Corel, in conjunction with Wacom Technology’s launch of its 6D Art Pen, has introduced Corel Painter IX Art Pen Brush Pack. The new offering is a collection of Corel Painter brushes designed to take advantage of the six-dimensional pen from Wacom that works with Wacom Intuos3 and Cintiq models. Five brushes are included in the Art Pen Brush Pack: a thin, smooth calligraphy brush; grainy calligraphy brush; soft, flat oils brush; square, grainy pastel brush; and tapered gouache brush. The smooth calligraphy, grainy calligraphy, and pastel brushes enable the artist to move the pen stroke through a full 360-degree rotation. Corel’s new Art Pen Brush Pack is available as a free download to Painter IX users. Corel Painter IX is priced at $429 for the full version and $229 as an upgrade.
Corel; www.corel.com/painter
Particle Effects
Wondertouch has unveiled a collection of preset particle effects, Wondertouch Particle Emitters for Motion, designed for use with Apple’s Motion software. Wondertouch’s latest offering provides various particle effects, the parameters of which can be customized for the creation of smoke, fire, explosion, or organic background elements. Wondertouch Particle Emitters for Motion is available in three packages: Small, Medium, and Large. The large edition, for example, incorporates 330 particle emitters and is priced at $149.
Wondertouch; www.wondertouch.com
Rotoscoping
Silhouette FX LLC has started shipping Silhouette Roto, a plug-in for Adobe After Effects and Apple’s Final Cut Pro. The rotoscoping plug-in offers beziers, b-splines, a multi-frame editing mode, support for 8- and 16-bit depths, and tools for drawing, reshaping, and transforming shapes. Silhouette Roto users can rotate, scale, skew/shear, move, and corner-pin shapes, as well as preview final composites. It also features motion blur, variable-edge blur, motion trackers, and OpenGL hardware-accelerated rendering. The company also debuted a stand-alone version of Silhouette Roto-complete with floating-point processing, 8- and 16-bit support, and the ability to include multiple sessions in a single project-for the Linux, Mac, and Windows operating systems. Silhouette Roto is priced $395 as a plug-in, $495 as stand-alone software, and $595 for both.
Silhouette FX LLC; www.silhouettefx.com
Controllers
3Dconnexion, a Logitech company, has introduced the SpacePilot intelligent motion controller for content creation, design, and analysis applications. Designed to increase productivity, SpacePilot offers 3D motion control, function keys with adaptive technology, and a built-in LCD. The function speed keys provide quick access to frequent program commands and LCD-based labeling that corresponds to the application in use. When the user switches applications or tasks within an application, the speed keys and dynamic LDC automatically adapt to the change. Keys can be not only labeled according to common functions-such as Ctrl, Shift, Alt, and Esc-in professional 3D applications, but also organized in multiple banks; users can switch banks to gain access to a far greater number of keys. The SpacePilot sports improvements in the controller cap, spring suspension, and software.
3Dconnexion; www.3dconnexion.com
Wacom Technology has developed, with the support of Corel, the 6D Art Pen designed to provide digital artists and designers with six dimensions of pen control while working in Corel Painter IX. The 6D Art Pen, priced at $70, is compatible with Wacom’s Intuos3 pressure-sensitive tablets and Cintiq 21UX interactive pen display. The six dimensions of the new pen are described as: X-axis, Y-axis, pressure, tilt (or the angle of the pen when tilted), bearing (the direction in which the pen is tilted), and barrel rotation (the orientation of the pen around its long axis). To date, Corel Painter IX Art Pen Brush Pack, Synthetk’s Studio Artist, Maxon’s Body Paint, and Kyma’s Studio and Symbolic Sound are designed to benefit from Wacom’s 6D Art Pen.
Wacom Technology; www.wacom.com
Video
Pinnacle Systems, in the process of being acquired by Avid Technology, has released Pinnacle Deko 1000HD, its broadcast-quality system for creating and playing back HD graphics. Based on the company’s standard-definition Deko solutions, Pinnacle Deko 1000HD provides a straightforward, broadcast-focused work flow with the ability to deliver footage in native 720p and 1080i HD resolutions, and support of exiting assets in the 16:9 HD format.
Pinnacle Systems; www.pinnaclesys.com
Workstation
Alienware has presented its MJ-12m 7700 mobile workstation, designed with video-production engineers and digital content creators in mind. An Intel Pentium 4 processor 530 with HT technology and a choice of the new Nvidia Quadro FX Go 1400 or Nvidia GeForce Go 6800 graphics cards ensure the system delivers the performance and reliability necessary in 3D animation, visual effects, and postproduction applications. The MJ-12m 7700 sports PCI Express technology, a 17-inch wide-screen XGA or SXGA+ Entertainment LCD, 256
mb of DDR2 memory at 533
mhz, and an 80
gb hard drive.
Alienware; www.alienware.com
Stock Options
Digital Juice has introduced its second volume of royalty-free stock footage, VideoTraxx 2. Delivered as QuickTime files in the NTSC television standard format, each piece of footage in the collection was shot professionally on film and video at standard- and high-definition resolutions. VideoTraxx 2 includes the Juicer, Digital Juice’s software utility that serves as a media manager and enables users to browse, preview, and convert video clips. More than 3000 video clips spanning 32 DVDs comprise VideoTraxx 2, now available and priced at $599.
Digital Juice; www.digitaljuice.com