Hiperia3D News: 2011

Spanish Forest Vol 3
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Zoner Photo Studio 14: Spectacular Improvements
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This is the review of the latest, recently released, version of Zoner Photo Studio, an excellent software package for photography. This version adds amazing speed improvements, new edition tools, and an awesome tone mapping HDR feature.

INTRO

I've been using Zoner Photo Studio since I discovered it, and now they have released the 14th version, which is the most complete specialized photo software in the market today.

I say this because many people use graphics editing programs for photo retouch, and this is an error. A specialized software like Zoner Photo Studio has much more to offer than those, because it was specially designed for this task.

Zoner Photo Studio interface. All photos seen here are © Jordi R. Cardona

A graphics editing program is just a drawing and image composing program, and no matter how many features it has, it was designed to make a wide range of tasks, and applications like Zoner Photo Studio are always superior because of their different approach.

Zoner Photo Studio 14 is a real studio for all your photography needs, and in addition, it contains lots of features of image editing and processing, that you can also use it for lots of other tasks. But as its approach is from photography, it always makes those other tasks from the perspective of keeping the maximum quality of the final results, which is what matters in photography. Of course, this approach is perfect for any other usage, because maximum quality in any file format is always desirable.

In addition, as it is not thought for graphics computer geeks, but for photographers, artists, and creative people, it is highly intuitive. You just have to install it and play with the controls, and you will see that everything works as your intuition says, no need to read boring manuals or get training. In case of need, you have integrated help, that is easy to understand and use.

The amount of tasks you can do with Zoner is enormous. All phases, from extracting RAW files from your card or camera to making the final works are covered. Soon I found myself also using this software for all kind of other tasks like taking screenshots, optimizing images for the web, composing images for tutorials, browsing and making textures...

I found Zoner PS when searching for a RAW viewer for my photos, but soon while testing the free version I saw it was not only a very fast RAW browser, but also an awesome photo editor. Later, I was amazed that it had so many other features, that allowed me to make everything I wish with an image.

Before I owned ZPS I used a lot of apps for the same tasks and now I only use this. Zoner can do all those things and can do them much better.

INCREASED SPEED (EVEN MORE)

I can simply say that Zoner PS is the best software amongst all other specialized photo programs, because of all those features and also because of the great speed when dealing with RAW files.

In version 14, this amazing speed has been improved even more, taking advantage of CUDA and OpenCL.

This gives you a faster response when directly browsing RAW images, and also speeds up some filters and operations. I have noticed a speed improvement between version 13 and 14.

HDR WITH TONE MAPPING

The most amazing feature introduced with version 14 is Tone Mapping HDR. In previous versions, another type of HDR was already present: Exposure Blending HDR. Now you have the two kinds of HDR techniques so you can choose which one you like for what you want to do.

A HDR tone mapping photo by me © Jordi R. Cardona

For those who don't know, I will explain what HDR is in a simple way (and inaccurate, I know). HDR is a technique to increase the quality of the images taken with a camera so they display more details. If you take it to a extreme, it can create something that improves reality.

There are two types of HDR, that achieve 2 different things.

Let's say that you take a photo in a situation in which some parts of the image appear too bright or too dark, like for example a sunset or a sunrise, that has a sky with lots of clouds but the sun makes it all white. Or a building under hard light that makes some side appear completely black.

In this situation, Exposure Blending HDR can restore the details in the photo, so the clouds in the sky are visible, and the details of the dark areas are also visible. This way, the image becomes something much more similar to what you saw through your eyes when you were in that place. The purpose of this HDR technique is to make a beautiful photo that truly reflects the beauty of a place where you've been. The photo wins a lot of quality, becomes much more detailed.

The other situation is when you use Tone Mapping HDR. The most popular landscape photos nowadays use this technique. You may have seen spectacular landscapes in which colors appear improved, altered more or less, with a strong emotive atmosphere. This is tone mapping HDR. A good photo is taken, and through this technique, becomes better than reality, something intense and supernatural.

