autodesk entertainment creation suites 2014

Autodesk® Entertainment Creation Suites 2014

SUITES

Redefining Digital Entertainment Creation

Sculpt and paint intuitively. Animate in real-time. Simulate with ease. Share data in a single step.

Explore a palette of industry-leading 3D animation toolsets

The Autodesk® Entertainment Creation Suites 2014 provide an affordable end-to-end creation and production solution, offering tools used by professional artists working in visual effects, game development, and other 3D animation production. The Standard edition offers a choice of either Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2014 or Autodesk® Maya® 2014 animation software, together with Autodesk® Mudbox® 2014 3D sculpting and painting software, Autodesk® MotionBuilder® 2014 real-time virtual production and motion capture editing software, and Autodesk® SketchBook® Designer 2014 concept art software. The Premium edition additionally offers Autodesk® Softimage® 2014 3D animation and visual effects software. Best of all, with the Ultimate edition, you get everything in the Premium edition together with both Maya 2014 AND 3ds Max 2014. Integrated through single-step interoperability workflows and user interfaces that offer common look-and-feel elements, the suites help increase productivity and provide enhanced creative opportunities—at a significant cost saving over purchasing all of the products individually.

What’s nEWautodesk Maya 2014Viewport Display and ShadingAccelerated Modeling Workflow Grease PencilScene Assembly Tools

autodesk 3ds Max 2014PopulateAugmented Particle Flow SystemImproved Viewport PerformancePerspective Match

autodesk softimage 2014Camera SequencerCrowdFX EnhancementsICE Improvements Extended FBX Support

autodesk MotionBuilder 2014Linux Support

autodesk Mudbox 2014Advanced Retopology Tools

™ and © 2012 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

™ and © 2012 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

autodesk Maya 2014Maya 2014 helps put creativity back at your fingertips, with an intuitive Grease Pencil for blocking out and marking up animation; innovative new Paint Effects features; and enhanced modeling and animation tools. Moreover, with the next-generation Maya® DX11Shader* and an enhanced Viewport 2.0, you can work in a high-quality, real-time environment that closely matches the final output. In addition, building and managing large and complex worlds is now easier, thanks to new Scene Assembly tools.

Key new Features in Maya 2014next-Gen Viewport Display and shading

Take advantage of the power of Microsoft® DirectX® 11 software to help create and edit high-quality assets and images in less time, with the new Maya DX11Shader*. Using the next generation of viewport display and hardware rendering technology, DX11Shader offers real-time, centralized, easy-to-control shader effects: crack-free tessellation, vector displacement maps, translucence, reflections, and shadows. Moreover, the high-performance Viewport 2.0 now supports many more native Maya shading nodes.

new Paint Effects surface and Volume attributes

Now you can control how Paint Effects strokes react with surfaces, volumes, and each other, with new Surface Snap, Surface Attract, Surface Collide, Make Collide, and Occupation attributes. Together, these attributes can be used to quickly create a wide range of natural effects that would be very difficult and time-consuming to create with conventional methods. Just a few examples are: vascular networks, electrical sparks, flowing water, clinging vines, contained plant growth, and footsteps on grass.

new Modeling tools and Options

Enjoy increased productivity and higher quality results with new modeling tools and options in Maya 2014. A new Polygon Reduction algorithm offers a faster and more efficient method for reducing mesh complexity; the Edit Edge Flow tool enables you to transform edges to respect the curvature of the surrounding mesh, and to automatically respect curvature continuity when inserting edge loops; and a Crease Set Editor enables you to manage and edit smooth proxy creasing groups.

* Only available on Microsoft® Windows® 64-bit operating system.

scene assembly tools for smarter Data

Creating large, complex worlds is now easier. New Scene Assembly tools in Maya 2014 provide a mechanism for representing production assets as discrete elements, each with complete support for multiple representations. You can easily swap between different representations—for example, varying levels of detail—to select the most appropriate compromise between fidelity and performance for the task at hand. Edits can be applied, animated, or queried at any level in the scene assembly hierarchy.

Grease Pencil

Quickly block out and mark up animation directly within a 3D scene using one of the most natural tools available—the Grease Pencil. Draw directly into the viewport to capture poses at key frames, and view in-between transitions as cross-fades. The pencil strokes are automatically stored as an image plane sequence, so you can use them as reference while creating 3D animation. And it’s not just artists who benefit; directors and other stakeholders can use the Grease Pencil to mark up performances and record their input in the form of notes for their animators.

The Suite is the backbone of our previsualization process, empowering us to help directors hone their visions from concept through the handoff to final visual effects with unprecedented efficiency.– Chris Edwards CEO and Creative Director The Third Floor, Inc.

Image courtesy of Planktoon.

autodesk 3ds Max 20143ds Max 2014 brings a fresh approach to 3D animation, with the innovative new Populate feature set for automatic crowd generation, a significantly augmented Particle Flow toolset, and a performance-enhanced viewport that now supports Microsoft® DirectX® 11 shaders. And, with new Perspective Match and Vector Map tools that cross the 2D/3D divide, 3ds Max 2014 provides new ways of working that can help you extend your creative capabilities.

