GridIron Flow gives creative professionals and workgroups the ability to see, access, and share all their project files in one simple, elegant interface. The product, which has been lauded by industry influencers and beta users as a “must have” productivity application, now includes even more features.

“We’ve waited a long time for this day, but the final product was worth the wait,” said Steve Forde, CEO of GridIron. “Thanks to a world-class development team and the thousands of beta testers who not only thoroughly tested the software but helped shape the final version, Flow is a product that will help all creative pros, whether they work alone or as part of a group, become more streamlined and productive. No more lost files, no more accidents, no more all-nighters.”

GridIron Flow has been used by thousands of creative professionals since the public beta of the product was released in February 18, 2009. Users have experienced how the software provides a unique and total understanding of each project being worked on and allows them to track all the components of a project, regardless of where the files are located. With instant access to any file or version needed, creative professionals can get a lot more done in a lot less time—without having to do anything differently.

Key features of the product include:

• Workflow Maps – Visual interface shows all project files and how they are connected
• Share Maps – Allows multiple users to view the same workflow map across the network
• Adobe CS4 Flow Flash Panel Provides access to GridIron Flow directly in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign or Flash
• Real-time Asset Tracking – Tracks the connections between project files in real-time
• Visual Versioning – Accesses the complete history of a file and allows the user to revert to any version
• Visual Search – Finds any file, even if it’s offline, and shows how it fits into a project
• Foolproof Packaging – Gathers and updates all files automatically, keeping the package current
• Time Tracking – Automatically records how much time was spent on a file or project

“The ability for Flow to be accessed directly within Adobe CS4 applications via the new Flash Panel is impressive because of the value it brings users,” said Johnny Loiacono, senior vice president and general manager, Creative Solutions Business Unit, Adobe Systems. “CS4 already delivers significant increases in productivity and Flow takes that to an even higher level. It is a product that most of our Creative Suite customers will find valuable.”

For more information see the links below:

• GridIron Flow Tutorials: http://www.gridironsoftware.com/products/flow/flow_tutorials.html
• PhotoshopUser TV & Layers Magazine:  solid 10-minute tour
• Lynda.com: Flow Features Course
• For more about GridIron Flow – http://www.gridironsoftware.com/Flow/
• To visit GridIron’s blog – http://www.gridironsoftware.com/blog/

GridIron Flow is available for immediate purchase from GridIron’s website at http://www.gridironsoftware.com/store/. A single user license is $299 USD, with a three pack also available for $399.

Next Limit released MAXWELL RENDER 1.7. Maxwell Render 1.7 offers several new and vastly improved features.

If you a customer of Next Limit check your inbox to find the URL to download the update.

What is new in MAXWELL Render 1.7

• New physical sky system
  The Physical Sky system in Maxwell Render 1.7 uses an entirely new approach and has been greatly enhanced adding more parameters to control the look of the sky and the resulting light in the scene, ranging from common Earth values to exaggerated fantasy skies. Users can create presets of sky settings to quickly load a new sky, or share their presets with other users. It’s also possible to save the current sky as an HDR map.This new sky system renders faster than the previous one – in certain scenes the difference can be dramatic. The concept of “Aerosols” – particles found in the air that interact with light and influence how lights scatters and reacts in the atmosphere – plays an important role. Aerosols have a big impact on the coloration of the sky and scene illumination.
• 1.7 Material Editor enhanced
  • Material Preview: the material preview now shows incremental updates and you can stop the preview rendering at any time by double clicking on the preview.
  • Material Swatches: here you can store material “swatches” or previews. A material state can be stored as a preview and the user can easily browse between the saved previews, allowing for faster material editing and experimentation.
  • Texture Editor: the Texture Editor in 1.7 offers various new image controls: Saturation; Brightness; Contrast; and Clamp min/max. These new controls allow users to work much more efficiently with textures. There is no need to use an external image editing application to make small changes to a texture, and the same texture can be used for colour, bump, roughness and weight map.
  • Wizards: this is a step-by-step guide to creating several types of common materials such as shiny wooden floors, plastics, clipmapped materials for leafs, SSS materials, etc. The Wizard will ask you for textures, bumps, reflectance maps and material values such as roughness and colour.The “Common” wizard can be used to create Diffuse, Emitter, Metal, Dielectric or Plastic materials

• New SSS Component
  Sub-Surface Scattering (SSS) simulates the effect of light entering a translucent object and scattering inside it. Some of this light is absorbed and some is also scattered back to the surface. It is a crucial component that allows you to accurately simulate many kinds of materials including plastics, marble, milk, skin etc. The SSS component has been entirely rewritten for Maxwell Render 1.7, following an entirely new approach compared to the old system or any other SSS system currently available.The SSS component in Maxwell Render effectively replaces the BSDF material properties such as  eflectance/transmittance becausethe surface reflection color and amount depends on what happens inside the volume, just like in real life. There is no separation between “surface” material and “volume” material. The surface properties (roughness, bump etc.) remain the same as for the BSDF component. What this means in practice is that with the SSS component, you can get a full range of materials from regular clear glass, to almost solid-looking materials. This is one of the biggest strengths of Maxwell Render’s SSS system. The SSS material supports full GI and if the material is clear enough it will create caustic light patterns and also be influenced by caustic light cast from surrounding objects.