Now Zoner Photo Studio 14 includes both HDR types. And which is more interesting, you can make HDR from any photo. Usually, all HDR software requires that you take several photos of the same thing with different light settings (exposure). But with Zoner PS you can do it from several photos, or from a single photo!

Another photo improved with HDR, not a landscape but moving water © Jordi R. Cardona

What this means is that you can apply HDR to any photo you take. This opens lots of possibilities for you. For example you can use HDR on a portrait, on a pet photo, on a macro shot, on sports photography, and lots of situations in which taking several photos of something in the same position is impossible. You can simply go out, shot a photo to a landscape or anything, and later see how it looks with HDR applied.

I have used this technique with Zoner with my photos and achieved spectacular results. In the market there are some HDR programs, but I see that Zoner is much simpler to use than any of them, and the results are better. In addition, it can do it from a single photo! And Zoner PS even costs less money! If you are wanting to apply HDR to your photos, now you have no excuse!

NEW TOOLS AND FEATURES

Zoner Photo Studio 14 has added some very nice tools like the Deform tool, and Fill with Surroundings.

The Deform tool is a kind of brush that you can use to change the shape of some part of a photograph. In other applications it may be called Liquify or something similar. But in Zoner PS the difference is that it is much easier to use, you have much more control of what you do.

Making the shark smile with Deform © Jordi R. Cardona

I really missed the Deform tool sometimes, so I am very happy they added it. And as everything in this software studio, the usability is a prodigy. The controls are easy and simple, no complications at all.

The Fill with Surroundings tool works this way: you make a selection (for example, with the freehand lasso) and then use this tool. It makes a calculation and fills the area seamlessly with what surrounds it.

You can use it with small areas or big areas, although it will take more time to fill a big area, and for big regions it will work better if you make them in several steps. You can use it to hide objects, remove defects, and so on. It's like a giant healing brush.

It is a very big help in situations in which otherwise you may have to clone a lot. You can now use this tool, and get your work faster and better, then clone only on some part if you see something that is not perfect.

There is also a new filter, Damaged Photograph, that makes a lovely effect. You have controls to regulate the intensity of the effect, and if you want to keep the colors or desaturate them to a sepia, and there is also a button to randomize the effect, so the spots fall on different places.

Damaged Photo filter applied to Mrs Tara, cat model © Jordi R. Cardona

I have also noticed some changes in some tools, like the Crop tool, that is now easier and faster.

Noise reduction has also been improved. Now you have 3 ways of reducing noise. One is through HDR, using multiple exposures. The other 2 are much simpler. The old Noise Reduction is already there, and is quite powerful and easy to use. Then there is another new method, called Advanced Noise Reduction, which can be used automatically or set all its parameters by hand. The tool is very fast, even when it works with huge images, and gives a very good result.

A Filmstrip tab has been added in this version. It is a tab that when using the editor or the viewer, shows the other images in the same folder in which you are working. It makes much faster to visualize and work with images. I really found it very useful, specially when studying reference images or browsing a lot of images. As other tabs in the application, you can drag and drop it to any side. In my monitor, I found it worked better for me if drag to the left side instead of being on the bottom, so I just drag and dropped it there.

The filmstrip on the left, Tara, cat model, on the center. © Jordi R. Cardona

The Compare Images tool opens a tab with different windows (you can have 2, 4 or more), so you can watch side by side similar photos and decide easily if you like one or the other, or if the modifications you applied to different versions of a photo are better or not. This really helps in the selection of the best images, and also in the edition phase, to decide between several image adjustments.

Compare Images tab. Photos © Jordi R. Cardona

The Filmstrip and the Compare Images tab may seem minor features at the beginning, but as soon as you use them, they provide so much faster workflow, and they are so confortable to use, that it makes you wonder how could you do those things before having them.

ZONERAMA

Zonerama is a new website that hosts free photo galleries for Zoner Photo Studio users. It gives you up to 2 Gb of space to upload photos. The galleries may be public or private. Setting up them is easy: add your profile photo, a short paragraph telling who you are. After that, create the folders and upload your photos.

