This week’s round-up features a series of new applications and tools.

Discover how X-Particles 4, Pixelmator Pro, and AEViewer can improve your workflow and expand your capabilities.

We also look at Pantone’s Colour of the Year 2018.

X-Particles 4 features new spline and flow fields, cloth effects, and packing systems

INSYDIUM has announced that X-Particles 4, the latest version of its popular Cinema 4D particle simulation tool, is now available to buy.

It comes with new spline and flow fields, cloth effects, packing systems, attractors, OpenVDB support, and ExplosiaFX for smoke and fire.

“An essential component of an artist’s toolkit, we have vastly improved our visual effects features such as Cloth, Smoke, Fire and Fluids,” said INSYDIUM. “Alongside, we’ve given some of our existing features a significant overhaul, others just a little fine-tuning.”

Pantone reveals its Colour of the Year 2018

Pantone, the world’s leading provider of professional colour language standards, has announced that 18-3838 Ultra Violet is its Colour of the Year 2018.

“We are living in a time that requires inventiveness and imagination,” Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute Leatrice Eiseman said. It is this kind of creative inspiration that is indigenous to PANTONE 18-3838 Ultra Violet, a blue-based purple that takes our awareness and potential to a higher level.”

This particular shade of purple shouldn’t be confused with Love Symbol #2, another Pantone colour released earlier this year in celebration of Prince.

AEViewer enables better and faster workflow with media files in After Effects

A new extension for After Effects promises an easier experience when previewing, applying, and importing projects and media.

With AEViewer, you can create animated previews for projects with a single click. It also works with Photoshop and Illustrator files, Cinema 4D files, images, fonts, codecs scripts, and expressions.

AEViewer is available for US$59.99 and was created by Alex White, who also developed Font Manager and AutoSaver.

Pixelmator Pro taking on Photoshop as cheaper alternative

Pixelmator Pro is a brand new image editing app for Mac targeting creative users who don’t have the budget for Adobe Photoshop.

Available to buy for just US$59, Pixelmator Pro includes a number of impressive features, such as real-time effects and machine-learning tools.

“We’re incredibly excited to finally release Pixelmator Pro on the Mac App Store,” one of the founders of the Pixelmator Team, Saulius Dailide said. “Its innovative, user-centered design makes editing images on a Mac simpler than ever.”