I don't travel in the mechanical CAD circles as much as I used to, but I still use CAD data in my animation workflows on almost a daily basis, so I do like to keep a pinky finger on the pulse of the MCAD industry. So when I heard about Alibre Inc.'s (http://www.alibre.com/) rather unique offer of their full featured Design Standard CAD software for the very sexy price of $99 USD, I took a step back. My first thought was, "Wow, they must be really desperate!". After that, I quickly grabbed my trusty AMEX card and bought a license! Am I crazy? More...

Like many people, I am quick to complain when a product or service doesn't live up to expectations. Today I am going to buck that trend and write about a company with a product and customer support that continuously exceeds my expectations, nPower Software.

A Superbly Crafted Plug-In

I have been a customer of nPower Software for years, using their products for CAD-based product animation projects. Current 3ds max users are likely to be using nPower's ProBoolean tools, which are now included as a standard part of 3ds max. I want to specifically address Power Translators, which allows me to import and manipulate NURBS data in 3ds max. More...

I am freshly back from the family viewing of Pixar's Up, and I have to say that I am exhausted! It is quite taxing being sucked into and then pulled out of a great family adventure. The other reason stems from a lackluster experience with 3D that lessened my enjoyment of a day at the cinema. Let's start with the high notes, and there are plenty of those!

When will the streak end?

I hope that Pixar never stumbles, and though I know it can't last forever, theirs is the kind of streak that benefits society as a whole. Quite simply, this movie is fabulous. Both of my thumbs are pointed straight "up", and I would recommend this film to anyone in a heartbeat. I literally get caught "up" (last one I promise) in movies like these and am emotionally spent when they are over. I used to think that since for some reason these stories were geared specifically for me (and my kids). I am realizing that Pixar tells stories in a way that everyone feels they were written especially for them. More...

I have finally had a chance to start to use 3ds max 2010 in some of my project work, and I have to say that I am really enjoying it. This, as you already may know, was a pretty major release with some big functionality changes. I haven’t kicked down all of the new doors yet, but I do have some pretty nice things to say about what I have used thus far. More...