With GDC going on it’s no surprise to hear a number of product announcement. Today Autodesk announced the annual refresh of almost all of their game related technologies including Maya and Maya LT, Max, MotionBuilder, Mudbox and Softimage.
From the official press release here are the major new features for each product:
Autodesk Maya 2015 software adds new capabilities to the toolset such as the new Bifrost
procedural effects platform which provides an extensible, artist-friendly workflow for complex
simulation and rendering tasks, initially applied to near photorealistic liquids; XGen Arbitrary
Primitive Generator for the easy creation of richly detailed geometry such as hair, fur, and foliage;
Geodesic Voxel Binding method for skinning characters; ShaderFX, a new node-based visual
interface for shader programing; support for Pixar’s OpenSubdiv libraries; enhanced polygon
modeling tools; and expanded UV options;Autodesk 3ds Max 2015 software has been extended and redesigned to help improve
performance, ease-of-use and management of complex scenes. New in 2015 is ShaderFX, a new
node-based visual interface that allows game artists and programmers to more easily create
advanced HLSL viewport shaders; point cloud dataset support for reality capture workflows; new
viewport performance optimizations; a redesigned scene explorer to make it easier for artists to
manage large scenes; ActiveShade support for the NVIDIA mental ray renderer; and new Python
scripting support – a highly requested user feature for pipeline integration;Autodesk MotionBuilder 2015 provides several features that advance motion capture workflow
accessibility such as: a new plug-in for Microsoft Kinect to help capture body movements for use
in MotionBuilder, Animatable Depth of Field and Follow Focus camera options to recreate
elements of real-world cinematography, a robust content library with 100 commonly required
character animations in the Autodesk FBX®
format and flexible marker assignment to adjust
character positions;Autodesk Mudbox 2015 software boasts streamlined mesh refinement for retopologizing and new
Sculpt Layer and Paint Layer groups for organizing and identifying particular layers in complex
scenes. The release also has advanced interoperability with Maya 2015, an enhanced texture
export and updating workflow, new caliper tool and support for Intel HD graphics 4000 on
compatible Windows 8 operating system hybrid tablet/PCs;Autodesk Softimage 2015* software helps streamline 3D asset creation and management with
Alembic caching, enhancements to the ICE platform and animatable weight maps in Syflex cloth.Autodesk Maya LT 2015 Software Streamlines Indie Game Development
Maya LT 2015, the latest iteration of Autodesk’s cost-effective 3D animation and modeling software for
professional indie game makers, introduces a series of rich new features and integrations that help
advance the 3D content creation process for indie game development.The updated application has:
- Cloud integration allows artists to browse, open, modify and save Dropbox or Autodesk 360 files to the cloud directly through the Maya LT interface. Leverage 123D Catch or 123D Creature files saved in Autodesk’s 123D cloud storage as a reference for creating game assets in Maya LT;
- Unfold 3D helps facilitate the seamless creation of UV maps from 3D models;
- Substance Material Integration allows users to apply materials created in the Allegorithmic Substance Designer procedural texture creation tool to 3D models
In addition to the new features, Maya LT 2015 also has the extension releases of Maya LT 2014, such as:
support for MEL scripting, a send-to-Unity workflow, uncapped polygon export to Unity, the ability to
export models or scenes up to 65,000 polygons in the FBX or OBJ formats, Human IK and IK Handle
Animation, and Boolean operations on polygon geometry.
Notice the little asterisk beside Softimage 2015? Well, here is the fine print.
* Editor’s Note: Softimage 2015 will be the final new release of this product.
So there you have it, Autodesk finally killed it off. I think the writing has been on the wall for a long time, but it still sad to see an old friend go.
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