On September 7^th, 2011 we held a webinar for Autodesk’s 2012 version of the Entertainment Creative Suites. As ever, registrations for this Autodesk webinar were plentiful, and we're delighted so many of you were able to join us on the day.

Autodesk have an awesome competition running at the moment, with great prizes for the winning and runner-up entries. They are calling out for submissions of a scene or design created on either 3ds Max 2012 or 3ds Max Design 2012. The winning entry will be featured on the 3ds Max Design 2012 box cover and splash screen. Entries will not be judged on production quality, but rather on imagination, innovation and an ingenious use of the Max logo. They are looking for inventive concepts or renderings of architectural designs as well as mechanical or industrial production design. So be adventurous.

In honour of the recently released Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite, Escape Studios are hosting a webinar to highlight some of the nifty tools in this 2012 version. Maya guru Lee Danskin will be walking through how these artist driven tools can assist with multiple pipelines without compromising on creativity. With one click solutions that give faster results, this new edition promises to increase creativity, flexibility and productivity, and won’t burn a hole in your wallet.

For many years now Massive has owned the crowd sim market space, especially at the high end of VFX. Of course some of the larger post-houses have written their own tools, but the availability of any other commercially viable product has been limited.

All Maya 2012 users will be pleased to hear that Autodesk have just released their Maya 2012 Hotfix 1.

I have just attended an Autodesk 'start of financial year kick off meeting' and the guys there mentioned this little jewel.

So Autodesk are at it again with a complete update of all their product line for Media and Entertainment. The update for Maya looks very good, with multi-threading in nucleus - a big plus! Check out the video at the top of this page - it shows the work being done on liquids . The viewport technology begun with viewport 2.0 in 2011. Obviously it was not that great in 2011 but it's a different story with this new 2012 version. All the good stuff is now in there: screen based ambient occlusion, motion blur, depth of field, they are all in the viewport.

If you want to upgrade to Autodesk’s 2011 products for less, then you may want to check out Autodesk’s Upgrade Promotion, but hurry there’s just over a week left.

One of the biggest challenges facing TD's is moving data from one system to another. For example, getting the nice particle animation that you have done in Houdini into Maya for rendering.

Autodesk have announced that Neil Thompson, the Studio Art Director at Bizarre Creations will be taking the guest speaker spot at this year’s Manchester event.