The best of all is that you can create the folders and upload the photos from inside Zoner Photo Studio. There is a button in the browser for this. It opens a tab for Zonerama. The first time you have to type your login, later it is stored and the application won't ask again.

You can see the Zonerama tab on the lower side. All photos © Jordi R. Cardona

You can simply create the albums as you create a new folder, from inside the Photo Studio. Then drag and drop images to those folders, and a progress bar will tell you how and when it uploads. Very easy, and you don't have to leave the application to upload photos. As you don't have to add any details for the photo, the process is very simple and fast.

It is a very fast way to have an online portfolio. If you upload optimized JPG images as exported as Web JPG from Zoner, the 2Gb is a huge space for your photos, specially if you don't upload a giant photo but a smaller copy, lets say 800 width.

The public albums can be browsed from the Zonerama site, and you also get a subdomain if you check the option in your profile. Later you can give this short subdomain url to anyone or put it in your card, and let people visit your portfolio.

My Zonerama page All photos © Jordi R. Cardona

Zonerama is also a social site in some way. Commenting the photos is possible, and the quality of the albums I saw is very good. There are really good photographers there, that are taking advantage of Zoner Photo Studio to make their photos even better.

In the case that you already have a portfolio as me, you can anyway open another here, as I did. The reasons are:

- This software is so good that it will drive lots of people to Zonerama, and they will see your work.

- Zonerama may eventually become a good website to find other photographers and get commissioned works.

- It gives you the opportunity to watch very good photos

CONCLUSION

With Zoner Photo Studio you get:

- A RAW browser and editor

- A image browser and editor

- HDR via Exposure Blending

- HDR via Tone Mapping

- A noise reduction application

- A screenshot capturer

- Your web portfolio at Zonerama

- An image optimizer

- A image file format converter

- A image sharing application if you want to directly post to Picassa or others

- Calendar maker, card maker...

- And lots of other features, too much to mention here.

All these features work really good, giving professional results and outstanding image quality. Instead of investing a large amount of money in lots of applications that are not easy at all to use, you can get Zoner for a very low price of $. Then, your life becomes very simple, and the work with your images and photos becomes a pleasure.

Zoner Photo Studio is not only a powerful software suite, but also something that is so fun to use that it becomes a vice for most of us. It's very addictive to get stunning results with your photos, and in a simple way, just realizing what your imagination wants.

Get it at http://www.zoner.com/

EA Sorcha For V4
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Spanish Forest Vol 2
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Skeleton Outfit For V4/A4/G4
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H3D Bart
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Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook
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"Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook" is a new book by Packt Publishing written by Virgilio Vasconcelos, a 3D animator who uses Bender at his work and is also teacher of 2D and 3D animation at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil). He has won several awards in international events related to Blender.

You can watch some of the works of Mr. Vasconcelos at his site: http://www.virgiliovasconcelos.com

The scope of this book is to show how an animated character can be produced using Blender. Piece by piece, a humanoid figure is animated, until all the body is provided with bones, limits and the capability to move and be animated (rigged). Then, the author tells us how to combine all this rigging into a life-like movement or animation.

Everything from limbs movement to face expressions is covered, using neat recipes that explain every single step and part of the body.

The book is for 3D modelers that use Blender. Blender is the open source solution for 3D modeling, animation and rendering. During many years of development, it is reaching a perfection and an abundance of features that is much higher than many commercial solutions. And since the 2.5 version, which this book covers, also an ease of use and an intuitive interface that makes it easier to learn, using good books like this and others by Packt Publishing that I have reviewed before.

On Chapter 1, you get yourself introduced to the basic concepts of rigging and animation. It's an overview of the tasks of an animatior, and the starting point to make a good knowledge base so when you start animating you don't get confused or stuck in rutinary tasks.

