Allegorithmic has released B2M Lite: a free version of its B2M app for creating texture maps on iOS and Android devices. The app is capable of creating a range of maps, including diffuse, normal, specular and height.

All you have to do is take a picture of the texture you want and either choose one of our premade presets or make your own.

Pixologic updated ZBrush4 to version R5 simplifying the process of modifying and controlling basic topology. ZBrush is a digital painting and sculpting tool widely used in the 3D industry fully loaded with powerful features and intuitive workflows. Built within an elegant interface, ZBrush offers the world’s most advanced tools for today’s digital artists. Designed around a principle of circularity, the menus in ZBrush work together in a non-linear and mode-free method. The latest upgrade to ZBrush is focused on enhancing brushes, masking capabilities, Polygrouping functions and workflow efficiently. With the addition of features like Quick Save, Mouse Wheel Support and a new See-Through mode, artists will have more time for exploring their creativity without leaving ZBrush. Between the new changes belongs „Panel Loops“. Using this function you can convert your model’s PolyGroups into panels of polygons with or without thickness, or even as extruded surfaces. Created panels have their edges defined by an editable curve with a custom bevel.

The Blender Foundation has released Blender 2.67. New in this release is the Freestyle render engine for non-photorealistic rendering, which can generate 2D line drawings in various styles.

The paint and sculpt system is now much more consistent across different paint modes and has gained various new features. Motion tracking was made faster, and Cycles now has initial support for subsurface scattering.

The node system now supports more flexible group editing. For developers of external render engine addons it is now possible to support node based materials.

Adobe’s creative software will soon only be available via an online subscription. The company has announced that it is canning perpetual licences of its Creative Suite products in favour of Creative Cloud membership.

Photoshop CS6, After Effects CS6 and their sister products will be the final releases under the Creative Suite brand. When the new versions of the software go on sale in June, they will be branded ‘CC’, for ‘Creative Cloud’.