Link via Crave – CNET
Close to a year after launching its excellent graphics tablet, the Intuos4 series, Wacom releases an updated version with Bluetooth wireless connectivity. Available only in the medium-size version for about $399, $50 more than its USB-only twin, the Intuos4 Wireless becomes a great option for artists and illustrators on the go–or even sedentary ones with an aversion to wires.
The Wireless model runs off a replaceable lithium ion battery that charges via the USB connection. You have to charge it before going wireless, as well as be physically connected to install the driver. After that, Bluetooth setup is fairly typical. You switch the tablet on and press a button to initiate the “I’m here!” broadcast and wait for your system to discover the tablet, which is essentially treated as a mouse. Note that the tablet doesn’t ship with a dongle, so if your system doesn’t have Bluetooth you’ll have to deal with that separately.
Intuos4 Wireless Tablet Medium is available from Creation Engine for $375.
Link via Blogcritics Sci/Tech
 E-On software’s Vue 8 is the latest update to the line of Vue solutions for natural 3D environments. There are seven versions of Vue. Pioneer is the entry level version for newcomers to 3D graphics. Frontier is the next level for creating scenes with Poser import. Esprit is designed for artists and illustrators. Studio is geared for the advanced artist, and Complete is for the small studio. Vue Infinite is designed for the professional 3D animator and production studio. Vue xStream is the integrated solution that can work directly in other 3D applications such as Maya, 3ds, Lightwave, Softimage, and Cinema 4D. To see all of the differences, you can check out the different solutions provide.
As with the prior version, Vue 8 Infinite is nothing short of incredible! At first blush, one might look at this product and say that this is really only useful for animation and film production, but that would not be taking into account all of the other industries that could benefit from its use.
For example, if you are a builder, architect, landscape designer, or other professional that needs to emulate an environment, Vue 8 is the perfect application to model your design and/or prototype as a proof of concept design. If you are in advertising, what better way to provide backgrounds and other layout art without having to go on location or pay a high-dollar firm to do equivalent work. The uses are endless.
Vue 8 Infinite DVD (1-year license) Mac/Windows is available at an educational discount price of $99
Vue 8 xStream DVD (1-year license) Mac/Windows is available at an educational discount price of $149.
Link via Official Google SketchUp Blog
The countdown to the 2010 Winter Olympics has begun, and the Google Boulder office has been busy modeling the Olympic venues in Vancouver, BC using Google SketchUp.
Last month, we introduced photo-realistic 3D models for eight of the nine venues hosting the games.
Today, we released updates to many of the models using higher-resolution imagery, and, the last venue for the Olympics: the Bobsled Course!
Google SketchUp 7 is free.
Google SketchUp Pro 7 is available at a student discount price of $49.
Google SketchUp Pro 7 is free for instructors.
Google SketchUp Pro 7 Lab licenses are available at a school discount price of $15.
Link via Wired
In the Wired article “In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits” Solidworks is mentioned as the 3D tool used by the creator of BrickArms.
 For a final example of that, swing to the Seattle suburbs to meet Will Chapman of BrickArms. Out of a small industrial space, BrickArms fills gaps in the Lego product line, going where the Danish toy giant fears to tread: hardcore weaponry, from Lego-scale AK-47s to frag grenades that look like they came straight out of Halo 3. The parts are more complex than the average Lego component, but they’re manufactured to an equal quality and sold online to thousands of Lego fans, kids and adults, who want to create cooler scenes than the standard kits allow.
Lego operates on an industrial scale, with a team of designers working in a highly secure campus in Billund, Denmark. Engineers model prototypes and have them fabricated in dedicated machine shops. Then, once they meet approval, they’re manufactured in large injection molding plants. Parts are created for kits, and those kits have to be play-tested, priced for mass retail, and shipped and inventoried months in advance of their sale at Target or Walmart. The only parts that make it out of this process are those that will sell in the millions.
