3vis was present at the Exodyssey art book launch held at the SAT in Montreal on Tuesday, October 6th. Steambot Studios held an event to launch the concept art book Exodyssey. Having already sold 6,000 copies of the book, the team was really encouraged by the enthusiasm of the public. About 200 professionals from the video game industry were present to support the four founders of Steambot Studios. During the evening, Sylvain Plourde, President of 3vis, underlined the importance, for his company, to encourage and support the 3D community.

See the pictures of the evening.

ABOUT STEAMBOT STUDIOS

Steambot Studios (Montreal, CAN and Austin, Texas, USA) is a next-gen visual development studio creating world class visual content for international clients in the feature film, videogame, advertising, broadcast, graphic novel and publishing industries.

> 2 New Product Authorizations: N-Sided and Kickstand

> NEW!!! Fusion 6 from Eyeon Now Available

Fusion 6 can load compositions created in previous versions of Fusion, but artists should expect to see differences due to the extensive changes brought about by DOD/ROI, expanded GPU support and general algorithm optimizations. Fusion 6 is also binary compatible with all existing third party plugins, no updates should be required.

• Behold the power of the GPU
• Production Quality GPU Renderer
• Advanced CG Shader Materials
• Fully Controllable 3D Fog
• Object ID's Easily Created From Any Geometry
• 3D Environment Tools
• New 3D Material Tools
• New Bump Mapped Materials
• UVW Mapping
• Alpha Projections
• 3D Blend Modes
• Matte Objects
• FBX Caching
• FBX Updated
• FBX Exporter
• Stereoscopic Imaging System
• DOD/ROI
• RED Camera
• UI Enhancements, Including File Browser and Toolbars
• New 2D Tools and Updates

• Anaglyph combines two image streams into a stereoscopic image using a variety of anaglyph modes as well as cross-eyed and vertical or horizontal stacking techniques.
• Export Bumpmap to convert a 2D image into a bumpmap for use with 3D materials.
• Set Bg Color to define a custom color which lies outside the current image or tool's domain of definition.
• Set Domain overrides the current Domain of Definition for the image.
• Color Matrix is an advanced color correction tool that uses a 3D matrix to transform the colors in an image.
• 3D LUTs have a variety of GPU tools that can be chained together to create conversions and apply multiple 1D and 3D luts operations.

Eyeon Website

To request a trial, please send us an email at trial@3vis.com.

For more details or to request a quote, please send us an email at sales@3vis.com.

> Craft Director Studio to Autodesk Softimage

Craft Animations™ announced the availability of its Craft Director Studio™ for users of Autodesk® Softimage® software. Craft Director Studio™ utilizes high-end artificial intelligence and autonomous control systems to drastically condense traditional animation processes. Combining these unprecedented animation tools with Softimage software's ease-of-use and image quality, users receive a time-saving and cost-effective animation solution capable of helping saving hours, days and weeks of laborious animation time.

Allowing for precise control of object placement, as well as the instant gratification received by highly realistic interactive real-time animation, Craft Director Studio includes:

• Craft Camera Tools provide users with real-time camera control for immediate, professional-quality cinematic results.
• Craft Vehicle Tools allow artists to create the most realistic and accurate simulations for in-motion vehicles.
• Craft Accessory Tools add the finishing touches to action-packed productions by simulating and animating props such as missiles, trailers, cog wheels and other moving parts.
• Craft Freeware Tools offers a free-to-use extended toolbox for Craft Director Studio allowing real-time recording, interaction and depth orientation.

Craft Animation Website

For more details or to request a quote, please send us an email to sales@3vis.com

> RenderMan Pro Server 15 is Now Shipping

Pixar announced the release of RenderMan Pro Server 15.0. Customers who are currently on maintenance are automatically entitled to upgrade to this release. Complete release notes are available in the documentation and via the RenderMan Pro Server support forum, here.

For customers without maintenance, the new Upgrade Promotion is available to get them up to V15, and RenderMan Studio 2.0.

New Features of RenderMan Pro Server:

1. Volume Rendering - RenderMan 15 introduces a new, simpler and more efficient method for rendering volumetric effects. Two new geometric primitives for volume rendering have been implemented, which, used in conjunction with new shading language model support, offer improved volume rendering support.
2. Imager Shaders - RenderMan now supports arbitrary imager shaders, operating on both pixel samples and final pixel values.
3. New Texture Format: Ptex - The renderer now supports the Ptex texture format, providing per-face texture mapping. Support is provided in several ways: via the ptexture() shadeop, a new ptxmake utility, and for the .ptx format in the environment ()shadeop.
4. Subdivision Surface API - There is a new API for subdivision surfaces, providing limit surface and subdivision evaluation services for both procedural plugins and standalone applications.

RenderMan Pro Server Website.

For more details or to request a quote, please send us an email at sales@3vis.com.

> RealFlow Updates

Maya plugin for RealFlow updated for Maya 2010. To see the new and improved features, you can now download the the demo version here.

