Digital Tutors recently released their new series of teaching organic modeling. This 20 hours series priced at $239.99 and it will explain the process of modeling, UV layout, texture mapping, shading, and rendering a realistic human body using Autodesk Maya. To view demos of these video tutorials, and to know more about this new release, click here.

EVERMOTION released their Textures4Ever Volume 5. This new release contains 168 professional, high quality textures of stones and marble surfaces with their bump maps. This collection costs 49 Euro, including the shipping costs. Click here to view examples of the new collection.

Lavitaz released a new collection of 3D human models, detailed, textures, with reasonable poly count. The models are also fully rigged and can be animated easily. The models can be used to enrich your architecture impressions, animations, virtual tours, and presentations. The website also includes two free models that you can download and use. To view the new 3D models click here.

Luxology, the maker of the 3D modeling and rendering tool modo, recently launched a new video portal on its official website for the distribution of free and commercial high resolution training videos. Videos are sorted by date, category, and popularity and are available for streaming and download. This move is made in hope to increase the amount of learning material available on the Internet for modo. A great number of video tutorials were made by beta-testers of modo, but regular users and website visitors will not be able to share their own training videos on Luxology.tv though, which I think is a wasted resource that Luxology should have considered.

You can now try downloading the Windows or Mac trial version of modo and check out some of their video tutorials to see if it works for you. The new video portal could be found at Luxology.tv.

Softimage recently announced at SIGGRAPH the next update to its 3D animation tool SOFTIMAGE|XSI 6.5. The new application will come again in two editions, Essentials and Advance. Both applications will come with more than 30 new features and enhancements that include a new tool for High Dynamic Range, rendermap support, new SDK API, UV editing enhancements, and audio support enhancements.

The Essential edition will also feature Hair & Fur XSI tool and Syflex Cloth simulation - an engine that it supposed to be incredibly fast for creating cloth and flesh effects. The Advance edition will be packed with all the features of Essential and some additional tools such as a new framework for simulating crowd behaviour and five extra licenses for batch rendering. Both editions are expected to be released this autumn. Visit Softimage’s official website for more details.

Toxik 2008 is a standalone high-end post-production video composition tool made by Autodesk for Linux and Windows operating systems. The new standalone product, that seems like an alternative to Combustion, features support HDRI images and tight integration with Maya 2008. Toxik was previously released as a server/client setup, but the new Toxik 2008 no longer requires a database and can be used as a standalone application making it more appealing to relatively smaller video production studios. No firm release date has been announced for Toxic, but it should be out in the autumn of 2008. Learn more about it at Autodesk’s website.

In addition to the announcement of the new 3DS Max 2008, Autodesk also announced Maya 2008, the update to its other 3D modeling, animation, and rendering tool. To be released next month, Maya 2008 will feature several enhancements to increase polygon modeling efficiency and overall performance, support for DirectX HLSL for creating content for next-generation consoles such as the Wii, Xbox 360, and the PS3, and improvements for the skinning and rigging toolsets. You can learn more about the upcoming release of Maya 2008 from Autodesk’s website.

Autodesk announced yesterday at SIGGRAPH the next version of its 3D modeling, animation, and rendering tool 3D Studio Max. Major additions in 3DS Max 2008 include a new Scene Explorer for simple data display and analysis, an Adaptive Degradation System for better performance by automatically simplifying the scene to achieve user-defined targeted frame-rate, new custom UI options, a streamlined modeling workflow, mental ray workflow improvements, a new integrated MAXScript Proeditor, and other performance enhancements and new features. 3DS Max 2008 will be released in October. You can learn more about it on Autodesk’s website.

Morpheme is the industry’s first graphically-authorable animation engine for PC and gaming platforms. Morpheme 1.1 is a middleware solution designed to give developers and animators creative control over the look of their final in-game animation by allowing them to author and preview blends, blend trees and transition graphs in real-time. Morpheme consists of an animation engine called runtime and a powerful and flexible 3D interface called connect. You can read more about the latest version of Morpheme here.

Side Effects Software announced the release of Houdini 9 public beta. This 3D modeling and rendering tool comes with some new features. The obvious change is the new user interface that is totally redesigned to make it easier for artists to find tools to work with.  Another strong feature in Houdini 9 is the new and powerful fluid dynamic solver that lets you simulate liquids, smoke and fire.  To download the Beta version and read more about the features of Houdini 9, click here.