Stitcher Unlimited 2009 Announced at SIGGRAPH

This is the first version of Stitcher released by Autodesk since their acquisition of REALVIZ.

Professional photographers, digital artists, and panorama specialists can use Stitcher Unlimited 2009 to produce high-quality panoramas with maximum productivity. Stitcher can automatically assemble a wide variety of images, from rectilinear to fisheye.


Stitcher Unlimited 2009 NEW FEATURES

Automatic "stitching" engine
Can create partial or full spherical panoramas in just a few clicks. All the steps can be automated: stitching, alignment, and color correction.

Double shot
Can stitch images taken with a two-shot fisheye lens; an effective way to create fully spherical virtual tours with only two pictures.

Image-based lighting
Can make exceptionally high-quality environment maps and panoramas through its support for EXR and HDR input and output.

Hotspot support
Generate web-ready Apple QuickTime VR application program hotspots; links integrated within a panorama, which reference another panorama.

Tripod cap
Use the tripod cap, a highly practical feature to cover up the tripod in an image with another graphic.

Graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration
Take advantage of graphics card GPUs for preview rendering in the main Viewport. The GPU is now also used to accelerate final renders.

Selectable rendering area
Use the crop tool to select a precise area to be rendered. This tool can be used while in full-screen mode.

New user interface and workflow
New look and feel, including new icons and a new palette to manage thumbnails more efficiently.

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MotionBuilder 2009 System Requirements

Software

The 32-bit version of MotionBuilder 2009 is supported on the following operating system:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system (SP2 or higher)

The 64-bit version of MotionBuilder 2009 is supported on any of the following operating systems:

Microsoft Windows Vista Business operating system
Microsoft Windows XP x64 Edition
The following web browsers are supported for MotionBuilder 2009:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 internet browser or higher
Netscape 7 web browser or higher
Mozilla Firefox web browser

Hardware

At a minimum, the 32-bit version of MotionBuilder 2009 requires a system with the following hardware:

Windows: Intel Pentium 4 or higher, AMD Athlon processor
512 MB RAM
1 GB free hard drive space
OpenGL graphics card with a minimum of 64 MB RAM
DVD-ROM Drive

At a minimum, the 64-bit version of MotionBuilder 2009 requires a system with the following hardware:

Windows: Intel EM64T, AMD Athlon 64, or AMD Opteron processor
2 GB RAM
1 GB free hard drive space
OpenGL graphics card with a minimum of 64 MB RAM
DVD-ROM Drive
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MotionBuilder 2009 Announced at SIGGRAPH

MotionBuilder is a powerful, real-time 3D character animation productivity suite for games, films, television, and multimedia.

MotionBuilder 2009 NEW FEATURES

Rigid-body Dynamics
You can now set up a real-time, rigid-body simulation using the 3D objects in your scene. Support for real-time collisions, in particular, may be used to prevent interpenetration of characters, objects, and other scene elements, which is invaluable for those looking to efficiently edit 3D animations involving characters interacting with objects.

Rag Doll Solver
The new Rag Doll solver enables you to simulate complex interactions between a character and its environment that would be time consuming and difficult to animate using traditional keyframing or motion capture techniques. This simulation can be applied to the character’s control-rig, and mixed with existing animation data or poses for increased realism (such as, a character falling and hitting the ground, or waving his arms wildly).

Enhanced Hardware Shader Support
Provides support for new hardware-accelerated CG shaders (shaders supported on Nvidia based graphics cards only), including the Light Attenuation shader, and Normal Mapping shader, which delivers real-time display of normal maps created in MayaMudbox or 3ds Max. There is now also support for version 2.0 of the CgFX library, enabling you to take advantage of the latest CgFX shader technology.

Python Scripting
The addition of an intelligent, fully integrated Python scripting language editor enables you to develop, test, and refine your Python scripts within MotionBuilder. Support is provided for single and multi-line entry, tabbed workspaces, line numbering, color coding, history, hotkey support, drag and drop support, color coded error messages, and searching. You also get deeper access to MotionBuilder functionality through exposure of rendering codes, the FCurve % function, control rigs, and loading/merging of characters.

Support for Windows 64-bit
Extends support to the 64-bit Intel and AMD-based Windows platform, including Windows Vista Business 64-bit operating system. Use the software on a 64-bit platform and benefit from significant performance improvements: 64-bit support allows you to address considerably more memory (up to 128 GB for Windows XP 64, for example). This enables you to handle larger and more complex scenes, and will improve performance in cases where swapping would previously occur.

