Tighter Interoperability with Other Autodesk Tools Helps Increase ProductivitySAN RAFAEL, Calif., March 1, 2011 -- Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) announced the release of Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 software, the latest version of the company’s 3D modeling, animation, rendering and compositing application. Mapping to the Excalibur (XBR) initiative — a phased plan for the restructuring of 3ds Max — the new version provides fundamental improvements in workflow, user interface and performance that will give artists enhanced creative capabilities and help them to be more productive.  Nitrous Accelerated Graphics Core A top priority of the Excalibur (XBR) initiative to revitalize 3ds Max is to introduce a new viewport system engineered to help provide dramatic improvements in performance and visual quality. Nitrous leverages accelerated GPUs and multi-core workstations to enable artists to iterate faster and handle larger data sets with limited impact on interactivity. Advanced scene management techniques, together with multithreaded viewport scene traversal and material evaluation, result in a smoother, more responsive workflow. Furthermore, Nitrous provides a render-quality display environment that supports unlimited lights, soft shadows, screen-space ambient occlusion, tone-mapping, and higher-quality transparency. It also enables progressive refinement of image quality without blocking changes to the scene, helping artists make better creative decisions in the context of their final output. Achieving a key goal of the XBR initiative, 3ds Max 2012 introduces a rewritten, multi-threaded graphics core that provides significant improvements to viewport performance and quality. In addition, new creative toolsets and enhanced iterative workflows help increase overall pr oductivity. The 2012 version also features single-step interoperability with products contained in Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite Premium 2012, offering artists easier access to specialized tools for the task at hand.  Enhanced UVW Unwrapping Create better UVW maps in less time, with a new Least Squares Conformal Mapping (LSCM) method, enhancements to existing tools, and more streamlined workflows. The LSCM method preserves local angles of the mesh faces in order to help minimize texture distortion. Employed in a new "Peel‟ tool, the new method produces unwrapped UVWs from cut seams with a single click. Moreover, new shortcuts and better defaults for common actions, together with improved tools for alignment, cluster positioning, and edge selection help speed the entire texture mapping process. "Artists are facing shorter deadlines coupled with increasing expectations for quality," said Marc Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “3ds Max 2012 delivers powerful tools that take advantage of recent hardware advances, along with better interoperability with the other products included in our Entertainment Creation Suites. Together these enhancements help artists to make creative decisions early, validate them and deliver better results faster.†"The first time I loaded a scene in 3ds Max 2012 I could see the soft lighting and shadows right in the viewport. This had the biggest impact on me. I suddenly felt more productive; like the barriers to my creativity were falling away,†said Stephen Lebed, 3ds Max beta tester and visual effects supervisor at MECHnology.  iray Renderer Creating realistic images has never been easier with 3ds Max, when you are using the newly integrated iray rendering technology from mental images. Another major milestone in the Rendering Revolution, iray enables artists to set up their scene, press "render", and get more predictable, photo-real results without worrying about rendering settings—similar to a "point-and-shoot" camera. Artists can focus on their creative vision as they intuitively use real world materials, lighting, and settings to more accurately portray the physical world. iray progressively refines the image until the desired level of detail is achieved. iray works with standard multi-core CPUs, however, NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPU hardware will significantly accelerate the rendering process. Key New Features in Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 Software
More information and new feature videos are available at www.autodesk.com/3dsmax. Also visit Autodesk's 3ds Max blogs on AREA by Ken Pimentel, Shane Griffith and Louis Marcoux.  Sculpting and Painting Enhancements Artists can enjoy greater control over brushstrokes and their effects on geometry, thanks to new sculpting and painting workflows. Useful in topology reduction workflows, the new Conform brush guides geometry towards another surface with the degree of the conforming effect varying from softly approaching to shrink-wrapping. Modelers can slide vertices along target surfaces with the new transform brushes: Move, Rotate, Scale, and Relax. In addition, Paint Deform brushstrokes—for tools such as Push, Flatten, and Exaggerate—can be constrained to a spline, enabling it to be used as a guide or ruler, or to easily repeat freehand strokes. Moreover, artists can now save and load brush settings to quickly toggle between favourite presets and choose a source for the Clone brush from anywhere on the screen when painting bitmaps in the Viewport Canvas. Pricing and Availability Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 is also expected to be available as part of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite Premium 2012. The Suite offers 3ds Max together with Autodesk Softimage 2012, Autodesk Mudbox 2012 and Autodesk MotionBuilder 2012 software for $6,495* MSRP, representing a 42 percent* cost savings compared to purchasing the software separately. * International pricing and savings may vary. About Autodesk Autodesk, AutoCAD, Maya, MotionBuilder, Mudbox, Softimage and 3ds Max are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Academy Award is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. iray is a registered trademark of mental images GmbH licensed for use by Autodesk, Inc. All other brand names, produ ct names or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2011 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved. Editor's Note: Be sure to check out all the valuable resources available right here on Renderosity, for all your artistic endeavors, starting with the following related links: |
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