Autodesk 2011 product updates

I remember when Autodesk bought Softimage many people were worried about the future of their DCC packages. Many believed, that it would not make sense for AD to continue development on three different packages that do all more or less the same, and that at some point these packages would be consolidated into one or two to reduce development overhead.

Two years later it seems that we don't need to worry about that, at least not in the mid term.
I must admit that I was mostly underwhelmed by last years updates, but this time around the additions are so substantial and fundamental that it seems safe to assume that AD really has no plans to ditch any of it's main DCC packages in the foreseeable future. Especially additions to Maya (new GUI), Max (Project codenamed Excalibur that aims to refurbish Max from ground up)
and massive additions into Softimage'S ICE (ICE Kinematics and lots of new compounds for the classic ICE) are investments into the software's foundations and ground laying infrastructure which bind a lot of ressources and money to develop and  would probably not be made if the application was planned to be phased out soon.

In addition there seems the be increased amount of research being done at AD, some of which has been posted here:

http://www.autodeskresearch.com/pubs.html


The updates:

Maya
http://area.autodesk.com/maya2011

Most notable changes and additions:

 - Revised skinning tools (volumetric influence objects a la 3dsMax' Skin and Character Studios old Physique modifiers, and quaternion skinning, as well as a new Paint Skin weights tool panel with filtering options.)
Allegedly, undo now works reliably when undoing a skin weight paint stroke (boy, how much I wish that had never been an issue).

- Qt-based UI, which is something the big studio's TD's will love'em for. It should make the creation of custom UI's much faster and easier and give more options than what the old toolkit offered. I'm looking forward to what learn how much of Qt they have actually exposed.

Update: Here's a video showing some of QT's merits in Maya
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/stevenr/maya_2011_highlight_qt_user_interface

-Roumors have it that there were also updates and improvements to the viewpport renderer, lets see how much of that is true. if anyone has more information on that please let me know.



Softimage
http://area.autodesk.com/softimage2011/features
or more detailled:
http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/index.php/Autodesk_Softimage_2011
Some videos:
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/marks/softimage_2011


Of all the updated packages Softimage seems to have received the most amount of love, the new features list is nothing short of impressive, and some could prove to be real game changers.


Most notable additions:

- ICE Kinematics. I've been waiting for this one since first information about ICE and Phil Taylors involvement (CAT) made the rounds. What this will allow is to create highly complex, yet very robust and easy to handle animation rigs, just like you might know, or being used to, in 3dsmax Character Studio and CAT, with the nenefit of being able to go in and change the underlying "Code" if you want to.

- Automatic Lip syncing  to audio and text files in face Robot

- New shader handling and testing tools. Information on this, and how it really works and what it means, is a bit sparse still.

- Lots of new Mental ray shaders and additions to existing ICE functionality, like spring dynamics
and lots more.


Max:
http://area.autodesk.com/3dsmax2011
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/shane/slate_material_editor
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/3ds_max_2011_announced

Most notable additions:
- Node based matertial editor (of Node Joe's fame)
- Improved realtime material representation of standard Max materials in the viewport
- A new interactive rendering engine (Quicksilver)
- Improved texture painting features


Mudbox:
http://area.autodesk.com/mudbox2011/features

Most notable additions:
- Improved Painting tools and introduction of posing tools based in real joits and skinning data, interoperability with Max, maya, Softimage and PShop.
- Vector displacement for added details and prefab-modelling. Check out Oglu's impressively fast ear modelling session: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPezIU0c4zc