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Side Effects Uncovers Houdini 12 S ide Effects Software has added new features and performance enhancements to its latest Houdini release, Version 12. Built on a new geometry engine, Houdini 12 includes targeted opti- mizations to dynamics and render- ing, and a reworked OpenGL 3 viewport. It also contains Bullet-solver integration, Pyro FX 2, faster, more accurate FLIP Autodesk Unveils 2013 Software, Suites A utodesk has announced the 2013 versions of its Digital Entertainment Creation (DEC) software and suites, as well as its 3D design and engineering software portfolio. The new DEC releases improve consistency and interoperability between applications, making it even easier for artists to take advantage of powerful, new, and enhanced creative features. New is the Entertainment Creation Suite Ultimate edition, which includes 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, Mudbox, and MotionBuilder 2013—all of which are sold individually, as well. The Entertainment Creation Suites now ship with SketchBook Designer 2013 concept art software. The company also announced the 2013 versions of its Flame Premium software. Meanwhile, on the engineering/manufacturing side, Autodesk's 2013 design suites include the Product Design Suite and Factory Design Suite. They integrate with Autodesk 360 cloud offerings and with the new 2013 version of Autodesk Vault product data management software and the company's next-generation, cloud- based alternative, Autodesk PLM 360. Autodesk Vault software enables workgroups to organize, manage, and track their engineering CAD data, manufacturing bills of material and change processes from a centralized location. The 2013 Autodesk Product Design and Factory Design suites are available in three editions: Standard, Premium, and Ultimate, and include updates of numerous products. Pixologic Paints New Picture with ZBrush 4R3 Pixologic has released ZBrush 4R3, which includes signifi cant advance- ments to the FiberMesh settings. Curve modifi ers have now been added to a number of FiberMesh settings: Length, Coverage, Gravity, and Color Profi le. Revolve has also been added as a new setting. Textures applied to FiberMesh and MicroMesh objects can now be transparent, allow- ing greater diversity in their use. ZBrush 4R3 exports both 16- and 32-bit vector displacement maps, making it easy to export sculpted details to other programs for rendering. Artists can also now convert MicroMesh and Fiber- Mesh renders into actual geometry with a single click. 8 April/May 2012 fl uids, production-ready cloth, an Alembic exporter, and more. Houdini's Mantra renderer now brings physically based rendering to volumes, such as smoke and fi re. Mantra also includes a 300x speed improvement when instanc- ing to points. Houdini Escape is available for $1,995, and Houdini Master sells for $6,695. Out of the Boxx: the 8920 B oxx Technologies has unveiled the 3DBoxx 8920 workstation, featuring up to 16 cores (32 threads) of high- powered, multi-tasking performance. Designed to accommodate multi- threading, multiple applications, and complex production pipelines, the 8920 also has expanded to include additional memory and up to three Nvidia GPUs for faster performance for both CPU- and GPU-based rendering, simulation, and raytracing tasks.