DIGITAL PRODUCTION

For those who don’t know the tool: 3DF Zephyr turns photographs and video into point clouds, meshes, textures and survey data for VFX, games, mapping, infrastructure and heritage work. 3DF Zephyr 9 adds Gaussian Splatting generation directly to 3Dflow’s photogrammetry application. Users can generate a splat inside Zephyr without transferring the reconstruction to a separate application. The new workflow accepts either a sparse point cloud or a mesh-derived dense cloud.

For those who don’t know the Award: The FilmLight CAMERIMAGE Colour Awards sit outside the software stack but inside the grading ecosystem: feature, episodic, commercial and documentary colourists can enter from any finishing platform, while winners receive Baselight M access. The FilmLight CAMERIMAGE Colour Awards 2026 are open for submissions until 31 July 2026. The sixth edition accepts work graded on any colour grading system.

For those who don’t know the tool: ArcGIS CityEngine generates procedural 3D cities for planning, architectural visualisation and entertainment. Its models can move into DCC and realtime pipelines including Houdini and Unreal Engine. CityEngine 2026 takes its Python 3 integration out of beta. The API now has feature parity with the older Jython implementation, while projects can select either environment independently.

For those who don’t know the tool: Thinkbox MX is a legacy 3ds Max plugin set from AWS Thinkbox, covering Krakatoa, Frost, XMesh and Stoke for particles, meshing, caching and simulation in Max-based VFX pipelines. Josef “spacefrog” Wienerroither has posted new 3ds Max community builds for Krakatoa MX, Frost MX, XMesh MX Loader and XMesh MX Saver. The builds list support from 3ds Max 2018 to 2027 and now use installer packages.

For those who don’t know the tool: EasyWaterscape is a William Faucher water system for Unreal Engine, sold on Fab. It sits between environment lookdev, realtime previs, game levels and cinematic rendering, alongside Faucher’s other Easy tools. EasyWaterscape targets water simulation in Unreal Engine 5.7+. The package is sold as a single Blueprint actor for real-time ocean surfaces, with presets, exposed controls and tooltips. The page lists EasyWaterscape from $59.99, before any applicable taxes.

For those who don’t know the tool: Nukepedia is a long-running community resource for Foundry Nuke, hosting free tools, gizmos and scripts. nuBridge brings that library directly into Nuke, so artists can browse, install and manage tools without playing download-folder archaeology.

For those who don’t know the tool: Matcha Pro is a Maya plug-in for reference cameras, camera matching and projection-based texturing. It exports layered PSD stacks for Photoshop and is distributed through ArtStation Marketplace. Kanstantsin V. has released Matcha, a free Maya plug-in for artists working with image planes, photo references and camera matching. Matcha Pro extends the same idea into projection painting, layered exports and scene migration.

For those who don’t know the tool: Adobe Premiere is a non-linear editor for picture editing, audio post and finishing workflows. The Generative Media Tool works inside the sequence, placing generated material where an editor has selected empty timeline space instead of sending the job through a separate export-import loop. The Generative Media Tool is now available in Premiere beta. Editors select it from the Tools panel, drag across a timeline range, enter a text prompt and choose a model.

Update: FilmLight is running a free Zoom webinar today, Thursday 9 July, introducing the new FL API toolset discussed below. The session is scheduled for 9 AM PST / noon EST / 5 PM GMT and will cover how the API can be used to build post-production tools that connect with everyday Baselight and wider pipeline workflows.

For those who don’t know the tool: ByHand is an early-alpha Windows application for focused digital sculpting, form studies and character or creature practice. Built with the Godot Engine, it is a lightweight standalone tool rather than an all-purpose DCC. ByHand is a free digital-sculpting application (early Alpha version!) from Truong CG Artist, aimed at form studies, figurative work, characters, creatures and busts.