The CGSociety.com – part of Balistic Publishing – announced the winners of their latest CG competition. The topic of the competition was ‘Strange Behavior’ - “The unexpected can delight or shock. It can be exciting or frightening. It’s often funny. It’s never boring!” With over than US$90,000 worth of prizes, 15 winning entries were chosen by previous CGS competition winners, and Jinko Gotoh, Film Producer; Dan Curry, Film producer/director and Paul Gulino, Head of Screenwriting at Chapman film school. ” With so many outstanding entries the judging was difficult, but the jury selected the 15 entries that stood out as truly world class.” Mark Snoswell said, President of the CGSociety. To view the winning artworks, visit CGSociety.

Softimage recently released a 30-day trial version of SOFTIMAGE|XSI 6.5. Softimage is well known software for 3D modelling, character creation, animation and rendering. The new 30-Day trial version is available in English and Japanese, and it will make it possible for students and professionals to try the new features of SOFTIMAGE|XSI 6.5. The trial can be downloaded from this link.

Pixologic announced the release of a 30 days trial version of its well known 3D sculpturing, painting and rendering tool; ZBrush 3.1. This 30 days trial is a fully functional version of ZBrush 3.1. You can download the 30 days trial version for Windows operating systems from this link, www.pixologic.com/zbrush/trial

Nabors, an oil drilling contracting company, is looking for an AutoCAD modeler in Oman who is familiar with oil rigs and is willing to work on field when required. The candidate must have good English communication skills, must be able to control documents, and create and maintain reports using MS Office and MS Projects. Pay will be determined on the experience of the candidate. You can send your applications to mark.payne@nabors.com.

Autodesk released today the 30-day trial of its latest update to its 3D modeling, texturing, and animation tool 3DS Max. The new version is features accelerated performance as noted by the users of CGTalk, a new integrated MAXScript Pro editor, and a new ‘Review’ toolset for providing instant feedback on certain render settings. Ryan Lesser has written a detailed review of the new MAX over at VFXWord where he came to the conclusion that Max 2008 falls short of being a major milestone, but “as a productivity booster and overall enjoyable experience, this rev of Max delivers“.

You can download the trial version of 3DS Max from here to judge it yourself.

[via CGIndia]

Autodesk has officially completed its acquisition of Skymatter Limited and all of its assets, including 3d sculpting tool Mudbox 3D. Mudbox is known for creating organic life-like models as evident in the making of the movie King Kong for which Mudbox was used. The acquisition of Skymatters by Autodesk will lead to greater interoperability between the various Autodesk products such as Maya 3D and 3D Studio Max, and Mudbox. Autodesk has denied rumours about converting Mudbox into a mere plug-in for one of its applications and stated that it will continue to develop the standalone version of Mudbox.

The Mudbox store is currently suspended while it gets integrated into the systems of Autodesk. You can still download the trial version of it from here.

You can view the acquisition completion press release here.

[via Digital Arts]

Electric Rain (ERain) recently released Swift 3D version 5 for Windows. Swift3D v5 for Mac is coming out this year and it is going to be a big hit. Swift3D is the only 3D program that can be directly integrated with Adobe Flash and provides fast high quality vector rendering.

“When it comes to creating 3D vector animations, Swift3D doesn’t have any competition. For its ease-of-use and rapid development of 3D Flash, it really can’t be beat.” says MacReview.

Of course, you don’t have to export 3D animations as vector, you can also export as video which gives you all the capabilities of motion graphic design.

For more information, go to the Swift 3D page.

Softimage Co, announced the shipping of Softimage|XSI 6.5 Essentials targeting artists, and Softimage|XSI 6.5 Advanced created for production facilities. At a price of US $ 2,995, Softimage|XSI 6.5 Essentials is packed with Hair, Fur, and Syflex Cloth features.  Softimage|XSI 6.5 Advanced is packed with five batch rendering licenses for facilities and priced at US $4,995. To read more about the new features, click here.

Luxology releases modo 301, the 3d modeling, painting and render tool today. The current version costs $895. Modo 301’s enhanced features over modo 203 include animation and especially true-3D sculpting. Now available for immediate download.

For more information visit Luxology’s official website.

3dm3.com reviewed Space Navigator, a 3D navigation hardware targeting the users of 3D applications. Space navigator has six pressure sensors allowing the users to easily pan, zoom in and out the 3D environment, and rotate 3D objects. The review focuses on the insulation process, and the uses of Space Navigator. To view a demo of Space Navigator in action, visit 3dconnexion.com. To read the review click here.