SAN RAFAEL, CA — Autodesk (www.autodesk.com) has introduced the 2013 versions of its Digital Entertainment Creation (DEC) software and suites.
The company extended its Entertainment Creation Suites via the Ultimate edition, which contains both 3DS Max 2013 and Maya 2013 animation software, along with Softimage 2013 3D animation and visual effects software, Mudbox 2013 3D sculpting and painting software, and MotionBuilder 2013 realtime virtual production and motion capture editing software.
All editions of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites also now include SketchBook Designer 2013 concept art software. This product enables artists to explore and present new ideas for characters, props and environments using a hybrid paint and vector toolset.
Building on the existing data exchange workflows, the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites 2013 offer a variety of new features to further enhance interoperability between products. Live character streaming, for example, between MotionBuilder and Maya provides an efficient way to previsualize a retargeting result in the final Maya scene before transferring the data between applications.
More consistent hotkeys make it easier for Maya artists to navigate viewports in the 3D suite applications, and help artists familiar with 3DS Max to get up to speed with Softimage faster. The enhanced, consistent F-Curve Editor within 3DS Max, Maya, Softimage and MotionBuilder now offers consistent functionality, helping animators transition between these applications more smoothly.
Autodesk HumanIK Interoperability with CAT (Character Animation Toolkit) provides a single-step, round-trip workflow to transfer 3DS Max CAT bipedal characters between 3DS Max, Maya and MotionBuilder. The new releases also offer enhanced interoperability between Maya and 3DS Max, which enables artists to move 3D data between the applications in a single step.
The products contained within the Entertainment Creation Suites have also been updated to offer new creative toolsets, more interactive viewports and workflow enhancements.
· Autodesk Maya 2013 software delivers powerful new toolsets for dynamic simulation, animation and rendering that offer new levels of creativity, while everyday productivity enhancements help artists work faster. In addition, the Open Data initiative introduced in Maya 2013 offers tools to help facilitate parallel workflows and better complexity handling.
3DS Max 2013 delivers ActiveShade support in the Nvidia iray renderer; a new render pass system; and enhanced interoperability with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop software. The 2013 version also offers new tools for motion graphics, 3D animation, and simulation.
Softimage 2013 delivers a new high-fidelity interactive environment and new creative toolsets that include a new CrowdFX simulation feature set, along with enhanced modeling, animation, physics, and selection tools.
MotionBuilder 2013 helps production teams more reliably acquire, aggregate and refine data, and offers a new nonlinear editing paradigm for Virtual Production. Highlights are the option to record live motion capture data directly to disk, a flexible new HUD (heads-up display), a floating viewer and support for broadcast WAV files.
Mudbox 2013 can help artists create complex production-ready scenes with greater ease with the Gigatexel engine and the ability to work with significantly more objects. In addition, Mudbox 2013 offers new multipurpose curves, support for edge sharpness data and enhanced interoperability with Adobe Photoshop software.
Autodesk also announced the 2013 version of its Flame Premium software, which combines high-end visual effects and finishing tools with realtime color grading in a single solution. The new release includes more creative and technical tools for advanced compositing and 3D relighting; interactivity enhancements in Action for an even more fluid creative experience; an improved 3D tracking workflow for greater flexibility and control when positioning compositing elements in a scene; and enhanced grading capabilities, including new color grading presets, a new media export workflow and Tangent Element modular control panel support.