Creation Engine Blog

CGSociety - Fear of the Dark

My intention was to create a weird character, with a different theme to what I had done before. This guy’s style was based on four animals: a tiger; a deer; a lobster and a larva. The goal of this picture was to create a dark mood; then something strange and funny at the same time. I created this character with 3ds Max, Photoshop, Mental ray, Mudbox and Hair FX. I actually started this character without first doing a 2D sketch.

Link via VMware

The VMware Fusion team is proud to announce VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1.

This public beta, a free download, boasts a handful of industry firsts for Mac virtualization, including true multi-display support for virtual machines and experimental DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 3D acceleration.

The team is also extremely happy to announce that VMware Fusion 2.0, when released, will be a free downloadable upgrade for all VMware Fusion 1.x customers, as a sincere thank you to our early supporters.

Now, on to the features!

VMware Fusion is available at an academic discount price of $37.

Link via Washington Post

Adobe NSDQ: ADBE is licensing its video-enabling Flash software for free for mobile devices in an attempt to make the technology as ubiquitous on handsets as it is on PCs. AP reports that the company has also launched the “Open Screen Project,” a broad partnership that aims to provide a more “consistent experience” for Flash across PCs, mobiles and other devices.

The partnership has support from handset makers Motorola NYSE: MOT, Nokia NYSE: NOK, Samsung, Sony NYSE: SNE Ericsson NSDQ: ERIC, Toshiba; from chipmakers Intel NSDQ: INTC and Qualcomm; and content providers including NBC Universal NYSE: GE, MTV Networks NYSE: VIA and the BBC among others. Currently, mobile game and video developers have to tweak their applications, “cranking out numerous versions” for them to work across a variety of handsets and devices. Adobe says that it hopes to eliminate this with their project.

Create Flash files with Flash CS3 Professional - available at an academic discount price of $245.

Link via Creative Mac

At the end of the day, you really can’t go wrong with Toast 9 Titanium. Toast itself is a great DVD burning package that gives you an exceptional amount of options for any and all of your burning needs, and the addition of all the extra programs makes this a $79 you won’t mind spending, it’s just too bad that Roxio is charging an extra $20 for the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray plug-in.

Toast 9 Titanium is available at an academic discount price of $79.

Link via Adobe

Adobe plans to stop development and sales of Adobe® GoLive® 9 software, its legacy web authoring application, on April 28, 2008. We will instead focus development and sales resources on our market-leading web design and development application, Adobe Dreamweaver®. Dreamweaver plays a pivotal role in the web and cross-media workflows supported by Adobe Creative Suite® software, as well as in Adobes platform for rich Internet applications, including Adobe Flex® and the Adobe AIR™ runtime. Concentrating on Dreamweaver will enable us to better serve the needs of customers who want to create engaging websites and applications.

Dreamweaver CS3 is available at an academic discount price of $195.

The latest Creation Engine Catalog is now available.

Request a free catalog if you’re not on our mailing list.

Download a PDF of the catalog.

Details on the catalog cover.

Link via Digital Producer

I have always found Corel Draw to be invaluable as a drawing program and for almost all my desktop publishing needs; in fact, I used it more for DTP than drawing. I did however, while searching for a more affordable alternative, switch to another product and therefore did not upgrade past Version 12. It was a huge switch as I had used Corel Draw since version 8. In reviewing the new Corel Draw Graphic Suite X4, I am happy to say that I am not surprised, it feels like home. The enhancements didn’t change the way I was accustomed to working. I maneuvered easily through the improved interface; I didn’t get lost in anything new.

CorelDRAW X4 Graphics Suite is available at an academic discount price of $92.

Link via Creation Engine

Link via PC Pro

Microsoft’s Exchange may be the “you won’t be fired for buying it” choice for SMEs, but there are number of mail server choices available. With this release, Kerio MailServer becomes our favoured option, with numerous advantages over both Exchange and rivals like Gordano.

We’re impressed by Kerio’s ability to support a wide range of clients (more on that later), but it can also run under a wide variety of operating systems. From Windows 2000 Professional SP4 to 2003 Server to Vista Business, from Red Hat Linux to SUSE Linux to Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 - everything’s covered.

Kerio MailServer 6.5 is available at an academic discount price from Creation Engine.

Link via PC Magazine

Overall, I’d say that Microsoft Student 2008 is very helpful to students across all the grades it targets (late middle school through high school). It has some quirks, but not many, and it offers plenty of varied articles, lots of links, and tons of examples. It’s well worth the price, and I’d recommend it to any student looking for help on a project, needing inspiration for a book report, or just wanting to spruce up an assignment. There’s really no other product available that includes everything that Student does. Sure, you’ll find other software for specific math areas such as Algebra, and there are other online encyclopedias, such as Britannica.com, compiled by accredited experts, but these alone cost more than Student. Nothing else gives you nearly the wealth of tools and resources you find in Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008, making it a PC Magazine Editors’ Choice for educational software.

Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 is available at an academic discount price of $41.