Autodesk rolls out updated Maya and 3ds Max suites

The company unveiled Maya 2016 with an entirely new look and feel, claiming the 3D VFX suite was significantly faster and easier to use.

Among the features are ‘supercharged’ animation performance with a parallel evaluation system that takes advantage of the CPU and GPU to increase the speed of both playback and character rig manipulation.

The company said the release offered an updated hypershade showcase which improves ease of use and artist-friendly workflows. There are also new capabilities in Bifrost, including adaptive foam and guided simulations, to help deliver realistic liquid simulations

Also making its debut appearance is 3ds Max 2016, offering procedural content creation and tools for better collaboration and ease of use.

These include the Max Creation Graph, a new node-based content and tool creation toolkit integrated by user request. Autodesk said it empowers users to extend 3ds Max with geometric objects and modifiers. Users can package graphs and share them with other users.

There is also the ability to externally reference objects to scenes, and animate/edit material on the XRef object in the source file without having to merge the object into the scene. Non-destructive animation workflows and improved XRef stability aim to simplify collaboration among teams and throughout the production pipeline.

A new Design Workspace in 3ds Max provides easy access to object placement, lighting, rendering, modeling and texturing tools to create high-quality stills and animations; there are also built-in settings for rendering, environments, lighting and units. 

The 2016 Entertainment Creation Suite includes all the new features and updates to Maya 2016 and 3ds Max 2016. In addition to there are updates and enhancements to the other suite tools: Mudbox 2016, which offers new sculpting tools and a relax brush for smoothing surfaces, and story tool updates and enhancements in MotionBuilder 2016.