Autodesk previews new Deformable Poly for 3ds Max

Autodesk has posted another video of R&D on 3ds Max, this time showing the new Deformable Poly object type.

The video shows a four-million-triangle model of a head with a Bend modifier applied to an Editable Mesh; then the result when the modifier is applied to the same mesh as a Deformable Poly*.

The increase in performance in the second part of the video is quite noticeable as the artist scrubs away enthusiastically at the controls, resulting in some quite frightening deformations to the poor chap’s head.

As with previous videos, the research is not guaranteed to make it into future versions of Max; but given the timing, it seems likely that it’s destined for 3ds Max 2013.

Read the full thread on Ken Pimentel’s blog

*If we’ve managed to read the text on the UI correctly, that is. It certainly appears to be called ‘Deformable [something]’, and that something is widely being reported on blogs as ‘Poly’.