Everyone that is on 3D knows how strange and confusing it can be at the beginning. Sometimes we find ourselves fighting against a legion of wrong techniques, and having to throw all the work to the recycle bin and start again from scratch. Others, the visual interface and even the concepts behind the interface of the programs we use can be an obstacle. It is better to read books like this, as in this chapter, that don't suppose you have a hint on all this, and avoid the hundreds of stupid mistakes of a beginner before they happen.

The second chapter is about the rig of the torso of our humanoid. The torso is considered to go from the pelvis to the neck. It is logical to begin the rig from the torso (with the origin in the hip, usually) to the rest of the body. The reason is because it is the center of gravity, and in most creatures, most of the limbs have their origin connected to the torso. The bone system grows this way like a plant that has its seed in the center of the figure and grows in all direction.

Also, it needs to be carefully done and have a balance between flexibility and realism. This chapter tells how to take these first crucial steps in making a solid rig.

Chapter 3 is all about the eyes. The eyes is what give real expressiveness to a face. Just with the rig of a torso and the eyes you get 90% of the expressiveness of a figure. In additiion, any photographer knows that the eyes in the face is what everyone looks most of the time. The attention of the public is driven to the eyes of the model. Later, they look to other regions.

Surely you don't want a "Poker Face", so in the next chapter, called this way, you get to know how to recreate full facial expressions, creating up to 12 facial expressions that show the most usual feelings and states of mind of a human face.

On Chapter 5, we transform our character so it becomes fully animated with the addition of the limbs controllers. Our character gets legs, arms and fingers now, fully prepared to what will happen in the next chapters, fully ready to become alive.

The sixth chapter is an introduction to animation in layers, a technique that allows to separate different parts of the animation so you can reuse and modify easier the different parts.

Chapter 7, "Easy to Say, Hard to Do" is a chapter that tells things like how to make poses natural and realist in an animation, by making tricks like avoiding unnatural perfect symmetry, making subtle movements between the main ones, simulating inertia, and so on. This way, the animation goes beyond a robotic sequence and becomes a life-like movie.

On the eight chapter you can apply all that you learned in the previous sections to simulate real life situations like a tennis match or a run through a forest. It's a series of examples that show all the animation of a body applied to different scenarios.

In "Spicing It Up" you will learn other animation techniques that deserve their own chapter. These are basically the addition of actions to a main animation that give more interest and enrich them, or animating things like hair. But the most interesting for me is the use of AniSculpt, the technique for making a mesh deform in an animation, as real muscles and soft bodies deform when they are in movement. This really takes your animations to a higher new level of realism.

The last chapter is a set of more refinements. The most remarkable one is the last section, that teaches how to make talking animations.

After all this, you will find an Appendix, with some practical tips about storytelling, naming conventions and the creation of a smooth transition along a story that you want to tell. It also introduces you to some Blender tools like the Grease Pencil, that allows to paint directly in 3D. This is very useful both for 3D modeling, concepting and animation.

With all this we have that Virgilio Vasconcelos has written a very practical book about animation that explores most of the problems and solutions through a series of chapters that explain many useful techniques to master this art in a very short time.

"Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook" is definitively a recommended book for everyone that wants to become an animator using the most powerful open source 3D suite: Blender 3D.

Fresh Faced Beauty
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Book: Blender 2.5 HOTSHOT
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John E. Herreño is an Electronics Engineer from the National University of Colombia. He got interest in open source software and how much it can help in the development of countries. He works doing Drupal web development and Blender training, and develops custom software. You can visit his site at http://jeh3.net

He is the author of the book, "Blender 2.5 HOTSHOT", which consists in 10 chapters that contain 10 projects. These projects are very similar to the situations you meet in real life projects, and are the kind of things that someone who employs or commissions you may ask you.

In real life projects, people ask you to make a final image, model something specific, and things like that. This book covers different projects from beginning to end.

The first project consists in making a render of a sci-fi space scene. This is what a pure 3D artist does at his work, creating a model from scratch, a background, adding effects, and rendering the piece, obtaining a final image that accomplishes the idea in his mind.

