After surprising many by acquiring its competitor Alias last year,
Autodesk comes out swinging at SIGGRAPH ’06 with the announcement of
new versions of both Maya and 3ds Max.
Says Rob Hoffmann, the new senior product marketing manager for all of
Autodesk’s 3D products, including Maya, 3ds Max, VIZ and MotionBuilder,
the company has set a three-year roadmap for the clearly separate yet
increasingly collaborative development of the two 3D software packages.
“We’ve got two very separate engineering teams and the two products
won’t be combined into one,” he says emphatically. “But there will be
greater discussion between the two for tighter integration between the
two apps. This should encourage exclusive devotees of either Maya or
Max, as well as the increasing number of facilities, such as The Sims
creator Electronic Arts, that use both packages in the same pipleline.

Though many in the animation community worried in forums and aloud in
user group meetings that such a pairing would be bad for the evolution
of both tools, some clear benefits on both sides, though not all
necessarily a result of cross-collaboration, are immediately visible in
the new versions.

For starters, the Alias acquisition brought with it FBX, now a widely
used format for 3D content exchange developed originally by
MotionBuilder creator, Kaydara, a company acquired earlier by Alias.
3ds Max 9 will now include extensive FBX support, another critical step
in bringing Max and Maya into a tighter working relationship in any
networked studio.

Alias also brought with it revolutionary ways to create photorealistic
textures and scenes, particularly Maya’s sophisticated and
Bezier-path-breaking toolsets for creating fur, cloth, hair and
globally illuminated objects. 3ds Max gets some key improvements to its
hair and cloth tools, as you’d expect, including a feature that lets
animators style hair in the viewport and a number of new rendering
enhancements. Maya 8, in turn, can now work better across the pipeline
with other 2D and 3D tools, something the Autodesk has been perfecting
with the cross-compatibility of Max, Toxic and its line of Discreet
systems. In Maya 8, animators can also now create primitives more
easily, something that was previously only found in
Max.

Both Maya 8 and 3ds Max 9 are also better able to handle larger files
with more complex data sets. Those who buy a 32-bit Windows version of
3ds Max will receive a 64-bit version for free. The 32-bit version of
Maya 8 will support Windows XP Professional, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4.0 and Mac OS 10.4.6, as well as Fedora Core 4
systems.

Other key 3ds Max upgrades include optimization for mesh editing,
improved bi-ped control (there are now separate tracks for fingers and
toes), and better ways to switch between high-res images and low-res
proxies when creating textures. Maya 9 now features new UV editing,
more 2D rendering options and many improvements to polygon
modeling.

Autodesk clearly understands the value of a jewel like Maya in the
corporate crown. In new marketing material that accompanies the version
releases, Maya comes first, where it belongs chronologically. A
corresponding timeline reminds us that it predates Max and was
rendering more complex images before most everyone else, too. But Max,
after all, was created as an affordable 3D package, and has evolved
into a standard used throughout the game industry and a critical tool
for film animation as well. To bring those two communities into the
same playspace, Autodesk is launching a new artist-driven site called
“The Area” (www.the-area.com), which it hopes will inspire
experimentation across and between industries. The site will include
tips and advice, member portfolios, plug-in and shader downloads, and
even blogs from the product development teams.

If you like to hold your manual in your hands, you’ll have to print it
out first. Both 3ds Max 9 and Maya 8 instructions are only available
electronically, either as a download or on the installation
discs.

Pricing is one thing that hasn’t changed. Maya 8 is scheduled to ship
in August in these versions: Maya Complete (Standalone), $1,999; Maya
Complete (Network), $2,999; Maya Unlimited (Standalone or Network),
$6,999; upgrade from Maya 7 Complete, $899; upgrade from Maya 7
Unlimited, $1,249. 3ds Max 9 is scheduled to begin shipping later this
year in October in these versions: 3ds Max 9 (Standalone), $3,495; 3ds
Max (Network), $3,995; the legacy program price of $1,995 remains in
place, as long as you have a subscription.

For a complete list of key features and system requirements for both
packages, go to www.autodesk.com