mental ray Standalone 3.6 for Maya 2008 Highlights
Key New Features and Enhancements
The advanced, physically based mental ray? rendering technology allows you to take your CG projects to new, more photorealistic heights.
The latest release of mental ray? Standalone for Autodesk? Maya? software–mental ray 3.6–delivers improved performance and scalability for rendering large scenes.
Real-Time Animation Tools
Using tools that are designed for non-technical artists, you’ll get instant playback of character performances, alleviating the need to preview or render your work. The real-time capabilities of MotionBuilder makes it the character animation software of choice whether for an individual artist, or as the animation backbone of a large production pipeline. Continue Reading
Autodesk? MudboxTM is the first advanced, high resolution brush-based 3D sculpting software that is built from the ground up to address the needs of the professional digital sculptor.
Designed by production artists for production artists, Mudbox introduces new ideas and combines familiar concepts in fresh ways to offer a unique solution for high-end commercial modeling and design.With its friendly interface, consistent structure, respect for industry convention, and a “get it done” focus, Mudbox is quick to learn and easy to use, integrating seamlessly with existing pipelines.
Digital artists with previous 3D experience are quickly productive in Mudbox with minimal or even no orientation. Continue Reading
AUTODESK MUDBOX PRO V1.0.7
Mudbox is the first advanced, high resolution brush-based 3D sculpting software that is built from the ground up to address the needs of the professional digital sculptor.
Mudbox introduces new ideas and combines familiar concepts in fresh ways to offer a unique solution for high-end commercial modeling and design.
With its friendly interface, consistent structure, respect for industry convention, and a “get it done” focus, Mudbox is quick to learn and easy to use, integrating seamlessly with existing pipelines.
Digital artists with previous 3D experience are quickly productive in Mudbox with minimal or even no orientation.
AUTODESK 3DSMAX 2008:
Create rich and complex design visualization. Generate realistic characters
for a top-selling game. Bring 3D effects to the big screen.
Autodesk? 3dsMax? 2008 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software helps
design visualization professionals, game developers, and visual effects artists
maximize their productivity by streamlining the process of working with complex scenes.
Content:
With Autodesk? 3ds Max? 9 Extension: Productivity Booster software, you now have more powerful support for AutoCAD? and Revit? software files, including support for AutoCAD 2008 and Revit 2008 versions. New DWG? import options and an optimized import memory management system make the software easier to use and dramatically improve import performance?making it possible to import large files with complex scenes and many objects. The new Select Similar feature parses object metadata to isolate objects with similar characteristics, making simple work of identifying and changing multiple objects in a scene.
Autodesk Maya Unlimited 2008
The ultimate version of Maya? software?Autodesk Maya Unlimited?is the choice of digital artists who are looking to make their 3D projects stand out. Maya Unlimited includes all the functionality found in Autodesk Maya Complete and provides professional artists and animators with additional industry-leading innovations such as Maya Fluid Effects, Maya nCloth, Maya Hair, Maya Fur, and Maya Live for the creation of superior digital content
Autodesk Combustion 4
Bring your imagination to life and get your work done faster with the easy-to-use Combustion? interface, its efficient workflow, and extensive toolset. Autodesk? Combustion? 4 software is an all-in-one professional compositing application designed to meet the needs of the world?s most demanding artists.
Now available for both Microsoft? Windows? and Apple? Macintosh? platforms.
Powerful Creative Tools
Experience in-context access to motion graphics, industry-leading 3D compositing, vector paint, roto, color correction, and much more.
More intuitive render settings and improvements to mental ray make it easier and faster then ever to get quality renderings and add global illumination effects to your scenes.
New mental ray Sun and Sky shaders have been added to the Daylight system, and together with the new mental ray Physical Sky map you have a powerful lighting system capable to reproduce realistic daylight at any time of the day.
Creating realistic materials is easy with the new Arch+Design material, a single physically correct material with a complete yet easy set of configuration parameters.
The new Car Paint material recreates the metallic paint common to today?s cars, and allows extremely realistic results with minimum effort.
The Select Similar selection tool common to other Autodesk products have been added to VIZ 2008 to maintain a common workflow.
An overview of the major improvements for projects, file management, and workflow that have been included with VIZ 2008.
New Polygon Modeling and nCloth Wind Features
Autodesk? Maya? 2008 provides new and enhanced tools for both the high-level manipulation and component-level editing of polygon models. This video will introduce you to the software?s new Smooth Mesh workflow, which has been significantly streamlined thanks to new, high-performance preview capabilities. You?ll also learn how to take advantage of the new Slide Edge feature and become acquainted with the enhancements made to other polygon editing features such as Pick Walk (for edge loops) and the Keep Faces Together option. Finally, you?ll see a demonstration of the improved dynamic wind features for Maya nCloth, including Wind Shadow Distance, Air Push Distance, and Wind Noise.
Non-Destructive Skin Editing
Animators and animation technical directors often need to work iteratively on their rigged characters. Maya 2008 now streamlines iterative skinning workflows by enabling you to modify the skeleton of a bound character, without having to rebind it after, thus preserving any work done after the skeleton was bound. This video will familiarize you with new tools for inserting and moving joints on a bound skeleton, as well as X-ray Joints. Plus, you?ll learn how to take advantage of the newly added support for multiple bind poses. Also included in this video is a look at the new Maya Artisan brush hotkeys, which enable you to quickly manipulate geometry as you work by toggling between Push/Pull/Smooth and Add/Remove, as well as by inverting the values you?re painting.
Enhanced Character Rigging Workflow
This video shows you how to quickly correct unwanted spikes and other anomalies in smooth skin weighting on a bound character using the new Smooth Skin Weights operation. You?ll also see how the new X-ray Joints option and Copy Weights can help you to set up your characters faster and more efficiently.The demo also includes a look at the new Maya Artisan brush hotkeys. These allow you to toggle between Push/Pull/Smooth and Add/Remove, as well as to invert the values you?re painting as you work?enabling you to keep focus on your model when sculpting or painting attribute values.
Maya nCloth: Enhanced Wind Model
As the first Maya module built on Autodesk?s new Nucleus technology, Maya nCloth lets you quickly direct and control your cloth and other material simulations in entirely new ways. This video introduces you to nCloth?s improved wind model, which now supports wind shadowing?the effect wherein cloth will not be blown by wind on the opposite side of the character or when it is sheltered by another object. You?ll also see a demonstration of how to use the Air Push Distance feature and the new lift model.
Maya nCloth with a Fast-Moving Object
As the first Maya module built on Autodesk?s new Nucleus technology, Maya nCloth lets you quickly direct and control your cloth and other material simulations in entirely new ways. This video demonstrates an efficient workflow for creating nCloth on fast-moving objects. You?ll also get an overview of the time-saving nCloth presets new in Maya 2008. Finally, you?ll learn how to take advantage of nCloth Cache Blending and Painting to quickly achieve your desired result.
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