New Houdini plugin now available! Plugin created and maintained by Next Limit in-house. For Houdini production builds: versions 9.5.379, 10.295 and 10.374. Available for Windows 64 and Linux 64. Click here to download the demo version.

RealFlow Website.

For more details or to request a quote, please send us an email at sales@3vis.com.

> Autodesk Maya Promotion - Exclusive 3vis Offer

Purchase Autodesk® Maya® with Subscription and Get a FREE Maya Online Course from Escape (value of $ 299US).

Autodesk® Maya® 2010 software is the first software release to unify the Maya 2009 feature set, advanced matchmoving capabilities and Maya Composite high dynamic range compositing system into a single affordable offering . Also included for a complete creative workflow, are five additional mental ray® for Maya batch* rendering nodes, and the Autodesk® Backburner™** software network render queue manager.

*Feature only available with network license.
**Feature only available for Windows 32-bit / 64-bit and Linux 64-bit operating systems.

Available Maya Online Courses from Escape:

Introduction to Maya Introduction to Animation Introduction to NURBS modeling Introduction to Polygons Introduction to Texturing Introduction to Lighting and Rendering

For all the details: 3vis Maya Promotion.

For more details or to request a quote, please send us an email at sales@3vis.com.

> XSI to Softimage 2010 Migration Promo

Take Advantage of this Limited-time Offer

For a limited time, you can take advantage of Autodesk® Softimage® and receive significant savings. Save up to 50% off when you upgrade from any older version of XSI Essentials or Advanced to Softimage 2010 when purchased with subscription by January 15th, 2010.

Autodesk® Softimage® 2010 software is the fastest version of Softimage ever. This latest release includes the Softimage® Face Robot® facial animation toolset, expanded Interactive Creative Environment (ICE) capability and improved interoperability with Autodesk® Maya® software. Upgrade now and save.

What’s New in Softimage 2010

Top Reasons to Upgrade to Softimage 2010

Free Softimage 2010 Trial

Softimage Subscription Benefits

For more details or to request a quote, please send us an email at sales@3vis.com.

> OCT 24: CG CON in Toronto

TORONTO - OCTOBER 24th, 2009

ANIMATION WITH JASON RYAN & MODELING WITH DANNY WILLIAMS Where: Downtown Toronto, Venue to be confirmed Date: October 24th, 2009, from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM Who: Jason Ryan (Former Animation Mentor, Dreamworks Animation, etc...) view bio. Danny Williams (formerly from Blue Sky, etc...) view bio.

CG CON Website for Info & Registration

> OCT 24-25: Montreal Stop-Motion Film Festival

From the charm of Gumby, to the wild adventures of Wallace and Gromit, through the zaniness of Jack Skellington in The Nightmare before Christmas, we have all fallen under the magical spell of characters brought to life by stop-motion animation! Laboriously created by artists moving puppets in tiny increments while recording one image at a time, each short sequence can represent many hours of painstaking attention to detail. Time consuming? Definitely! But the result can be mesmerizing and possess near universal appeal.

Frequently used in television and feature films, stop-motion animation has recently experienced resurgence. Despite this, getting their work screened can still be a huge struggle for many artists. This is why they have decided to celebrate and encourage the efforts and talent of the many people working in this unique art form.

Festival Website for Info & Registration

> OCT 27-28: GameON Finance 2009 in Toronto

On October 27th and 28th in downtown Toronto, industry experts will explore strategies surrounding funding opportunities including venture capital, angel investment, project financing, public and private equity. GameON: Finance offers great networking opportunities, exceptional value and unmatched industry insight into the world of video game financing and investment.

GameON Finance 2009 is an investment forum for the interactive games industry which will connect game developers, innovators, investors and industry leaders. Over the course of two days in downtown Toronto, case-studies and panel sessions will provide insight on the diverse prospects for growth within the dynamic economic, creative and technological landscape of games.

Interactive Ontario [io], Event Presenter
io is a not-for-profit industry trade organization committed to the growth of the Ontario interactive digital content industry. To this end "io" is an industry advocate within Ontario and nationally as a founding member of the Canadian Interactive Alliance /Alliance interactive canadienne (CIAIC).

GameON Finance Website for Info & Registration

> OCT28: Chris Landreth at SIGGRAPH Vancouver

Get Animated 2009

Chris Landreth shows his latest short film, The Spine, and talks about what he calls "psychorealism," a way of using computer graphics to show the realism of his characters' complicated, messy and very human lives.

Chris will show how his team modeled and animated the complex, detailed characters in his film. He explores the "Uncanny Valley" (the creepy effect of making CGI characters that are too realistic) and how The Spine attempts to avoid this problem. He also shows how his animators used a Method-acting approach to mimic subtle gestures, ticks and micro-expressions in their characters' faces and bodies, and he explains how his crew balanced realism and stylization to create characters that are Uncanny in a positive way.

Website for Info & Registration