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.