E-on has released ithe  new version of its Atmoshpere Ozone 6 plugin for 3ds max.
Ozone 6 lets you animate everything from clouds and sun to fog and haze.

Take precise control of all animation properties by editing keyframes directly and then personalize in your timeline.

Skies spring to life as your clouds swirl!

New features
Interactive Cloud Control
Localized Cloud Layers
Enhanced Atmosphere Preview

Other Features
-Highly productive and easy to use interface
-Animated atmospheres (keyframes, timeline)
-Four atmosphere models: Standard, Volumetric, Spectral and Environment Mapping
-Full control over all aspects of the atmosphere
-Fully adjustable fog and haze
-Realistic light and air interactions
-Automatic creation of lens flares for the Ozone sun light
-Customizable rainbows, ice rings, stars…
-State of the art algorithms for top quality results
-Highly optimized code designed to deliver speed
-Extensive library of over 100 predefined atmospheres
-Over 100 different cloud shapes
-Visual browsers to locate files rapidly
-Saves atmospheres (with preview) for future use
-Imports Vue atmospheres and clouds

http://www.ozone-plugin.com

Peter Guthrie released new high resolution HDR skies. This new pack contains 9 new HDR skies which can be purchased together in an HDR skies pack.

http://www.peterguthrie.net/blog/2012/03/3docean-update/

Talented CG artist Joël LeLièvre reviews the latest version of Allegorithmic’s tool for creating seamlessly tiling materials from a single bitmap image

Bitmap2Material is a software developed by Allegorithmic that allows users to generate seamlessly tiling materials that include normal maps, height maps, specular maps, etc., all derived from a single bitmap image (usually a photo).

The main idea behind Bitmap2Material (B2M) is to speed up shader and texture production, and help users create realistic shaders natively inside their 3D software of choice. Currently 3DS Max 2012, Maya 2012, Flame and Unity 3.4+ are supported.

http://www.maxunderground.com/bitmap2material_review

LightWave 11 is the most advanced and feature-rich version of LightWave ever. As we move forward, the LightWave mantra is “Technology Serves the Artist” and every new feature further proves that mission.

LightWave 11 has been developed by working closely with our users, designers, and key studios to establish the most artist-friendly and production-centric workflows possible, to enable more flexible creative options, faster turn-around times, and ultimately more successful project completions for teams and individuals. We are delighted to have you as a member of the LightWave team and look forward to seeing the amazing imagery that you create with NewTek LightWave.
New features in NewTek’s Lightwave 11 includes:

Instancing
- Duplicate a vast number of objects in a scene without experiencing memory overhead
- Scale, position, rotate and surface randomly cloned objects for realistic detail

Read More :
http://www.newtek.com/features-lightwave-menu.html

Jonny Allen from Neoscape explains a very in-depth way to create vegetation and how you can populate a stadium with 3d people models using Forest Pack pro.

You can watch the video tutorial from :
http://blog.konng.com/wp/2012/02/20/forest-pack-pro-presentation-at-aauga-boston/

Ken Pimentel has posted some info that features the upcoming future release of 3ds max 2013 developments. Among the highlights, the post mentions that Autodesk has hired once again Oleg Bayborodin, the original author of Particle Flow, to research and develop new Particle Flow capabilities for Max and integrate it with XBR’s unified physics system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBhMPm9HtPc&feature=youtu.be

A simple way to model a 3D pillow using 3ds max.

Please Note : the below image sizes are big ..you can save the image and view the details

Enjoy !!

LumenRT 2.0 is a realtime rendering engine for sketchup..below are the detailed features listed

Read More :
http://www.lumenrt.com/overview/

Projection Painter is a script for 3DS Max and Maya which allows you to send a view of your model in your favorite painting application to paint its textures then project them back on to your model.
• You have the benefit of working in your familiar painting environment with your favorite brushes at the speed you are used to.
• Don’t have to fear ruining your existing texture by projecting on a new layer and have the ability to edit, move and do anything you want with the projected paint.
• The very good representation of your shading, lighting and normal map in in your painting application will help you paint more accurately, no more guess work.
• You can paint on any map, diffuse, specular, bump, opacity etc

Read More :
http://www.mariussilaghi.com/projection_painter.htm

Vizpark has announced its two new plugins in open beta which is designed to add variation to your objects. Color Tools allows you to extract up to 100 colors from any photo and randomly assigns them to objects, object elements or even procedural maps in 3DS Max. The plugins are compatible with the scanline renderer, Mental Ray and V-Ray, and also works with Multiscatter and Forest Pack Pro.

The Crossmap plugin is a shader that randomly distributes bitmaps on geometry (objects, elements, faces etc.). Just select a folder with bitmaps and Crossmap does the rest.

Read More :
http://www.vizpark.com/shop/color-tools/
http://www.vizpark.com/shop/crossmap/