  You can weight an SSS with a BSDF, or several SSS components, but only one SSS or BSDF per material layer is allowed. You can quickly switch between using a BSDF or SSS component by right-clicking in the Material Layers list or by using the Edit menu and choosing “Turn to BSDF” or “Turn to SSS’. The Nd and surface properties you used in the previous component will be transferred to the new compone

• 1.7 Maxwell Studio improvements
  • Texture Handling and Memory Optimizations: texture handling, scene loading times and overall memory usage have all been improved. With scenes that use many large textures, objects and materials, the loading time is around 10 times faster. Only the textures that are active in the OpenGL viewport are now loaded into memory, saving RAM and allowing users to work faster with materials.
  • Realtime OpenGL Preview of Physical Sky: with the vastly improved Physical Sky system in Maxwell Render 1.7, the OpenGL preview in the viewports has also been improved, allowing you to change any of the Sky parameters and camera settings and seeing an accurate realtime preview in the viewports.
  • Color Picker: the color chips on the left side can be used to store commonly used colors. Drag& drop a color from the large color chips at the bottom of the Color Picker to one of the color chips on the left to store a color.
    The two large color chips at the bottom of the color picker allow you to compare the previously selected color with a new one.The top color chip updates to show the currently selected color in the colored wheel. The bottom color chip shows what color was selected when opening the Color Picker.
  • Isolate Selection: select this option from the right click menu in the object list panel, or in a viewport, to display only the currently selected objects in the viewport. This is useful if you have a cluttered scene and wish to view only the currently selected objects.
  • UV Operator: this option lets you apply the same transformations to all the selected UVs at the same time. You can, for example, scale all the selected UV sets by 10%. The Operator is found under the UV parameters section in the Object Parameters panel.
  • Material Browser: improved for version 1.7; it has a more common functionality with the Windows Explorer, having a folder view on the left side and the contents of the folder displayed on the right side.
  • 3D/ Ortho View Dropdown: You can switch a camera to be a perspective (3D) camera or an orthographic camera (2D). This is useful if you wish to render an orthographic view while still having access to common camera parameters such as resolution and ISO. Please note that focal length is not available when the camera is in orthographic mode.

• SimuLens
  SimuLens parameters: the SimuLens parameters have been added to the interface of Maxwell Studio and the plug-ins, and they are now also available through the command line. These changes allow for SimuLens to be used for animations.
• MXiMerge Tool
  The installation package includes a new tool called MxiMerge. This is a small command line application useful to merge MXI files into one folder. It can also be used to read information about an MXI file (resolution, sampling level, etc) and for converting MXI files into other image formats. To learn more about how to use this tool just open a command line/terminal window and type: (for Windows) MxiMerge.exe –help; (for Mac OSX and Linux) mximerge –help.
• MAXWELL Plugins
  All Plugins (3ds Max, Archicad 11, Cinema 4D, form-Z, Lightwave 3D, Maya, Rhinoceros, SolidWorks,  and Softimage | XSI) have been updated

Andrew Kramer did release the long awaited “The Bullet” training.  Before you read on buy The Bullet right now.

This new DVD will take you from your favorite 3D program to After Effects and back, including compositing multi-pass renders and importing camera data.

“The Bullet” training is designed to show you how to create large-scale visual effects in an organized and powerful work flow.

What do you learn about After Effects:

• Creating elements from scratch
• Working between AE and 3D, integrating camera data
• Multi-Pass exporting and compositing
• Advanced color correction techniques
• File management and work flow tips such as pre-comp proxies
• Displacement effects and other creative uses for common plug-ins

What do you learn about 3D Software:

• Model a realistic bullet and shell casing
• Texturing and lighting with reflections
• Animation with Null objects and groups
• How to render multiple elements for compositing

The Bullet Video Training:
Over 5 Hours. If you continue with a single 3D program training time is about 3 hours.

01. Introduction / Organize
02. Preparing Footage and building 3D Scenery
03. Building Assets: 3D Muzzle Flash & Smoke
04. Building Assets: Perspective Slide Action
05. Work-Flow Tips & Building Proxies
06. Compositing the Elements
07. Final Compositing
08. Finishing Touches & Advanced Color

Andrew Kramer sells “The Bullet” for $49.95 available on a DVD or through download.