Interoperability
The addition of Steering Wheel navigation and ViewCube navigation tools creates a more consistent navigation experience as you switch between MotionBuilder and other Autodesk products. MotionBuilder 2009 also delivers enhanced support for workflows involving MotionBuilder and the 3ds Max Biped, as well as the Maya Full Body Inverse Kinematics (FBIK) character rig.
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Mudbox 2009 System Requirements

Software

The 32-bit version of Mudbox 2009 is supported on the following operating systems:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional, SP2
Microsoft Windows Vista Business, SP1

The 64-bit version of Mudbox 2009 is supported on the following operating systems:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, SP2
Microsoft Windows Vista Business, SP1

Mudbox 2009 documentation is compatible with any of the following web browsers:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 or higher

Hardware

At a minimum, the 32-bit version of Mudbox 2009 requires a system with the following hardware:

Intel Pentium 4 (or equivalent) processor
1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
650 MB free hard drive space (2 GB recommended)
Ethernet adapter or wireless Internet card
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
Three-button mouse or qualified Wacom tablet
DVD-ROM drive

At a minimum, the 64-bit version of Mudbox 2009 requires a system with the following hardware:

Intel EM64T, AMD Athlon 64, or AMD Opteron processor
1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
650 MB free hard drive space (2 GB recommended)
Ethernet adapter or wireless Internet card
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
Three-button mouse or qualified Wacom tablet
DVD-ROM drive

Notes:
Latest graphics card drivers are required for proper display.
Latest Wacom drivers are required for best tablet support. When installing a new Wacom driver, be sure to first uninstall the old driver, restart, and then install the new one according to Wacom instructions. Failure to do so may impact performance of the hardware.
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Mudbox 2009 Announced at SIGGRAPH

Mudbox is Autodesk’s organic brush-based 3D modeling, digital sculpting and texture painting solution.

Mudbox 2009 NEW FEATURES

Texture Painting
A new, production-focused texture paint workflow simplifies the process of painting multiple diffuse, bump, specular, and reflection textures across multiple high-resolution maps. Paint directly on 3D models to add detail precisely where it’s required, regardless of UV distortion or surface complexity. Paint reference images onto the model from screen space using the new Projection brush. You can also paint multiple maps on multiple meshes simultaneously and assign multiple UV tiles on a single mesh for maximum productivity.

Performance Enhancements
Significantly improved camera manipulation and brush speed, enabling you to work interactively with 3D models that are fully subdivided into tens of millions of polygons.

On-Target Display
New display technologies leverage the power of the OpenGL API and today’s powerful graphics cards to offer an accurate, on-target environment for real-time evaluation as the asset is manipulated, and for enhanced interactive presentations to clients and art directors.

Multiple Maps, Textures, and Materials
Advanced real-time GPU rendering technology has the power to display multiple maps and texture channels (including bump and reflection) per mesh, and multiple materials in the scene, while still delivering interactive sculpting and painting performance on complex, high-resolution models.

Multiple Fast and Accurate Shadows
The ability to accurately cast shadows from multiple light sources means that artists can validate the effectiveness of their model’s form, for example, making sure that a character’s eyes are not perpetually shadowed by an overly prominent brow or that an environment is convincing from all viewpoints.

High Dynamic Range Image Lighting
HDR (high dynamic range) images can be used as light sources, enabling users to evaluate both the form and the color of their models in the context of the target environment’s lighting conditions.

Viewport Filters
More realistic interactive presentations are now possible, thanks to the inclusion of a number of viewport filters, including those for ambient occlusion, depth of field, and tone mapping.

Maximized Work Area
Option to hide user interface elements while working, and by employing standard hotkeys to control the camera, enables artists to maximize their workspace to fill virtually the entire screen.

Improved Interoperability with Maya and 3ds Max
Enhanced interoperability with Maya and 3ds Max software through improved matching of Maya and 3ds Max normal maps. Additionally, Mudbox employs by default the same keyboard shortcuts as Maya for camera manipulation.

