well i guess since i'm following it quite closely i might as well post my findings here..i'm sure some of you people might find it interesting.
First out of the fold-
Splutterfish are demoing both brazil R/S 0.2.0 (their third public alpha release) and are also working on a port of Shave and a Haircut to 3dsmax.
Improvements to Brazil in this next version include (much MUCH MUCH) faster global illumination, proper caustics support and an anisotropic shader (at last). Feature lists are a little skimpy even on the blubeta forum so i'll keep my eye on it.
Lightwave 7 has been released/announced, details of which can be found on CGchannel (i wont go into it cause i dunno anything about lightwave)
A|W are demoing mentalray support and Maya 4.0, which offers amongst other things a better NLA editor and UI improvements.
Softimage are demoing XSI 2.0, which has an alleged 2,500 improvements over 1.5.3, including mentalray 3.0. Its scheduled for release in october.
Discreet are showing support for Exlunas' Entropy Renderman-compliant GI renderer (the professional version of BMRT, basically)
Areas of research interest appear to be in realtime fluid dynamics and optimisation of parametric effects based on implicit surfaces. (umm..yea..)
