Pixar ships RenderMan 21
Major update to the heavyweight production renderer adds Pixar's own in-house shaders and lights, removes Reyes rendering and RSL.
Wednesday, July 20th, 2016
PBR
Blender add-on mimics the PxrDisney shader in Cycles
Updated: Onelvxe Studios' add-on mimics RenderMan's 'ubershader' in Blender. Now a paid-for product as well as a free beta.
Tuesday, July 19th, 2016
Pilgway releases 3D-Coat 4.7
Big update to voxel sculpting and painting package adds 'completely remade' PBR shading system, plus neat new low-poly retopology tools.
Saturday, July 9th, 2016
Redshift 2.0 ships: new 3ds Max version also available
Hotly tipped biased GPU-based renderer gets new PBR material, support for volumetrics and baking.
Tuesday, July 5th, 2016
Epic Games releases Unreal Engine 4.11
Big update to game engine includes new Sequencer cinematics editor. Source code for the upcoming VR Editor also available.
Wednesday, April 6th, 2016
NewTek previews LightWave 2016
Updated: See the new scene editor and a side-by-side performance comparison with LightWave 2015.
Tuesday, March 29th, 2016
Tachyon Render promises real-time PBR in Cinema 4D
Promising new C4D renderer uses game engine techniques for fast, accurate physically based shading.
Friday, March 11th, 2016
Mankua Software releases PixaFlux in free open beta
New node-based image editor lets users design normal maps and preview the result in a PBR viewport.
Monday, February 15th, 2016
Jens Kafitz releases Mari Extension Pack 3 R2
Updated: Free R2 update adds new edge wear presets, Quixel-like Dynamask system to the powerful collection of Mari tools.
Friday, January 22nd, 2016
FrostSoft ships PixelBerg 1.8 for Cinema 4D
Promising real-time PBR render engine now supports C4D's standard renderer for final-quality images.
Friday, January 15th, 2016
Allegorithmic releases Substance Painter 1.7
Texture painting software gets updated brush engine, plus new Dota 2, car paint and velvet shaders.
Friday, December 18th, 2015
Quixel ships Quixel Suite 2.0
Updated, now shipping: Games texturing toolkit gets powerful 3D painting and map baking options. See the new features in action here.
Monday, November 30th, 2015
NewTek announces new LightWave pricing
Cost of new licences up, upgrades from the current version down. Also: new volumetric and PBR engine due in LightWave 2016.
Wednesday, September 30th, 2015