Artist-Friendly User Interface
A highly intuitive user interface that gives you complete creative freedom. Whether you’re looking to explore forms for product design or create highly detailed characters for film and game projects, Mudbox allows you to forget about technical details and focus purely on the art of 3D modeling.
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Toxik 2009 System Requirements

Software

The 32-bit version of Toxik 2009 is supported on any of the following operating systems:

Microsoft Windows Vista Business (SP1 or higher)
Microsoft Windows XP Professional (SP2 or higher)

The 64-bit version of Toxik 2009 is supported on any of the following operating systems:

Microsoft Windows Vista Business (SP1 or higher)
Microsoft Windows XP x64 Edition (SP2 or higher)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 WS operating system (U6)
Fedora 8

The following web browser is supported for Toxik 2009:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher

Hardware

At a minimum, the 32-bit version of Toxik 2009 requires a system with the following hardware:

Windows: Intel Pentium 4 or higher, AMD Athlon 64, or AMD Opteron processor
2 GB RAM
1 GB free hard drive space
Media cache requirements: 10 GB minimum, 200 GB recommended
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software or tablet with tablet driver software
DVD-ROM drive

At a minimum, the 64-bit version of Toxik 2009 requires a system with the following hardware:

Windows and Linux: Intel EM64T processor, AMD Athlon 64, or AMD Opteron (processor must support SSE3)
2 GB RAM
1 GB free hard drive space
Media cache requirements: 10 GB minimum, 200 GB recommended
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software or tablet with tablet driver software
DVD-ROM drive
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Toxik 2009 Announced at SIGGRAPH

Toxik 2009 software brings compositing and visual effects tools to high-end 2D effects artists working at HD, 2K, 4K or above, in film, television, and design. When combined with Maya 2009, the two products together create a highly efficient, iterative, and collaborative environment that accelerates everyday workflows and facilitates the addition of an extra dimension to 2D imagery. The Toxik high dynamic range (HDR) creative toolset includes keying, color correction, tracking, camera mapping, paint, spline-based warping, motion blur, and depth of field.

Toxik 2009 NEW FEATURES:

Render Pass and Render Layer Import from Maya
You can now automatically generate and update compositions based on Render Layer and Render Pass setups provided by Maya. This new feature (leveraging updated Maya 2009 Render Pass functionality) accelerates and streamlines the 3D to 2D workflow by allowing you to previsualize your scene in the form of the final composite, while you continue to iterate and refine only the required elements.

Data Management
New file-based data model offers individual artists, system administrators, and developers a number of advantages. Artists gain more control over their Toxik while enjoying improved data integrity, and developers can readily integrate Toxik into existing pipelines. This new system supports collaboration without complexity; versioning functionality lets you keep track of multiple iterations, while team members working simultaneously on linked compositions within a project are notified when updates are made by another user. In addition, a new hierarchical bookmarking system makes it easy to save and access links to footage, projects, and compositions.

Stereoscopic Content Creation
Facilitates the creation of stereoscopic content through a range of new enhancements, including support for stereo playback with linked pan and zoom, and a Multi-Stream feature that enables you to simultaneously process pairs of images via a single node. With the appropriate hardware, high-performance interactive playback at 2K is possible; this feature helps you make informed, artistic choices. This functionality, combined with a new Camera Mapping feature and the ability to import simple geometry as FBX files from Maya and other 3D applications, enables you to produce truly convincing stereoscopic content.

Lens Blur Tool
A new Lens Blur tool enables you to simulate the depth-of-field effects associated with real-world cameras. Animate the blur to produce a rack defocus effect. A number of different iris shapes are available to help you customize the shape and profile of the blur.

Warp 2D Functionality
A new Warp 2D tool delivers advanced, nonlinear, spline-based warping of an image with precise local control, as well as a smooth and continuous transformation across the image and in time. Use this new tool to quickly change or animate the geometric shape and position of objects within an image, to create everything from extremely stylized effects to subtle perspective corrections.

Pixel Expression Language Tool
You can now create and customize plug-in effects to manipulate your output image using the powerful new Pixel Expression Language (PXL) tool. This intuitive, C-like programming language offers a rich set of features, including conditionals, looping, and numerous built-in functions.

Color Transformation Language
Now you can also write and apply color transforms using the Color Transformation Language (CTL) technology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This new functionality enables you to implement a strong color management solution within Toxik.