The second project, "Fly a Fighter Aircraft Through a Storm", is for creating a war aircraft that flies through some clouds. In this lesson you learn modeling tips, the use of shaders to increase realism of 3D models, with textures and material settings combined, cloud effects with particles, and of course, you learn to animate the flying machine.

This project illustrates the workflow of a 3D animator, whose task is to produce animated films by making 3D models, creating a world around them, and taking them to life by adding movement through time.

The use of blueprints is common in technical 3D modeling of vehicles and industry pieces, for example. In project 3, you learn how to put these skills in practice. A blueprint is a image in a sheet that contains views of an object from the most common angles (top, side, back, bottom, front...). From this blueprint you can model adding increasing complexity and using techniques toold in this project. Finally, you will create a car paint shader.

Notice how in all these projects, the final product of your work is obtained. The author doesn't stops until the final result is obtained, so you can see how real proffessionals work.

In "Create a Professional Looking Demo Reel" you produce something that is often required for most 3D portfolio, and it's a demo reel that showcases your skills as 3D modeler, made using the video sequencer of Blender.

Now that you have become familiar with the video sequencer, it comes the time to learn some of the game engine. As you know, Blender includes a 3D game engine which is very powerful and has been used in multiple commercial and indy games.

In project 5 you learn the basics of this engine using the Python programming language, to build an interactive walkthrough around a building in a 3D environment that uses a skybox, a semisphere with a sky painted on it. This gives you the opportunity to learn how to bake textures in Blender, and also learn simple UV mapping.

Interactive walkthrough are a classic in animation, showcases of virtual reality, and even on intro sequences of games.

On the following chapter, "Detailed Render of the Earth from Space", you'll focus on pre-processing of textures and post-processing of a render. These are all techniques aimed to get the maximum quality for your renders using Blender 3D.

Project 7 is about animating an humanoid character. The book explains later, on chapter 10, how was this humanoid modeled, but the author prefers to explain how to animate it now, because as you have already read the chapters about animation, it's easy for you to understand all this now, without losing the perspective of an animator.

To animate this humanoid figure, you'll be told how to create a skeleton, an armature for the body, with its joints and limits, that can be later animated and deform the humanoid as it walks in an animation.

Humanoid animations have particularities and are the base of many projects in the films and animation industry.

"Create a Snail" is the eighth chapter. It's a journey through the process of creating an organic creature by using both parametric and box modeling techniques. The shape of the snail is also refined using the sculpt tools of Blender, wich are very powerful for artistic modeling and digital sculpture. It also introduces you to the creation of organic shaders and the use of subsurface scattering to simulate beings that have flesh (human or not).

One of the fields in which 3D modeling was widely used from the beginning is architectural modeling and visualization. Chapter 9 is about architectural rendering, in the example of a kitchen. It is also an introduction to lighting, as it's the 50% or more of a good render.

Last but not least, project 10 is about modeling humanoids, by combining the speed of box modeling techniques with the power of Blender's sculpt tools.

To summarize, as you can notice, this is a book that really gives examples of tasks that a pro 3D modeler has to do when he/she is hired by someone. A book from a get-things-done perspective. It is a very good learning material for someone who uses Blender and needs to have a perspective on how the different pieces fit.

When we learn to use a program, we usually learn how to model something, then we see another example on the internet on how to map your UVs, later another piece of the puzzle, another different example on how to make a shader, and so on and on. This book is different because it tells you how to build the whole puzzle. It tells you how to achieve projects from beginning to end, explaining it all with the same project, in a logical ad real-life way: you model something, then texture this same thing, then animate it, and so on, and get a real animation video. Or model something, apply shaders, light it, and render and get a real render.

And the author makes this with 10 example projects carefully chosen to showcase the typical situation for someone who wants to learn to achive the most common uses of 3D.

