Autodesk Presents Its Digital Entertainment Creation Solutions Portfolio

Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 10, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.

Autodesk has introduced the latest versions of its Digital Entertainment Creation software for 3D modelling, animation, effects, rendering, compositing, digital sculpting and 3D painting. The 2011 versions offer new functions and improvements that help accelerate workflows, improve interoperability, help artists maximise creativity and optimise productivity. Autodesk has also introduced new versions of its game-development middleware, Autodesk Kynapse and Autodesk HumanIK, focusing on increased ease of use.

“Our 2011 products offer customers excellent value for money and deliver the latest technologies, some developed together with industry leaders such as Sony Pictures Imageworks,” said Marc Petit, Senior Vice President Media & Entertainment at Autodesk. “These versions provide significantly improved data interoperability through open formats such as Autodesk FBX, as well as numerous innovative functions.”

“With Autodesk Maya 2011, workflows for creating digital entertainment products are taken to an entirely new level through a new customisable user interface, new high-performance viewports and a 3D editorial interface. Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 users benefit from more tightly integrated rendering workflows thanks to the new material editor, a faster GPU renderer and an HDR compositor,” Petit added.

Autodesk Maya 2011: One Maya. More Value

Following the fundamental redesign of Maya 2010 last summer, Maya 2011 offers several groundbreaking functions. These include a more customisable user interface, expanded character-animation tools (including non-destructive live retargeting), high-performance display of large scenes in the viewport, new 3D editorial functions for previsualisation and virtual-production workflows, integrated colour management, asset structures for pipeline connectivity, and optimised rotoscoping. Maya 2011 is also now available for Snow Leopard, the 64-bit version of the Mac OS X operating system.

Autodesk 3ds Max 2011: Breaking Through Rendering Barriers

With a powerful new node-based material editor, 3ds Max 2011 now offers the function most frequently requested by 3ds Max users. The new release also includes a high-quality hardware renderer that delivers results approaching production quality ten times faster than conventional rendering methods using ordinary graphics cards. The software also includes a tightly integrated, fully featured high-dynamic-range compositing system based on Autodesk Toxik technology, as well as expanded tools and workflows for creating and texturing models, animating characters and interactively displaying high-quality images. This substantially increases productivity.

Autodesk Softimage 2011: High-Quality Characters and Effects in the Shortest Time

Softimage 2011 introduces innovative new rendering and animation tools that help artists create more complex, higher-quality characters and effects in less time. The software offers a new expanded shading architecture and editing environment, an innovative rigging paradigm with support for kinematics in ICE (Interactive Creative Environment), and automated lip synchronisation within the Face Robot toolset for facial animation.

Autodesk Mudbox 2011: Powerful New Tools and Workflows

Mudbox 2011 includes new tools that help reshape and pose models. It also offers redesigned image-correction brushes and blending modes for paint layers, extraction of vector displacement maps, an option for creating higher-quality turntables, and improved file exchange with Maya and Adobe Photoshop.

Autodesk MotionBuilder 2011: Easier Integration into Production Pipelines

MotionBuilder 2011, which provides substantially improved interoperability with Maya 2011 and 3ds Max 2011, can now be integrated even more smoothly and reliably into production pipelines. Skinning and blendshape deformations are now calculated on the graphics processing unit (GPU), increasing performance. The viewport experience is substantially more interactive and playback is considerably faster, further strengthening the software’s usability as a real-time virtual-production system.

Autodesk FBX 2011: Better Integration

Autodesk FBX 2011 asset-exchange technology helps enable higher-fidelity data exchange between Autodesk software and selected third-party applications. The open format offers new support for additional third-party and proprietary applications. Game developers using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 can also import FBX files directly into Unreal Editor. Developers can now additionally use the Python development language to integrate FBX technology with pipelines not based on C++.

Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites 2011: Value and Flexibility

These new products are also provided as part of Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites. They give artists and production studios access to a broad range of creative toolsets at substantially lower cost. The suites offer a choice between Maya 2011 and 3ds Max 2011 and include the real-time character-animation software MotionBuilder 2011 and Mudbox 2011, the software for digital sculpting and 3D painting.

Autodesk HumanIK 4.5 Middleware: Technology for Believable Characters

Autodesk HumanIK animation middleware is a runtime solution for full-body inverse kinematics and retargeting that enhances existing animation systems so characters can interact dynamically and realistically with their environments. Autodesk HumanIK 4.5 increases usability through user-friendly integration with Unreal Engine and a characterisation plug-in for creating and validating characters in Maya.

Autodesk Kynapse 7 Middleware: The Brain of a Game

Autodesk Kynapse middleware is a worldwide leading, production-proven artificial-intelligence solution already used in more than 100 games. This high-performance AI engine supports complex dynamic 3D pathfinding, spatial logic, team coordination and automatic data generation. Kynapse 7 increases ease of use through the generation of new path data, improved tuning and profiling, simplified integration and configuration, and preinstalled behaviour patterns.

Short videos covering the new functions in the 2011 versions of the Digital Entertainment Creation solutions are available through the Autodesk YouTube channel.

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