Sitexgraphics’s AIR  9 was recently released. Vshade now has a toolbar option to reverse the graph flow and an option to use TweakAIR for interactive parameter tweaking, TweakAIR  can record a series of incremental changes to a scene, and  TweakAIR and BakeAIR can be used with a single AIR license. See the release notes for more details. Also a beta version of AIR Stream, a new Maya-to-AIR plug-in from developer Hai Nguyen, is available for testing by AIR users.

Also Aqsis 1.6 is now available. This includes many optimisation and performance enhancements, multiple layer support in the OpenEXR driver, and a Side Effects Houdini plugin. See the official announcement for more details.

Double Negative has released it’s first Open Source tool dnPtcViewerNode - a tool for viewing RenderMan point clouds (.ptc files) in OpenGL in Maya, written by Philippe Leprince and Michael Jones. This is only available as source for now, but has been compiled sucessfully against Pixar’s RenderManProserver, 3Delight and Maya 2010. Hal Bertram has an initial  release of his Interactive Tool for download. This is based on his 2005 Stupid RenderMan Interaction Trick.

Kevin Manners – one of the founders of TD College – has created FractureFX - a procedural, event-driven destruction plugin for Maya (2008 & 2009) which is currently being beta tested. There is a AutoDesk Siggraph MasterClass which demonstrates it’s capabilities. He also a book called Professional MEL Solutions for Production. 3D World magazine has a review here.

Finally, you can now paint on your iPhone using Autodesk Sketchbook. Other good painting apps for iPhone are Colors! and Brushes.