Academy Award–Winning Technology Extends Its Toolset for Previsualization, Games Prototyping and Simulation
Autodesk, Inc. announced that Autodesk Maya 2012 3D modeling, animation, visual effects, rendering and compositing software now contains powerful new toolsets for previsualization and games prototyping, extended simulation capabilities and better pipeline integration. The new release also includes single-step workflows to enable users to move 3D data directly between the latest versions of Maya, Autodesk MotionBuilder, Autodesk Mudbox and Autodesk Softimage Interactive Creative Environment (ICE) for better pipeline integration.
“Maya continues to drive creative innovation across the film, games and television industries — from “Black Swan” to “EA SPORTS MMA” and “NCIS, new creative standards are being set in productions of all kinds,” said Marc Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “With Maya 2012, we have continued our long-term focus on improving production efficiency as well as real-time creative iteration with enhancements to the Maya viewport addressing new trends in previsualization, virtual moviemaking and games prototyping.”
“The high-fidelity viewport, enhancements to Nucleus and the overall performance improvements, have made Maya 2012 more flexible, powerful and modern,” said Peter Shipkov, technical director, Digital Domain.
Key New Features in Autodesk Maya 2012 Software
* Viewport 2.0 Enhancements — Now offers full-screen effects: motion blur, depth-of-field and ambient occlusion, component and manipulator displays, batch rendering capabilities and a high-performance API (application programming interface).
* Node-Based Render Passes — Ability to create and edit node-based representations of render passes and render the composited output directly using the mental ray renderer.
* Editable Motion Trails — Edit animation directly in the viewport, without the need to switch context to the graph editor.
* Sequencer Enhancements — A Sequencer Playlist with a configurable spreadsheet view to reorder clips, edit In and Out points and change camera assignments; as well as support for multi-track audio and the ability to output multiple shots as a single sequence for easier game cinematic rendering or export to a games engine.
* Substance Smart Textures — A library of 80 dynamic, animatable and editable resolution-independent Substance smart textures and filters with a tiny disk space footprint. Textures can also be converted to bitmaps for rendering or baking purposes.
* Craft Animation Tools — Four new camera rigs from the Craft Director Studio animation tool to create believable, complex camera movements that mimic real-world setups and four pre-rigged models (two cars and two airplanes) to more easily simulate vehicle motion, terrain recognition, previsualization and in-game cinematics.
* New Simulation Options — Incorporates the multithreaded NVIDIA PhysX engine for static, dynamic and kinematic rigid-body simulations directly in the Maya viewport and the Digital Molecular Matter plug-in for shattering simulations from Pixelux Entertainment.
Pricing and Availability
Autodesk anticipates that Maya 2012 will be available in English in April 2011. The Autodesk suggested retail price for an Autodesk Maya 2012 stand-alone license is $3,495. The price to upgrade from Maya 2011 to Maya 2012 is $1,745. Autodesk Subscription with Gold Support is available for purchase simultaneously with the product or upgrade purchase for $895 per year.
Autodesk Maya 2012 is also expected to be available as part of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite Premium 2012, which offers Maya together with Softimage, Mudbox and MotionBuilder software for $6,495, representing a 42 percent cost savings compared to purchasing the software separately.