Get it at Packt Publishing, you won't repent:

Blender 2.5 HOTSHOT, by John E. Herreño

Morphing Ice Pop For Poser And DAZ Studio
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Packt Open Source announce exclusive discount offers on best-selling books
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A 3D Artist Workflow Video
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What Is Render Art?
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These days there is some controversy about Poser, Daz Studio and other software used to make render art. I think that as I am a 3D modeler that makes content for those packages, I can appreciate every side of this issue.

Some people change their point of view and sometimes defend a position and other times the opposite. I think that is because of the confusion of concept in their own minds.

That is what makes me see that most 3D modelers, and most "3D artists" don't have a clue on what is render art. So they maintain a stupid, irrational, and useless debate of "modelers VS Poser users".

Render art deserves to be recognized in its dignity.

So let's explain, for the glory of render artists, and to open the obtuse minds of ignorants, what is render art.

What Is Render Art?

In digital art there are different artistic disciplines. Oh, yes: the one you practice is not the only one.

One of them is render art. A render artist is someone who takes a series of 3D models and poses them into a 3D scene, and uses the computer to generate a representation of this scene and its actors, with an artistic or illustrative purpose.

But beyond that, a render artist must know many other aspects, like computer skills and knowledge, 3D notions, a deep knowledge of how images are composed in a computer, the different parameters that rule the program that performs the generation of the 2D image (the render engine), anatomy of a natural pose in humans and animals, the creation of coherent sources of light, framing, image file formats...

He/she has to have a mix of skills of a photographer, or a painter, and needs to understand computer graphics to some degree.

To make his art, this render artist needs 3D models. This 3D models can be build by them, if they are 3d modelers in addition to render artists, or they can use the models that a modeler has made.

3D modelers and render artists

As a 3D modeler that makes models for render artists, I see pure render artists like the final artists who take my creations to life. I am the creator of something that will become alive. They are the creators of something that IS alive, they make the miracle.

A plant, a human being, a building... I create static shapes, try to consciously make them as much versatile as possible, sometimes making them able to be animated, to trigger the imagination of others.

We are a chain. I enjoy creating the shape, the geometry, like a sculptor, architect, or a genetics scientist of the imaginary world.

Then comes the render artist, who like a magician, a story writer, a cinema director, a photographer, a painter, or all of this at the same time, creates a universe of endless stories and images.

It's like a sculptor that makes a statue, and then comes the painter or the photographer and captures, creates, or renders a beautiful piece.

And I feel so happy to see the many different works of art and imagination that render artists create, because for me it's like watching them go alive.

They give them life, sometimes discovering possibilities that I could never imagine.

Criticism against render art

Every new art has criticism. Some blatantly ignorant people are very critic towards render art. Even in digital art communities, they use to find some members that offend them, and try to go against a trend of the future.

Let's review these groups of people and see why they are wrong about render art.

On one side we have traditional artists who permanently try to make a simil between painting and render art. They are simply comparing things that have nothing to do.

From their ignorance, they use to think in render art as something that the computer makes automatically, and takes little time and poor skills. But we all know that a render artist has to deal with the many factors that the computer uses, and is far away from being automatic, unless you want to get real crap. The time it takes to master render art can be equal or more than mastering painting, and it takes lots of skills to learn to be a master in render art, much beyond the basics of painting.

Render art can't be simply mastered by practice, it is an intellectual exercise that requires acquiring knowledge to increase the quality of each one of the projects.

As a last word, traditional painters keep on comparing things like antagonic. Render art is not going to take the place of painting. It's really a nonsense to compare them. People don't compare ceramics, photography or sculpture with painting, and comparing render art and painting is the same absurd thing, because it is simply a different kind of art, not a modern version of an old art.

On the other side we have 3D modelers that argue against render art. I must be clear at this: these are not pro modelers. Most of them are crappy modelers with poor skills that are very proud just because they modeled something in high-poly techniques and never dealt with the many limitations and problems of having to model for games, virtual worlds or render applications, that is where most geometric problems easily arise.

