Discreet Releases 3ds max 7
Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2004 5:56 am
Discreet, a division of Autodesk Inc. and a leader in digital content creation, management, and distribution tools, announced 3ds max 7 -- the newest version of its acclaimed 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software. Discreet's 3ds max 7 software will be shown for the first time publicly at the international SIGGRAPH Exhibition in Los Angeles, CA (August 10 to 12). With more than 280,000 registered users worldwide, and a 19% increase in sales revenues in the last year, 3ds max is clearly the most popular professional 3D modeling and animation application available today.
Responding to the ever-increasing industry need for powerful yet approachable non-linear animation tools, Discreet is integrating its award-winning advanced character motion toolset character studio into the core feature set of 3ds max 7. With a unique constraint-based non-linear animation mixer, highly scalable behavioral crowd simulation capabilities, and extensive motion capture filtering and editing facilities, character studio brings industry leading price/performance capabilities to the existing 3ds max character toolset. The result of the integration of character studio and 3ds max is the democratization of character animation functionality, which up until now has been found in solutions costing two to three times more than
3ds max.
3ds max 7 also offers a wide range of newly developed core functionality including industry-first Normal Mapping, a workflow accelerator for gaming; and Edit Poly Modifier, designed to improve ease of use and speed of animation (a more comprehensive feature list is included below). Such groundbreaking features as Normal Mapping continue Discreet's legacy of cross-pollinating innovative technologies between market segments, where features originally designed for one market segment such as games can have a significant impact on other segments such as film or design visualization.
Built in conjunction with industry artists and facilities, 3ds max 7 isaimed at boosting facility productivity and meeting the demanding production requirements set by today's highly competitive environment.
Additional major new features in 3ds max 7 include:
Normal Mapping -- industry first revolutionary workflow developed for gaming adds extreme detail to low-polygon models with high resolution maps -- and with complete rendering support normal mapping brings great time-saving benefits to film production and cinematic visualizations
mental ray 3.3 -- enhanced integration in 3ds maxwith accelerated performance and better memory efficiency. Improved Global Illumination, new support for Render to Texture and Normal Mapping, and Sub-Surface Scatteri! ng that disperses light for amazingly realistic skin and dense translucent object rendering
Custom Attributes Collector -- a new, unified interface that improves efficiency when animating multiple custom attributes for any character setup.
Edit Poly Modifier -- significantly increases the rapidity and ease at which complex polygonal surfaces can be created, modified and then animated - improving the creative process
Skin Wrap Deformer -- greatly improved character animation workflow with easy application of props and clothing to pre-skinned 3D models
Snapping Workflow -- improved accuracy and viewport feedback for the underlying snapping system in 3ds max
Paint Selections -- an intuitive and interactive method for building selections with a brush-based interface
Enhanced Interactive Performance and Scalability -- an ongoing program to enable 3ds max to scale to very large datasets including smart object culling for high performance manipulation of large numbers of objects
TurboSmooth -- a highly optimized smoothing algorithm for increased performance of high resolution models
Mobile Gaming Development Tools -- native mobile 3D asset creation with new JSR 184 exporter and per camera diagnostic tools
3ds max 7 is expected to ship in fall 2004 for US $3495. Localized versions are planned to be available later in 2004 and 2005. Upgrade pricing from 3ds max6 is US $795; and 3ds max5 US $1295. Discreet's Subscription Program benefits customers with access to new software feature extensions, patches, upgrades, and e-learning content for an annual fee. For more information, visit www.discreet.com/subscription/
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Responding to the ever-increasing industry need for powerful yet approachable non-linear animation tools, Discreet is integrating its award-winning advanced character motion toolset character studio into the core feature set of 3ds max 7. With a unique constraint-based non-linear animation mixer, highly scalable behavioral crowd simulation capabilities, and extensive motion capture filtering and editing facilities, character studio brings industry leading price/performance capabilities to the existing 3ds max character toolset. The result of the integration of character studio and 3ds max is the democratization of character animation functionality, which up until now has been found in solutions costing two to three times more than
3ds max.
3ds max 7 also offers a wide range of newly developed core functionality including industry-first Normal Mapping, a workflow accelerator for gaming; and Edit Poly Modifier, designed to improve ease of use and speed of animation (a more comprehensive feature list is included below). Such groundbreaking features as Normal Mapping continue Discreet's legacy of cross-pollinating innovative technologies between market segments, where features originally designed for one market segment such as games can have a significant impact on other segments such as film or design visualization.
Built in conjunction with industry artists and facilities, 3ds max 7 isaimed at boosting facility productivity and meeting the demanding production requirements set by today's highly competitive environment.
Additional major new features in 3ds max 7 include:
Normal Mapping -- industry first revolutionary workflow developed for gaming adds extreme detail to low-polygon models with high resolution maps -- and with complete rendering support normal mapping brings great time-saving benefits to film production and cinematic visualizations
mental ray 3.3 -- enhanced integration in 3ds maxwith accelerated performance and better memory efficiency. Improved Global Illumination, new support for Render to Texture and Normal Mapping, and Sub-Surface Scatteri! ng that disperses light for amazingly realistic skin and dense translucent object rendering
Custom Attributes Collector -- a new, unified interface that improves efficiency when animating multiple custom attributes for any character setup.
Edit Poly Modifier -- significantly increases the rapidity and ease at which complex polygonal surfaces can be created, modified and then animated - improving the creative process
Skin Wrap Deformer -- greatly improved character animation workflow with easy application of props and clothing to pre-skinned 3D models
Snapping Workflow -- improved accuracy and viewport feedback for the underlying snapping system in 3ds max
Paint Selections -- an intuitive and interactive method for building selections with a brush-based interface
Enhanced Interactive Performance and Scalability -- an ongoing program to enable 3ds max to scale to very large datasets including smart object culling for high performance manipulation of large numbers of objects
TurboSmooth -- a highly optimized smoothing algorithm for increased performance of high resolution models
Mobile Gaming Development Tools -- native mobile 3D asset creation with new JSR 184 exporter and per camera diagnostic tools
3ds max 7 is expected to ship in fall 2004 for US $3495. Localized versions are planned to be available later in 2004 and 2005. Upgrade pricing from 3ds max6 is US $795; and 3ds max5 US $1295. Discreet's Subscription Program benefits customers with access to new software feature extensions, patches, upgrades, and e-learning content for an annual fee. For more information, visit www.discreet.com/subscription/
[url=\"http://cgw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&SubSection=Display&PUBLICATION_ID=18&ARTICLE_ID=209405&pc=ENL\"]source[/url]