Five Key Products — Max, Maya, Softimage, Mudbox, and MotionBuilder — Now Bundled in 'Ultimate' Suite

Autodesk upgraded its full lineup of digital content ceation products for 2013, emphasizing a new "Ultimate" bundle that includes 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, Mudbox, and MotionBuilder for $7995. All of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites now ship with Sketchbook Designer, which offers a paint-and-vector hybrid toolset for concepting and design. Autodesk said the 2013 software versions are slated for release "on or after April 12, 2012." Version upgrades for the 2012 releases will be available until April 30.

For this release, the company emphasized increased interoperability between different Autodesk applications, saying the Autodesk FBX 2013 software file-interchange format would make creative workflows more effective. "The 2013 releases provide rich visual feedback earlier in the creative process and allow artists to work in their favorite tools by making it easier to move between multiple applications," Autodesk Senior VP of Media and Entertainment Marc Petit said in a prepared statement. "Autodesk is also removing technical barriers to the creation of believable characters by providing new simulation tools for realistic cloth, hair and crowds."

The advances being introduced this year include a system for live character streaming between MotionBuilder and Maya. That means artists can send a HumanIK character from Maya to MotionBuilder and set up a "streaming" connection between the two applications. Animation applied to the character in MotionBuilder can be previewed in Maya before all of the data is actually transferred between the applications. Autodesk has also made a new effort to standardize hotkeys between applications, matching mouse and key combinations for navigating viewports to those that are already familiar to Maya users. The F-Curve editor has also been tweaked to behave more consistently in Max, Maya, Softimage, and MotionBuilder, and a new one-step process is available for moving 3D data between Maya and Max.

Interoperability between 3ds Max and Adobe Creative Suite applications has been enhanced, with the new Media Sync functionality improving communication between Max and After Effects, and better support for outputting renders in layered PSD files (with layer order, opacity, and blend modes preserved) for finishing in Photoshop.

Also new, but not available as part of a suite, is Flame Premium 2013, which adds such new 3D relighting and compositing tools as Substance Materialize, which transforms 2D assets into substance textures for compositing and relighting; Atomize, which creates point clouds from layers and geometry that carry over such object properties as transparency and blend modes; and improved 3D tracking. The new Flame also has optimizations for the Action UI for 3D compositing and for interacting with 3D geometry.

Flame's color-grading functionality has been expanded, with 50 color grading presets available. A new workflow allows media exports to take place in the background, including new options for exporting to MXF XDCAM and Apple QuickTime H.264. Combined with the ability to import AAF and Final Cut Pro X timelines, this is certainly the friendliest version of Flame to date when it comes to interoperability with third-party software and associated workflows.

For more details, see the Autodesk press release, visit the websites for the Entertainment Creation Suites and Flame, or check out the nitty-gritty in the FAQ, which details purchase and licensing options.