They say that render artists are not artists because many of them didn't create the models they use. Well, this is plain stupid. Photographers or painters, for example, are not meant to be the fathers and mothers of the models they use. Nor anyone pretends that a photographer or a painter must be the creator of the world that they depict.

I think I can't say anything more. This criticism just shows zero brain activity.

Other criticism they have is that many render art pieces are crap. Well, I must say that most of the 3d modeling stuff is in fact crap, with few exceptions from excellent modelers. The amount of crap in 3d models and 3d renders is equal.

Conclusion

Render art is a relatively new kind of art but not new at all in the scope of digital art. It goes beyond the use of a computer to make similar things to what we can do in a traditional painting technique. It brings new skills into action.

The first render artists were modelers who produced the entire process: they modeled something, and then made the render.

Now, there are lots of other newer artists that use models made by a modeler and make a render using them. These are pure render artists.

As every new revolution in arts, this has a small number of people that criticize this technique, and a legion of people who just admire and appreciate what they do.

Render art is just that: art. A technique to create beauty. And the search for beauty is the only reason that is worth the effort in this nasty world.

Art is everything that creates beauty. And beauty is that which makes us feel in harmony, calm, complete, and in presence of something more perfect than ourselves, so we can only feel fascination.

Who can say render art is not art if it makes us feel this way?

Anime Studio 8 Pro Auto Tracing Of Drawings
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Genesis Figure In DAZ Studio 4
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Zoner Software Launches New Zoner Photo Studio FREE Based on Version 13
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Innovative graphics software company Zoner Software has announced the release of a new version of its standalone Zoner Photo Studio FREE, now based on Zoner Photo Studio 13.

This very popular free and easy-to-use one-stop photo toolkit for managing, editing and sharing photos now benefits from many features new to Zoner Photo Studio 13. As always, the free edition offers a no-cost, no-hassle way to download, manage, edit, and share photos, including easy work with large batches and quick photo enhancers such as the Quick Fix window. Features new to this release include an improved Catalog, easy bullets and arrows with Insert Symbol, and a postcard maker. It also has improvements under the hood, like better utilization of multi-core processors.

Regarding the new release, Ales Hasala, Director of Development noted, “We’ve been looking forward to providing users of the free edition with the benefits of version 13 ever since we released it. We are very pleased that this day has come. Personally, I anticipate catching eyes with the postcard maker.”

Users around the globe can enjoy the new release of Zoner Photo Studio 13 FREE just like the previous one: it is available in English, German, French, Italian, Russian, and traditional and simplified Chinese.

Zoner Photo Studio FREE is for personal, non-commercial use on single computers running Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7. Download it at free.zoner.com.

Zoner Software's flagship Zoner Photo Studio 13 PRO is easy to download and compare to the free edition. Visit www.zoner.com to find a free 30-day trial.

If you like Zoner Photo Studio 13 Free, consider purchasing the Pro version, as you can read in the review I did, it is with no doubts the most powerful software for photo edition out there, just use and you will see it by yourself.

Using the free version is perfect for beginning with it, soon you will want more of this fantastic suite that allows you to make all that you can imagine in photo and image edition, and will want the Pro version, that is very cheap and with loads of features.

Upcoming Book Reviews For Blender 3D
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Genetica 3.6 Released
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Genetica, the seamless textures, HDRI, and animation package created by Spiral Graphics Inc., has been updated to version 3.6.

With the new version artists can create text objects directly from within Genetica. Text can be used in conjunction with Genetica's powerful style system, which means text can be created out of realistic materials such as stone, glass, wood, and more, simply by choosing from hundreds of preset styles.

A new Style node introduced in Genetica 3.6 means that in addition to text and drawn shapes, styles can now be applied to any procedurally created noise or pattern.

Genetica 3.6 also introduces massive workflow improvements that expedite the creation and manipulation of nodes. Nodes can now be arranged into all possible configurations simply by dragging them to the correct position. New nodes can be created by clicking a blank spot in the workspace and typing the first few letters of the desired node's name. The output of a node can be used in multiple locations by dragging additional output wires from the base of a node.

