Autodesk announces new generative AI tools in Maya
Autodesk is to integrate generative AI services inside Maya, enabling artists to generate textures, materials and HDR images inside the 3D animation software.
The news was announced at SIGGRAPH 2023, along with an upcoming integration between Maya and Wonder Studio, Wonder Dynamics’ AI-based animation platform.
New generative AI services will ‘supercharge workflows’ in Maya
The new generative AI services will enable artists to generate textures, materials and HDRIs inside LookdevX, Maya’s new look development toolset.
The services were developed using Picasso, Nvidia’s cloud-based platform, also being used by by stock asset library Shutterstock for its upcoming text-to-3D model-generation service.
According to Autodesk, the new AI services will make look development and scene lighting workflows “dramatically faster”.
Nvidia commented that “supercharging Autodesk customer workflows with AI allows artists to focus on creating — and to ultimately produce content faster”.
At the minute, we don’t have any more information on when the new generative AI services will become publicly available, or what data they have been trained on.
We’ve contacted Autodesk for more details, and will update if we hear back.
Updated 9 August 2023: Autodesk told us that it couldn’t currently provide any details on the timescale for a public release, or how the training data is collected, but said that it “embrace[s] responsible AI”.
New integration between Maya and AI animation platform Wonder Studio in development
Autodesk has also announced a new partnership with Wonder Dynamics, developer of Wonder Studio, the much-hyped AI-based online platform for inserting 3D characters into video footage.
The work will “empower artists to harness the power of AI for character-driven visual effects workflows”, beginning with an integration between Maya and Wonder Studio.
At the minute, mocap data generated by Wonder Studio can be imported into Maya in FBX format, but the integration is less close than with Blender, where users can export actual scene files.
Following on from the announcement of Maya Assist
The announcements are Autodesk’s latest forays into AI workflows inside Maya.
Earlier this year, the firm announced Maya Assist, a new AI-powered system for manipulating scenes inside Maya by entering natural-language text propts, based on OpenAI’s AI models.
System requirements and release dates
We don’t yet know which version of Maya the new generative AI services will be available in, or when it will be released. The current stable release is Maya 2024.1.
Read more about the upcoming generative AI services in Maya on Autodesk’s blog