| AUTODESK ANNOUNCES '2011' RELEASES |  |   | | MONTREAL – Today, Autodesk (www.autodesk.com) revealed plans for its 2011 software releases, which are expected to ship as early as April of this year.
| | (3/9/2010) | | Marc Loftus | | Maurice Patel, Autodesk’s entertainment industry manager says the company has been working hard to recognize and respond to trends they see in the film, television and videogame markets. These include the increased interest in stereoscopic 3D, virtual production, an increase in the use of digital characters, changing business and distribution models, broadening demographics, and the growth in mobile and online games.
As such, Autodesk is responding with tools and efficiencies that customers can take advantage of to create entertainment. One example is the increased interoperability between the software tools the company includes in its Entertainment Creation Suites. These suites can represent a cost savings of as much as 35 percent when compared to purchasing the applications individually. Another example is the refinement Autodesk has made to Mental Ray, which now allows the same renderer to be used for any 3DS Max, Maya or Softimage project.
Autodesk’s senior product marketing manager Rob Hoffmann spoke more specifically about the 2011 releases. Maya 2011, he says, features an enhanced user interface, an accelerated skinning workflow, non-destructive live retargeting features, 64-bit Mac OSX support, 3D editorial features and color management tools.
3DS Max 2011 includes a new node-based material editor, which Hoffmann says was an often-requested feature by customers. The Quicksilver hardware renderer improves rendering performance and makes use of both the CPU and GPU. Users can also now render images larger than screen resolution.
Softimage 2011 features a new shader operating environment and
ICE Kinematics, which allows technical directors to create advanced elements, as well as easily troubleshoot and de-bug rigs. The Face Robot lip syncing tool allows users to easily create facial animation based on an audio file.
Mudbox 2011, the company’s digital sculpting tool, features new tools for posing models, along with new image adjustment brushes. Enhanced file transfer capabilities streamline workflows that include Maya and Photoshop. The new release also offers 64-bit OSX support. The company’s realtime character animation software, MotionBuilder 2011, now integrates more smoothly into production pipelines and features GPU-calculated deformers.
For those looking for value and a package of tools, the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites come with a choice of either Maya 2011 or 3DS Max 2011, along with MotionBuilder 2011 and Mudbox 2011.
While pricing will remain similar to the 2010 releases, the price of Softimage 2011 has been reduced to $2,995 in its standalone version.
| |