Additional feature illustrations, and a video showing the workflow improvements, can be found here. A complete list of changes in the latest version is available here.

Genetica 3.6 is provided free to licensed users of Genetica 3.5, while new users can take advantage of a 30% discount that is being offered until July 1st.

A free demo version of Genetica can be downloaded from www.spiralgraphics.biz/download_gen.htm

About Genetica

You can also read a review published here at Hiperia3D News:

http://news.hiperia3d.com/2010/04/genetica-35-create-seamless-textures.html

Genetica is a node-based graphics application that allows artists to non-destructively build textures and effects. It has been used on countless projects ranging from computer games, to television programs, to architectural projects.

With Genetica artists can:
- Generate procedural images by stringing together different types of nodes.
- Create seamless textures directly from photographic sources.
- Enjoy the industry's only professional-level drawing tools that produce seamlessly repeatable results.
- Generate effect maps such as height and specular maps.
- Make HDRI lighting environments and cube maps for realistic reflections.
- Create looping animated textures such as burning fire or rippling water.

Genetica is available in Basic, Pro, and Studio editions. The differences between the editions are explained in this table.

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Shade 12
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Mirye Software and E Frontier announce the release of Shade 12.0.3, a major update to the Shade 3D product line of modeling, rendering and animation tools.

Shade 12.0.3 is available on both the Windows (32 and 64 bit) and Mac OS X platforms and free to existing customers. This release includes many performance improvements as well as new features and feature enhancements over the previously released Shade 12 in English, first available in February, 2011. Shade 3D is also available through the Apple Mac App Store.

General Improvements

- Update Background Texture on File Open. In Preferences > View Tab, option to automatically update background textures whenever a file is opened.

- Tool Parameters. Scrollbar is now available when the Tool Parameters window is docked.

- Subdivision Surfaces. The preset values in the Tool Parameters sets values when a mesh is created.

- Mirrored Objects Preview. Mirror object are now able to display in wireframe

- Python Scripting Improvements. New attribute "message" added in "message_view" for set and get message between message window.

- New Mesh Selection Parameters

- New options and shortcuts added to the Mesh menu, including selection of Visible Only. Shaded display supports visible only (default behavior of Shade 12). Wireframe by default supports Front and Back. Shaded display supports Visible only (the normal Shade 12 default).

- New Preview and Draft Rendering

3D Stereoscopic Rendering Improvements

- Set Custom 3D Devices. Create custom 3D monitor size and resolution profiles, accessible through the Monitor Setting By popup menu and through the Image Window.

- Custom Profiles. Provides several preset monitor size and resolution settings profiles, including Nintendo 3DS, Sharp 3D Smartphone, FUJIFILM FinePix REAL 3D W3, NVIDIA 3D Vision compatible monitors and HDTV.

- AutoDetect Best Settings. Shade cna automatically detect the best monitor and output settings based on current hardware profiling.

- Side by Side Rendering. Supports both full static and animation for side by side rendering.

Import and Export Improvements

- MPO Improvements. Optimized based on specific custom profiles for exporting in this format.

- COLLADA Improvements. COLLADA import and export support ambient light options. COLLADA for BlueMars support now available in Shade 64-bit version.

- 3DS Improvements. Import and export support Ambient light options.

- OBJ Improvements. Import and export supports Ambient light options. Supports multiple UV layers.

Shade 12.0.3 is available as a full download only and works with existing Shade 12 licenses.

Shade 12 is available as Shade Basic ($99), Shade Standard ($349) and Shade Professional ($749), under the Shade For Friends campaign. Customers who purchase or upgrade to Shade Standard or Shade Professional will receive either two or four additional activation codes that they can give to friends and are redeemable during the campaign time for copies of Shade Basic.

Shade 12.0.3 is available through the Shade download site at http://www.shadetrial.com as a 30 day, free trial.

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