3ds Max Gets Its Own MaxtoA Plug-in for Arnold Rendering

At SIGGRAPH this week, Autodesk shipped Maya 2017, the first version of the popular 3D software to integrate Arnold as the default renderer.

Autodesk announced at NAB this year that it was acquiring Solid Angle, the maker of Arnold. While Maya has been built to make using Arnold as easy as possible, with new Arnold render view windows available throughout the software, Autodesk promises continued support for third-party renderers.

Among the marquee features of the new Maya is something called the Time Editor, which offers an NLE-like paradigm giving users the ability to stretch, compress, and dissolve between clip-based snippets of animation data. The new type features and MASH nodes introduced to the Maya toolset at last year's SIGGRAPH have been better integrated this year, as Autodesk says artists are starting to make Maya an effective motion-graphics environment. And there's a lot of action in simulation and effects, as Autodesk has introduced BOSS, the new Bifrost Ocean Simulation System.

Arnold is being brought to 3ds Max, too, this time with v0.5 of a new plug-in, MaxtoA. The plug-in is now downloadable in its preview version from the Solid Angle website — but remember that you need an actual Arnold license to use Arnold with 3ds Max.

And Shotgun got an upgrade to v7.0 that's focused on helping VFX and animation studios review their shots in the context of the most current available cut of the surrounding sequence. A new one-click command brings up a cut in the browser or in the RV player, EDLs can be dragged into the application, and Shotgun now tracks the history of cuts on a project, including overlapping cuts. The new model is available via the Shotgun API for full integration with facility pipelines.