Finally...

...Autodesk 3D Studio Max was released in Europe. I ordered the "3DS Max Students Super Pack" today. That includes not only 3DS Max Design 2010, it also contains Mudbox 2009, Combustion, Cleaner and Motionbuilder so I think I should be properly prepared for the next years. Still, since it's "just" a students' version I need to make a few bucks within the next months in order to be able to crossgrade it to the commercial version - which on the other hand is gonna save me a couple of thousand euros, so I figure it's a good deal.

The new features seem to make modeling WAY more effective, the preview windows almost look like lowqualityrenders now, the lighting system has improved remarkably, I could go on and on and on...



Anyway, looking forward to that (though I am not going to be able to use it properly for my exam) I spent the rest of the day mainly waiting in front of the screen (rendered glas and chrome today which is kinda intensive with all the reflections and refractions and so on and so forth), checking out Ruthe, Flix, and Nichtlustig for the latest strips and had quite a laugh.

Oh, and for all those nerds'n'geeks out there, check out www.scene.org for astonishing coder demos (I'm afraid they are exclusivly for Windows-PCs). I couldn't believe what these guys make from just a couple of bits and bytes.
When you're looking through the files, check out "Farb-Rausch" and "ASD" (coder groups). Though the things you'll see are gonna be pretty cheesy now and then, these guys have achieved astonishing results here I think.