Key new Features in 3ds Max 2014Populate

Bring worlds to life in a few simple steps, with the new Populate crowd animation feature set. Offering high-level control of plausible human animation, Populate enables you to quickly and easily generate moving or idle crowds to enrich architectural presentations with realistic human activity, or to previsualize a film or video scene. Populate comes with a set of animations and characters for use in common public settings: sidewalks, hallways, lobbies, and plazas; crowd composition tools enable artists to connect walkways into patterns of pedestrian flow.

Improved Viewport Performance

Enjoy significantly improved interactive and playback performance for complex scenes, CAD data, and deforming meshes in 3ds Max 2014, thanks to new adaptive degradation techniques, improved texture memory management, the addition of parallelized modifier computations, and certain other optimizations.

DX 11 Viewport Rendering

Take advantage of the power of Microsoft® DirectX® 11 software to help create and edit high-quality assets and images in less time, with new support for DirectX 11 shaders in 3ds Max 2014. In addition, a new API exposes DirectX 11 capabilities in 3ds Max with HLSL (High Level Shading Language) support.

augmented Particle Flow system

Create more sophisticated, realistic, and customized physical simulations in less time, with a significantly augmented Particle Flow system. Combine up to 25 different suboperators to create customized Particle Flow tools with the new Advanced Data Manipulation toolset.

Simulate natural and manmade forces, create and break bonds between particles, and collide particles with each other and with other objects, with the new mParticles module for the MassFX simulation system. Iterate faster, with new Cache Disk and Cache Selective operators. And enjoy a set of Particle Flow ‘Freebies’ from Orbaz Technologies, now included by default.

Perspective Match

The new Perspective Match feature enables you to interactively match the camera view of a scene to the perspective of a photo background. With this feature, you can easily place a CG element into the context of a still-frame photographic background, making it ideally suited to print and advertising composites.

Vector Map support

Now you can load vector graphics as texture maps and render them at dynamic resolutions; no matter how much the view is zoomed in, graphics will remain crisp and clear. With PDF support that includes animated page transitions, you can create textures that change over time, or create richer and more dynamic CAD illustrations through the support for AutoCAD® software PAT Hatch Pattern files. The feature also supports AI (Adobe® Illustrator® software), SVG, and SVGZ formats.

The interoperability of Autodesk tools (Maya, 3ds Max, MotionBuilder) helped us meet tight deadlines and bring Martin Scorsese’s magical vision to the big screen.–Ben Grossmann VFX Supervisor, Hugo Pixomondo

autodesk® Entertainment Creation suites 2014

Image courtesy of The Material Group.

autodesk softimage 2014Softimage 2014 extends and refines its high-performance feature set with an enhanced creative toolset for artists and technical directors working in visual effects and 3D game development. With a new Camera Sequencer toolset that offers nondestructive directorial control over scenes; augmented CrowdFX and ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) features that open up new possibilities for procedural content creation; and an improved High-Quality Viewport that delivers a higher-fidelity interactive experience, Softimage 2014 provides creative solutions to the everyday challenges you face. Moreover, integration into existing pipelines is now easier, thanks to improved support for animation data exchange via the Autodesk® FBX® 2014 format.

Key new Features in softimage 2014Camera sequencer

Enjoy directorial control over your scenes, with a new Camera Sequencer toolset that offers the ability to easily cut between multiple cameras, and to trim, reorder, and retime clips nondestructively—leaving the original animation data unchanged.

CrowdFX Enhancements

The CrowdFX crowd simulation feature set introduced in Autodesk Softimage 2013 software has been enhanced to provide improved performance and ease of use. It’s now easier to adjust characters’ behavior, and to blend and modify predefined animations.

ICE Improvements

It’s now possible to easily override exposed ports of compounds within the ICE procedural framework. This means you can use the concept of passes and partitions—where the value for any parameter can be different in each pass, in combination with any aspect of ICE. In addition, performance while interactively editing complex ICE trees has been improved.

Extended FBX support

Exchanging animation data with other solutions that support the FBX 2014 asset exchange format (Maya 2014, 3ds Max 2014, and MotionBuilder 2014) is now easier, thanks to improved support for constraints and blend shapes.

augmented high-Quality Viewport

Experience a higher-fidelity interactive environment, with a number of enhancements to the High-Quality Viewport: shadow maps now work with transparent objects; the quality and performance of Ambient Occlusion has been improved; and shadows are now higher quality.


Image courtesy of Triggerfish Animation Studios.

Image courtesy of Triggerfish Animation Studios.

autodesk MotionBuilder 2014MotionBuilder 2014 delivers new tools that help your studio more efficiently manipulate and refine motion-capture and other character animation data for use in on-set visualization, previsualization, virtual cinematography, feature film production, and game development. With new motion capture workflow options; artist-friendly methods for positioning, measuring, and selecting objects; the ability to use custom viewport renderers; support for the Linux® operating system; and an API (Application Programming Interface) for file referencing, MotionBuilder 2014 helps your studio produce higher-quality character animation content, better preserve creative intent throughout the production process, and create and maintain a unified pipeline.