Enhanced Display
Images created in Toxik can now be viewed on broadcast-quality display devices with serial digital interface (SDI) or HD-SDI inputs. This streamlines the compositing workflow by enabling broadcast content creators to make informed color decisions.
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Maya 2009 System Requirements

Software Requirements:

The 32-bit version of Maya 2009 is supported on any of the following operating systems:

Microsoft Windows Vista Business operating system (SP1 or higher)
Microsoft Windows XP Professional operating system (SP2 or higher)
Apple Mac OS X 10.5.2 operating system or higher

The 64-bit version of Maya 2009 is supported on any of the following operating systems:

Microsoft Windows Vista Business (SP1 or higher)
Microsoft Windows XP x64 Edition (SP2 or higher)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 WS operating system (U6)
Fedora 8 operating system

These web browsers are supported for Maya 2009:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 internet browser or higher
Netscape 7 web browser or higher
Apple Safari web browser
Mozilla Firefox web browser

Hardware Requirements:

At a minimum, the 32-bit version of Maya 2009 requires a system with the following hardware:

Windows: Intel Pentium 4 or higher, AMD Athlon 64, or AMD Opteron processor
Macintosh: Intel-based Macintosh computers
2 GB RAM
2 GB free hard drive space
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive

At a minimum, the 64-bit version of Maya 2009 requires a system with the following hardware:

Windows and Linux: Intel EM64T processor, AMD Athlon 64, or AMD Opteron
2 GB RAM
2 GB free hard drive space
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive

Note: Maya 2009 is also capable of running on other configurations, such as boutique distributions of Linux. However, enumerating systems that are not tested and cannot be supported, or that fall below the requirements for a productive user experience is beyond the scope of the online qualification charts.
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MAYA 2009 Announced at SIGGRAPH

Maya 2009 NEW FEATURES:

New Selection Paradigm
New selection features: true soft selection and pre-selection highlighting.

Improved Modeling Workflow
Symmetrical modeling with soft seams, a tweak mode for rapid modifications, and a new Merge Vertex feature that enables you to combine parts of a mesh.

Maya Assets
With Maya Assets, complex data can be effectively organized, shared, referenced, and presented. Maya Assets enables you to encapsulate a set of nodes into a container so that they can be treated as if they were a single node from a user’s perspective (selected attributes of interest from the contained nodes can be published to the container). This new feature also supports customized and user-specific views, flexible referencing, and the creation of customized libraries.

Animation Layering
A powerful new animation layering paradigm, built on technology from MotionBuilder, gives you more flexibility as you nondestructively create and edit animation. This toolset works with any attribute: animation layers can be blended, merged, grouped, and reordered, and can override or add to preceding layers.

Maya nParticles
The second module built on the Maya Nucleus unified simulation framework: Maya nParticles. This newest toolset gives you an intuitive, efficient workflow for simulating a wide range of complex effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust. It features particle-to-particle collisions, particle and nCloth bidirectional interaction, powerful constraints, cloud and "blobby" hardware display, preset rendering, and dynamic behaviors.

Maya Muscle
Maya Muscle helps you create life-like muscle and skin motion. This toolset allows you to direct muscle and skin behavior precisely, with secondary motion, collisions, wrinkles, sliding, and stickiness.

UV Layout Enhancements
The ability to preserve UVs (when making modeling edits after the fact) as well as new UV unfolding and layout option, including an interactive mode, can increase your productivity by streamlining the otherwise time-consuming task of creating optimal texture coordinates.

Render Proxy
A new Render Proxy feature in mental ray enables you to replace scene elements with a simple low-resolution mesh, and only load the pre-translated data when required for rendering.

Render Pass Enhancements
A completely updated Render Pass feature set provides precise control over render output, making it easier to optimize integration with compositing packages such as Toxik.
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Creativity Extension for 3ds Max 2009 and 3ds Max Design 2009

If you are part of the Autodesk Subscription program for 3ds Max 2009 and 3ds Max Design 2009, you can download the new Creativity Extension. This extension gives you new particle systems effects, new tools to incorporate audio and sound effects into your animated scenes and allows you to optimize highly detailed 3D models from digital sculpting applications like Mudbox and ZBrush.

Advanced Particle Effects
The new PFlowAdvanced toolset offers:

Numerous paint tools enable you to precisely place particles in your scene. Operators, including Particle Paint, Birth Paint, Placement Paint, Birth Texture, and Mapping Object, enable you to paint both particles and emitters onto specific parts of your objects. Other special effects include the ability to emit particles based on animated color data in emitter objects.

