to Miami on October 2 (link at the same spot). In the meanwhile don't forget to log on and join the design visualization webcast serious (the next one is on Wednesday, September 26 ) or watch a recording of previous ones.