Chapman works at a different scale. He designs parts using SolidWorks 3-D software, which can create a reverse image that’s used to produce a mold. He sends the file to his desktop CNC router, a Taig 2018 mill that costs less than $1,000, which grinds the mold halves out of aircraft-grade aluminum blocks. Then he puts them in his hand-pressed injection molding machine, melts some resin beads, and pumps them through. A few minutes later, he’s got a prototype to show to fans. If they like it, he gets a local toolmaker to reproduce the mold out of steel and a US-based injection molding company to make batches of a few thousand.
SolidWorks Student Edition 2009-2010 is available at a student discount price of $129.
Link via arstechnica
 With Windows 7, however, Redmond has provided a solution to the problem: Windows XP Mode. Windows XP Mode uses virtualization technology to let applications running on a virtualized copy of Windows XP show up in the Windows 7 Start menu and on the Windows 7 desktop.
Windows XP Mode is a downloadable add-on for Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise. It has two parts: the virtualization software itself, and a disk image containing a pre-installed, activated, licensed copy of Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 preinstalled, complete with the glorious Internet Explorer 6.
Windows 7 is available from Creation Engine.
Link via eWeek
 MindManager 8 for Mac now integrates with native Mac software, including iCal, Address Book, and iWork. The new iCal integration easily lets users track To Do lists and multiple calendars.
Mindjet features standard Apple gesture support on the multitouch Trackpad, allowing users “pinch and expand” to zoom in on the map. New Magic Mouse support enables “three finger roll” for scrolling through the map.
Users can also publish maps in social media networks such as Facebook and MySpace and export maps in PDF or Flash format using Mindjet Player.
MindManager 8 for Mac is available at an educational discount price of $99. Upgrades are available for $49.
Link via Luxology Community
From the Luxology Community Member Profile for Barnaby Cunning:
The LEGO House was a full-sized house built in the summer of 2009 using approximately 3.5 million regular LEGO bricks as part of James May’s Toy Stories, a television series produced by Plum Pictures for the BBC.
According to Barnaby Gunning, the designer of the house:
I was approached by Plum Pictures, the production company for the entire series, after they had already ordered the LEGO for the house but before that had actually received any of it. So that I could get moving on the design as quickly as possible I made a quick virtual LEGO set in modo and used this to build models of basic components that could be made up using several hundred LEGO pieces each. modo made it easy for me to explain how these should be made so that we could get prototype components made for testing and so that we could get the general public to make them in their thousands.
modo 401 1-year license is available at an educational discount price of $139.
Link via CGSociety
Interview with the creators of Machinarium describing how they used Photoshop and Flash to bring their hand drawn drawings to life:
We felt we needed something warm with visible human touch in it to create a contrast to that robotic world that the character goes into, so we came up with an idea of hand-drawn backgrounds which are scanned and finished in Photoshop. Also the animations are mostly hand-animated frame by frame, the sounds effects live recorded and the music full of live instruments.
Amanita Design only used Photoshop for backgrounds and characters and then Flash for animation and the game itself. “So first we would make the design sketches and initial concept art (all on paper), then the backgrounds and characters are drawn on paper. It only get scanned and finished in Photoshop (shades, colors, textures).
The final bitmaps are imported to Flash and all the animations are done and then it goes to the programer,” explains Jakub.
Photoshop CS4 Extended and Flash CS4 Professional are available at an educational discount price from Creation Engine.
Save $50 on education versions of Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 Design Premium, Production Premium, Web Premium, and Master Collection. Offer ends March 5, 2010. Choose the suite that’s right for you and start creating highly innovative print, web, video, mobile, and rich media projects.
 Free Total Training Acrobat 9 Pro Essentials Training DVD ($64 value) with your purchase of Acrobat 9 Pro!
Offer good through 2/28/2010.
Acrobat 9 Professional is available at an educational discount price of $145.
|
Twitter Feeds
|