The utility operators have been integrated into the 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design core to extend Particle Flow's capabilities, while giving you a streamlined workflow for creating particle effects. Clean up particle flow, synchronize layers, repair the cache system, save a custom flow as a preset, and automatically delete operators that are not in use and lock or bond particles to an object (improves on the former position object operator).

The ability to group particles enables you to perform specific operations on arbitrary subsets of particles. Quickly create multiple groups and work with as many of them as you like through such operators as Group Selection, Group, and Split Group.

The PFlowAdvanced Shape operators greatly expand the Particle Flow Shape toolset. Define a particle shape beginning with a pre-existing shape (a vast range of 3D and 2D shape presets are available to choose from). Additionally, the Fast Shape Evaluation operation evaluates a reference mesh object on the final frame quickly and accurately, significantly improving performance.

Workflow enhancements include an Express Save operator that has been integrated with the 3ds Max Design auto-save functionality, backward compatibility with Orbaz Particle Flow Tools, Box # 1-based scenes, and general memory and performance improvements based on source.

Polygon Modeling Optimization
Reduce the number of faces on your model using the new ProOptimizer technology, which is ideal for optimizing high-poly count 3D models from digital sculpting applications, such as Mudbox and ZBrush software.

This new modifier offers support for:
Precision control over the number of faces or points in your scene/model
Preservation of detail: useful faces are removed last, enabling you to reduce your selection up to 75 percent without removing detail
Real-time scene optimization (optimization is precalculated)
Batch optimizing of files (you control the optimization level for each file)
Preservation of all UV texture channel information and vertex color channel information
Optimization of multiple objects simultaneously (optimize a selection of faces or the inverted selection across multiple objects)
Symmetry preservation
Protection or exclusion of object borders, so your objects stay connected after optimization

Integrated Audio
Enhance your presentations with the addition of audio and sound effects. The incorporation of ProSound means the software now supports integrated, multitrack audio to enhance your film, game, and visualization projects through the addition of high-quality audio and sound effects. This allows you to assign sounds to specific objects, and add a music track or voice-over for your presentations.

The toolset supports the following:
Up to 100 audio tracks per scene
Per-track animated volume
Audio output normalization
Audio playback during motion capture
An intuitive user interface and workflow features help you to quickly synchronize your audio
Sync your playback with the viewport, render your track to match playback speed, or play it backwards and forwards (ping pong mode)
Support for both PCM and compressed audio in AVI and WAV formats with up to six output channels
Controllable via MaxScript through 46 script commands
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3ds Max Design 2009 Lighting Analysis Tool

Unique to 3ds Max Design 2009, Lighting Analysis tools can be used for simulating and analyzing Sun, Sky and artificial lighting in a 3D scene. Ideal for sustainable Architecture projects, these tools can help evaluate light intensity in your designs. The Lighting Analysis tools can help facilitate the evaluation of indoor lighting quality for LEED certification.

The workflow for using the Lighting Analysis tool is as follows:
1. Use a Daylight System or photometric lights with IES files.
2. Under the Daylight System mr Sky Parameters, change the Sky Model to Perez All Weather.
3. Use ProMaterials or mr Arch and Design materials.
4. Use the Lighting Analysis Assistant to find any errors in your scene
5. Download a Weather Data file from the US Department of Energy website (http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/energyplus/cfm/weather_data.cfm) and configure the Daylight System to use the data.
6. Set the specific date and time for the Daylight System.
7. Add a Light Meter Helper object to calculate the lighting levels in the scene.
8. Render an Image Overlay to display the light level data in a rendered image.

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Revit Architecture 2009 and 3ds Max 2009 Interoperability

Design visualization using Revit Architecture models with 3ds Max has become easier. Revit Architecture 2009 now features the mental ray rendering engine, which brings the product more in line with AutoCAD and AutoCAD Architecture, which have used mental ray for the past couple of versions.

The mental ray rendering engine in Revit will allow export through the FBX file format. FBX is an open-standard, platform-independent 3D file format that will allow Revit lights, materials and cameras to be imported into 3ds Max 2009. FBX also allows interoperability between 3ds Max, Maya and MotionBuilder.

For information on the FBX file format, check out http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8224901

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