Autodesk’s Maurice Patel and Rob Hoffmann announced a slew of new features for Maya, 3ds Max, Softimage, Mudbox, MotionBuilder, HumanIK and Kynapse. All of the features are intended to improve digital entertainment creation and efficiency for production pipleines. New features include improved interoperability between software, one great example of this is the move to one mental ray for all products. Instead of you getting mental ray for max and mental ray for maya, mental ray will now be non software specific meaning you can render from either one. The new software releases also boast improved 64 bit support and multi-threading and gpu integration for real-time interaction. Mac users should be ecstatic since Maya now takes advantage of Snow Leopards 64 bit functionality.
Maya 2011
Accelerated 3D Editorial — Maya 2011 New Features
Non-Destructive Live Retargeting — Maya 2011 New Features
Enhancements to Assets and File Referencing — Maya 2011 New Features
Enhanced Skinning Workflow — Maya 2011 New Features
3ds Max 2011
User Interface Customization Part 1 — 3ds Max 2011 New Features
User Interface Customization Part 2 — 3ds Max 2011 New Features
Object Paint — 3ds Max 2011 New Features
3ds Max Composite — 3ds Max 2011 New Features
Viewport Canvas toolset — 3ds Max 2011 New Features
Slate Material Editor — 3ds Max 2011 New Features
Maya Improvements:
For Animation
-New Skinning Tools
-New non destructive Retargeting Tools
-Enhanced Graph Editor
-Support for Timeline Scrubbing with playback of multiple audio tracks
UI
-designed to reduce eye strain
-Updated Script Editor
-Larger scene performance
-improved file browser
Max Improvements
-Slate – new node based material editor
-Quicksilver hardware renderer that is 10x faster than traditional rendering techniques.
-Improved containers system allows multiple users to work on same scene more efficiently.
Softimage improvements
-shader and render artists now have access to sandbox system
-ICE kinematics for faster and more advanced rigging.
-Face Robot Lip-Synching
Mudbox 2011
-posing toolset
-image adjustment brushes
MotionBuilder
-GPU calculates skinning and deformations for improved speed
New Autodesk interoperability with Unreal Engine
-Improved support for Unreal editor with direct import of Autodesk FBX format into Unreal Engine.
-Autodesk HumanIK improves integration with Unreal Engine 3
-Characterization tool
-Squash and Stretch Functionality animators have greater control
-Kynapse 7: non-playable characters now have improved awareness of proximity to other objects and terrain.
Tags: 3d, 3ds max, animation, autodesk, Featured Articles, humanIK, improvements, kynapse, max 2011, maya 2011, rigging, softimage, software
crash said:
As a modeler and long time Maya user I can sum up my feelings on the additions to Maya 2011 in one single word – SAD! Modo keeps looking better and better to me!
5:49 pm on Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Freiheit said:
Wow! I thought they just will create some new buttons
1:41 am on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Karolis said:
cannot see iray in that list…..me hulk …..me angry…..me smash keyboard and spit gas from my green botto…..loud green and deadly
2:47 am on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Karolis said:
but new material editor looks amazing….the ribbon is just mhee….whatever i’m still not using it….paint tools very handy and cool
2:48 am on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Karolis said:
all my coments are addresed to max not maya…..maya scares me still
2:49 am on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Autodesk announces new features for Max and Maya 2011! « 3DCG LABO said:
[...] Autodesk announces new features for Max and Maya 2011! [...]
3:16 am on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Max Puliero said:
WOW new 3DSmax features are THE SAME as Blender !!
But they sell it for 4000dollars!! WOW !!
Thanks Autodesk
we are very lucky 
4:30 am on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
jimbo said:
Max
node elements, vextex and object painting, and the little UI updates, this is what i am talking about!!!!
good work, keep it up !
6:39 am on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tom said:
How trivial to make CTL select to be “only select and not for deselect”, and how is that “logicial”? Is it supposed to stop me accidentally selecting backfaces instead of deselecting?
Such UI changes should be at least a preference you can set on or off.
6:41 am on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Nenad said:
Why ICC profiles support in Maya and not in Max?! What kind of a logic is that?!
4:41 pm on Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Neil said:
Again, no improvements in any of Max’s animation systems. Plenty of people still use Biped. It still has loads of bugs. CAT is naff and not worth looking at, due to lack of documentation. I’d change packages, but I’m still paying Autodesk in one way or another.
5:20 am on Thursday, March 11, 2010
nano said:
LOL guys!
for u as a modeler may be right.. u can use only silo, modo or wtevr cheaper pkg..
But,. r u comparing MAYA as vfx tool with these softwares .. ??!!
or u comparing the stability of MAYA as a production pipeline with those packages ?!!
there are a lot of new features coming..
6:42 pm on Friday, March 12, 2010
Aatish said:
well… after watching all Maya videos I reached one verdict it is, that (maybe) autodesk is making Maya an Animation platform because last two version had mostly animation related enhancements. I really like the skinning enhancements and aset managments but not so excited bout camera short designer or whatever.
On the max side well after watching the two first videos and after reading the titles of rest I just felt sad! Maya had all that stuff like in version 3 or maybe 4?I don’t remember …. nothing revolutionary but well new to max users maybe!
But I dont’ want to see Maya as only Animation platform it will break my heart and lots of other million users! hopefully we see changes in every part of mayawork flow!
Cheers!
4:16 am on Monday, March 15, 2010
schmiddl said:
i think the skinning improvements in maya will really speed it up. but besides that the only thing autodesk should REALLY REALLY care about, is to clean the program up! Throw useless buttons out, work on the core of the program..right now the workflow is one gigantic workaround..a program this complicated is bound to be bugy..
1:27 am on Thursday, March 18, 2010
jawid said:
I’m a Maya user , I don’t see a lots of change in maya , they only barrowed characterization tool from MotionBuilder . if I want to do animation I always prefer Motionbuilder. the only improvement is skinning part , which is very cool ….
3:29 am on Thursday, March 18, 2010
David Dominowski said:
Outstanding Maya 2011 new features, We’re all exited about the new 3D Editoral and Skinning Features. Regarding Assets and File Referencing We would like to see a sort of OpenPipeline (http://kickstand.tv/tools/openpipeline/) plugin built in in maya with the new Assets Management features.
9:39 am on Thursday, March 18, 2010
arnel said:
have you guys seen this tut http://www.cgwhat.com/maya-lip-sync/ flipping funny as hell the guy show how to use blend shapes and then animates the character to say it’s peanut butter jelly time
11:30 pm on Monday, March 22, 2010