While, it is usually better buying the DVD/BluRay discs for the special features, AWNtv.com has a growing selection of VFX breakdown videos that could prove useful.

Props to my friend Policarpo (an amazing artist) for posting me on this one. Blur has released some beta tools (no warranties implied) to make life easier for Max and XSI users.

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Before we start introducing a lot of compositing workflow I thought instead to introduce the concept through a variety of concepts provided by some resources by some generous people. Before I end the suspense, I want to quickly discuss a couple of concepts. In my opinion there are two main issues that revolve around compositing and those are bit-depth and alpha mulitiplication.

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As development ensues, Autodesk posted an interview with Dave Cardwell on AREA with a sneak peek as what is to come with Mudbox 2. In a lot of workflow we use sculpting programs like Mudbox to create normal maps to define low polygon models.

Within the demo, Autodesk is boasting 25 million polygons on screen with HDRI lighting, GPU ambient occlussion and other goodies. Check it out.

I really have to hand it to the folks creating blender. For an opensource application and one that is complicated (any CG app is) Blender has quite a complete feature set which I hope to cover at some time. As an opening to covering Blender, here’s a hotkey map that should lend some help considering the UI is not the most comfortable (at least to start).