Congratulations are in order for Konrad Beerbaum, Reggie Santiago, and Matt Dirks — the 3 winners of our Marmoset Toolbag July Competition hosted through CgTuts+.

We want to thank all the artists who submitted an entry, and a special thanks for Matt Brealey over at CgTuts+ for helping us set up the competition.

Click here to check out the winning entries!

To help celebrate our commercial launch of Toolbag, we’ve teamed up with the guys over at CgTuts+ to feature Marmoset Toolbag in their July Competition. Join their competition and get a chance to get your hands on a full license of Toolbag for FREE!

Here’s the rundown:

1. Download our Toolbag v1.01 Evaluation.
2. Using Toolbag, capture the sexiest render/turntable humanly possible of your latest & greatest 3d model and/or animation.
3. Submit.
4. Win.

Click here to check out full contest rules and details.

We’ve just gone live with the first point update to Toolbag, version 1.01. The new version features a double-layered material channel and expanded support for more texture and mesh file types. For the full list of bug fixes and added features, visit:

Marmoset Toolbag’s Official Changelog

This is a free update to all users, trial or registered. Simply download the new  installer from our Toolbag product page and you’ll be ready to rock. If you are a trial user, this will reset your trial to a new 20 day session to give you some more time to try it out.

In addition to the point release, a series of 6 videos showcasing Toolbag’s main features, and just generally making the thing look sexy, are now available!  You can view them all on:

8monkey’s YouTube Channel

- The 8monkey Team

On the heels of our new release of Marmoset Toolbag, we felt the urge to pass on this interview that GameArtisans.org recently conducted with Vadim Bakhlychev, aka slipgatecentral. Vadim’s Recon Elite entry took home the prize of “Grand Champion” at the 2009 Dominance War IV competition.

We at 8monkey were extremely honored he chose Marmoset Toolbag to showcase his official entry. The article is a great look into Vadim’s background, inspirations, and workflows as an artist. Please take the time and check out the full interview:

Interview with World Champion, Slipgatecentral

Check out slipgatecentral’s full submission here:  Recon Elite – Dom War IV Entry

For more information about the annual massive online art challenge, visit:  About Dominance War

After lasts year’s positive reception to 8monkey’s release of Toolbag, we’ve decided to make some major additions and updates. Behold:

Marmoset Toolbag v1.0

For those of you who don’t know, Toolbag is a realtime material editor and presentation tool, based on our Marmoset engine. It’s a quick way to preview your work in a realtime engine (and we do mean quick). We think you’ll find it presents your work in a most flattering way. v1.0 has several new features not present in the previous release, most notably:

For all the European fans who have been paitently waiting, we’re happy to announce that the PC version of Darkest of Days is now available on Steam for all of Europe!

Pick it up through Steam here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/37700