Yearly Archives: 2011

/2011

Autodesk Mudbox 2012 Review

By Mike de la Flor

Reaping the benefits of a developmental fast track Mudbox 2012 bears the fruit of five years of successful development by Autodesk. As a result Mudbox 2012 ships with an even better 3D paint system, better posing, new sculpting options, interface improvements, and critical performance updates.

Photoshop-like 3D Painting
Though Mudbox 2011 introduced important new features to the 3D paint system Mudbox 2012 goes above and beyond with support for Per-face texturing (Ptex) and new layer masks and blending modes. Developed by Disney Studios, Ptex is a novel, open source, texturing/mapping method that does not use UVs. Unlike UV mapping Ptex assigns texture data to each face (polygon) on a model, thus no UV data is required. Further, different faces can have varying resolutions and Ptex files can hold different texture maps like ambient occlusion, displacement or normal maps.

With Per-face texturing (Ptex) it is now possible to paint detailed textures without UVs. (Click to enlarge)

To get started using Ptex in Mudbox simply run the PTEX Set Up command select the texture resolution and start painting. All painting tools and brushes and paint layers work the same as if working with UVs. The downside is that PTex files are not really editable in programs like Photoshop.The layers in Mudbox 2012 now have layer masks and 22 new blending modes. […]

By |November 27th, 2011|Articles, Reviews|0 Comments
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Autodesk Maya 2012 Review

By Mike de la Flor

Maya 2012 will be a favorite update for serious animators because many of the key upgrades are in the animation, character rigging, and dynamics workflows. However, other parts of Maya also received important improvements such as the Edit Mesh workflow and support for vector displacement as well as Per-face texturing, among many other importance improvements.

Awesome Animation
Maya is without a doubt the best animation suite available, and this release keeps Maya on top with key animation enhancements. Having made that assertion, the first item reviewed here is Editable Motion Trails, a type of tool that has been part of many other animation suites for years, but lacking in Maya – until now.

Editable Motion Trails make it easy to adjust the trajectory of an animated model.

By projecting a visual representation of an animated object’s trajectory in the scene Editable Motion Trails allow animators to interactively adjust the shape of an object’s path in real time. Editable Motion Trails can also display keyframes so that timing and weighting (without the graph editor) can be accomplished with immediate feedback. […]

By |October 27th, 2011|Articles, Reviews|0 Comments
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Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 Review

By Mike de la Flor

For several releases 3ds Max users have been teased with what the Excalibur (XBR) project has in store for the future of 3ds Max. However, the full impact of XBR is clear in 3ds Max 2012 with a completely new viewport system and a new dynamics infrastructure that may rival Maya’s Nucleus.

The best new feature in 3ds Max 2012 is the Nitrous Accelerated Graphics Core which delivers blazing fast performance with massive datasets, real-time rendering effects in the viewports, and Non-photorealistic options. (Click to enlarge)

Nitrous Power
The most important update in 3ds Max 2012 is the new Nitrous Accelerated Graphics Core – a new viewport system that improves performance and display quality. As part of the XBR push to streamline and update 3ds Max 2012 Nitrous is not simply tweaks to a bloated viewport system but a complete re-engineering. Nitrous harnesses the computing power of multiple core workstations and high-end GPUs to manage and display massive datasets in the viewports faster. With Nitrous, the data in each viewport is crunched separately from all other computing processes, thus providing users with fast working environment. […]

By |October 27th, 2011|Articles, Reviews|0 Comments
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