Autodesk Launches Entertainment Creation Suites Premium at Siggraph

Autodesk, Inc. introduced Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites Premium, offering a powerful set of tools for 3D modeling, digital sculpting, texture painting, animation, effects, rendering and compositing. The Premium Suites provide integration across applications for enhanced interoperability and efficiency, enabling artists to explore creative ideas with advanced modeling and animation technology.

“We created the Premium Suites to give artists the tools and freedom they need to tackle complex creative projects with greater ease and efficiency, enabling them to build more sophisticated CG production pipelines at a much lower cost than was previously possible”

With the new Suites, studios can create modern, flexible pipelines to help support today’s projects and scale for tomorrow’s opportunities. With over 40 percent cost savings, ^†* the Premium Suite includes:

• A choice of either Autodesk Maya or Autodesk 3ds Max software, award-winning 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing tools; plus
• Autodesk Softimage software, featuring the Interactive Creative Environment (ICE) to help in the creation of more sophisticated effects that can be integrated into Maya and 3ds Max through new ICE interoperability technology, as well as Autodesk Face Robot technology to help in the creation of higher-quality facial animation
• Autodesk Mudbox 3D digital sculpting and texture painting software to help in the creation of more detailed digital models
• Autodesk MotionBuilder software, offering a real-time, interactive 3D engine and advanced character animation tools for increased animation output
• Turtle, a sophisticated global illumination rendering and baking plug-in for Maya, designed for higher-quality, next-generation game development**
• Lagoa Multiphysics – A new multi-physics simulation framework for Softimage ICE developed by Thiago Costa for creating effects such as plastics, liquids, gases, soft bodies, cloth, and foam.

Featuring sophisticated cross-product integration, the Premium Suites also allow users to transfer Softimage ICE effects to Maya or 3ds Max with a simple menu click. Users can also collaborate more efficiently and work more productively by quickly transferring 3D assets between certain applications using Autodesk FBX data exchange technology. FBX enables exchange of Maya full-body inverse kinematics (FBIK) character rigs and 3ds Max Biped character rigs with MotionBuilder, import/export of Mudbox data to Maya and 3ds Max scenes, as well as the exchange of 3D data with other Autodesk and certain other third-party applications.

“We created the Premium Suites to give artists the tools and freedom they need to tackle complex creative projects with greater ease and efficiency, enabling them to build more sophisticated CG production pipelines at a much lower cost than was previously possible,” explained Stig Gruman, Autodesk vice president, digital entertainment. “They now have easier access to tools for real-time animation design, virtual cinematography and interactive previsualization, and can more easily create highly detailed 3D models. Our goal is to help CG artists break through creative barriers by giving them the tools they need at their fingertips.”

Availability

Autodesk Maya Entertainment Creation Suite Premium is expected to ship on or after September 29, 2010, while Autodesk 3ds Max Entertainment Creation Suite Premium is expected to be available at a later date. Autodesk suggested retail pricing (SRP) for either of the Entertainment Creation Suites Premium is US$6,495^† — more than 40 percent savings over purchasing the applications separately.