Key new Features in MotionBuilder 2014Linux support

MotionBuilder 2014 is now available as a 64-bit executable for the Linux® operating system. If your studio has a Linux-based pipeline, this enables you to more easily integrate MotionBuilder into it.

advanced Motion Capture Workflow Options

As a motion capture specialist, you now have the option of directly assigning markers as a source for a character. In addition, new spine and neck stretch properties deliver a higher-quality solve, enabling joints to more precisely reach the goals of the original markers.

Custom Renderer aPI

Studios can now integrate custom viewport renderers into MotionBuilder 2014, thanks to a new custom renderer API. It’s easy to switch between the default renderer and a custom renderer within the software, and you can output from multiple different renderers simultaneously.

File Referencing aPI

A new API for file referencing enables you to create tools to help manage complex data sets and nonlinear workflows. With these tools you can segment large scenes—loading only the part needed at the time for better overall interactive performance—and collaborate effectively by referencing shared files.

Ruler tool

You can now measure the distance between objects in a scene using the new Ruler Tool. A 3D cursor enables you to snap each end of the ruler to the surfaces of objects in the scene, helping to make sure that an accurate measurement is taken. This is useful in aligning real-world props on the motion capture stage with CG elements that will replace them.

Look through selected

You can now position lights, cameras, and other objects more intuitively by looking through them while interactively tumbling, tracking, and dollying the camera; this repositions the object relative to the view seen through it. As an example, you can look through a light while manipulating its view to change the parts of the scene it will illuminate.


The Last of Us image courtesy of Naughty Dog.

Image courtesy of Epic Games.

autodesk Mudbox 2014Mudbox 2014 provides technology that enables you to create production-quality meshes with animation-ready topology from scanned, imported, or sculpted data. With both automatic and manual options, you can choose to retopologize your meshes with the click of a button, or to precisely control various aspects of the output mesh with a user-directed solution. These tools enable you to explore and iterate more freely during the creative 3D sculpting process, without worrying about the underlying structure. In addition, the intuitive multi-touch workflows first supported in Autodesk® Mudbox® 2013 software have been extended in this release.

Key new Features in Mudbox 2014advanced Retopology tools

Explore and iterate freely while you sculpt, without worrying about the underlying structure. Now you can create production-quality meshes from scanned, imported, or sculpted data, with new fully automatic and user-directed options for retopologizing. With the Mudbox Retopology toolset you can concentrate on aesthetic considerations as you sculpt; when you have completed your model, you can use Mudbox to automatically or manually create an animation-ready mesh with high-quality topology.

Extended Multi-touch Workflows

Increase your creative sculpting and painting productivity with Mudbox 2014. The intuitive multi-touch workflows first supported in Autodesk Mudbox 2013 software have been extended to include direct manipulation of stencils on the screen, and support for certain additional devices. The multi-touch technology works with the Wacom® Intuos®5 touch tablet, the Wacom® Cintiq® 24HD touch tablet, and certain other touch-enabled input devices. These devices are able to sense input from more than one point at a time, enabling you to use multi-finger, or simultaneous pen and hand gestures to manipulate the model, the camera view, or certain tool settings.

autodesk sketchbook Designer 2014Sketchbook Designer 2014 enables you to explore and present new ideas for characters, props, and environments using an intuitive hybrid paint and vector toolset. SketchBook Designer features sketching, painting, and image compositing workflows; easy color manipulation; mixed media workflows; and an industry-unique transformation tool. The dynamic, scalable user interface is optimized for both pen and mouse interaction, and is designed to offer maximum creative freedom.


With the Entertainment Creation Suite, Autodesk helped us expand our artists’ range and flexibility, enabling our creative team to take on projects of varying visual complexity with ease and consistency.

–tony Pelle Director of Technology Rainmaker Entertainment Inc.

Learn more or purchaseAccess specialists worldwide who can provide product expertise, a deep understanding of your industry, and value that extends beyond your software. To license Entertainment Creation Suite software, contact an Autodesk Authorized Reseller. Locate a reseller near you at www.autodesk.com/reseller.

autodesk EducationAutodesk offers students and educators a variety of resources to help ensure students are prepared for successful design careers, including access to free* software, curricula, training materials, and other resources. Anyone can get expert guidance at an Autodesk Authorized Training Center (ATC®) site, and validate skills with Autodesk Certification. Learn more at www.autodesk.com/education.

autodesk subscriptionAutodesk® Subscription gives you a greater advantage with access to the latest software, online technical support, and flexible licensing privileges.** Learn more at www.autodesk.com/subscription.

*Free products are subject to the terms and conditions of the end-user license agreement that accompanies down-load of this software.

**All Subscription benefits are not available for all products in all geographies. Please consult your Autodesk reseller or sales representative for more information.

Autodesk, ATC, AutoCAD, FBX, Maya, MotionBuilder, Mudbox, SketchBook, Softimage, and 3ds Max are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2013 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

autodesk entertainment creation suites 2014

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