Autodesk has launched 123D Creature, the latest in its family of consumer iPad apps. The tool enables users to sculpt and pose 3D characters using a basic skeletal system, paint the models and export them for 3D printing.

Making original characters with Autodesk 123D Creature starts with a simple skeleton creator where users lay out the basic anatomy of their creature in digital clay. Multi-Touch gestures allow users to thicken, stretch and sculpt their creature with many of the tools familiar to users of the popular 123D Sculpt app. Once finished sculpting and shaping, a creature can be airbrushed or adorned with decals and textures imported from the user’s iPad photo library. To show off a finished creation, users can bring the creature into the render room where they can customize lighting and shadows, apply filters, and import background photos to generate amazing images to share with their friends.

RHINO LIVE integrates the Arion technology right into McNeel's Rhinoceros 3D 5.0. With it you can benefit from the power of physically-based, unbiased and GPU accelerated rendering from within your native Rhinoceros 3D environment. Beside the key features of the physically-based renderer, native Rhinoceros 3D plug-in, displacement, instancing  and photo-realistic materials the integration tears down the obstacles which can occurs using another renderer and allows to work naturally and comfortably inside Rhinoceros 3D. Because RHINO LIVE is based on the Arion technology it takes advantages of all the compatible (CPU+GPU) hardware inside your computer. Besides the main key features which you get using the Arion technology, RHINO LIVE integrates a new interactive display window called IAD (Interactive Arion Display).

Luxion releases KeyShot 4, the next generation of Luxion’s groundbreaking rendering and animation solution.

Luxion continues to develop their rendering technology to bring speed and improvements to KeyShot, making it an even more integral part of the product development process, from concept all the way through to sales and marketing. This release builds on the integration and accuracy that sets KeyShot apart from other rendering solutions allowing designers, engineer, marketing professionals, CGI artists, and photographers to create stunning renderings, animations and interactive visuals even faster than ever before.

Nvidia has released a nice little video showing off some of the new APEX Turbulence features of its PhysX physics system, using footage from the free-to-play mech shooter Hawken.

Unlike the SPH-like (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics) systems commonly used in games, APEX Turbulence is a grid-based fluid solver, and calculates only surface turbulence and velocity fields.