New CG software you may have missed: 9 August 2026
FumeFX 7.6 for 3ds Max’s new Multigrid PCG solver speeds up smoke and fire simulation.
While CG Channel tries to write the major new versions of CG software released each week, sometimes there are smaller updates or useful plugins that we don’t manage to cover.
Rather then letting those releases slip past unnoticed, we’ve put together a round-up of updates to VFX, animation and motion graphics tools that didn’t get full stories last week.
Below, you can find summaries of what’s new in the Character Control Rig add-on for Blender, multiphysics add-on FumeFX 7.6 for 3ds Max, and tracking software PFTrack 26.08.
Blender animators! We just pushed a major update to our MetaHuman animation pipeline!
It now supports 2 rig frameworks: Rigify and Auto Rig Pro. Skeleton templates now leverage our brand-new retargeting engine. You can grab character animations from 8 different sources, and… pic.twitter.com/3EDSlL81st
— Poly Hammer (@PolyHammerTools) August 7, 2026
Character Control Rig 0.3.1 for Blender
Overview
The add-on for generating control rigs for Unreal Engine MetaHuman characters inside Blender gets a new animation retargeting engine and support for the Auto-Rig Pro framework.
New features
- Now supports the Auto-Rig Pro framework (Auto Rig Pro 3.78.34) as well as Rigify
- New retargeting engine intelligently maps imported animation files straight onto your control rig
- Retargeting supports the following skeletons: Mixamo, MetaHuman, UE4 Mannequin, UE5 Mannequin, SOMA, Reallusion, Rokoko, Xsens
Price and system requirements
No changes since our story on the original release of Character Control Rig for Blender.
Read a full list of new features in Character Control Rig 0.3.1 in Poly Hammer’s online portal
(Free account required)
FumeFX 7.6 for 3ds Max
Overview
The 3ds Max multiphysics plugin gets a CPU/GPU Multigrid PCG pressure solver, speeding up smoke and fire sims, and new tools for editing caches without re-simulating.
New features
- New Multigrid PCG solver (CPU and GPU) for up to 2x the GPU simulation speed compared to PCG and overall 10x faster than CPU simulation with FumeFX 5
- New post-load Fast Upres algorithm adds detail to cached simulations without re-simulating
- New post-load Retimer algorithm changes playback speed of cached simulations without re-simulating
- New memory cache keeps Upres, Retime and Sharpen interactive during playback and scrubbing
- VDB export now supports Unreal Engine 5’s VDB requirements
- GPU viewport display is 10-20% faster
- Updates to Ocean Spectra and Ocean Dynamics
Price
No changes since our story on FumeFX 7.5 for 3ds Max.
System requirement
FumeFX 7.6 for 3ds Max is compatible with 3ds Max 2022-2026 on Windows 10+.
Read an overview of the new features in FumeFX 7.6 for 3ds Max on Facebook
Read a full list of new features in FumeFX 7.6 for 3ds Max in the online release notes
PFTrack 26.08
Overview
The matchmoving tool for VFX and visualization gets workflow improvements, and updates to Hero Cloud, its new node for building dense point clouds from a solved camera.
New features
- Internal 2D imaging coordinate systems now match better third-party applications
- OpenEXR import now selects full or half-float bit depth more intelligently
- Hero Cloud processing time is reduced when working with portrait-oriented clips
- New relink buttons for Mask and ST-Map in the Clip Input node
- Auto Track now distributes spatial features more effectively when using smaller tracker counts
Price and system requirements
No changes since our story on PFTrack 26.05.
Read an overview of the new features in PFTrack 26.08 on The Pixel Farm’s blog
Read a full list of the new features in PFTrack 26.08 in the online release notes
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