Autodesk Media & Entertainment Community Portal "Area" Now Live
Provides 3D Users Networking and Information Sharing Forum
Autodesk, Inc., has announced that its new community portal, Area (www.the-area.com), is now live. The site is intended to be a centralised repository of content created using Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max animation, modelling and rendering software; Autodesk MotionBuilder character animation software; or Autodesk VIZ 3D modelling, rendering and presentation software. To foster collaboration and networking within the industry, content on the Area is intended to be generated by the community, and supported by Autodesk. The site features tips and tutorials, discussion forums, blogs, downloads, galleries, member portfolios and feature stories on artists and developers. Membership is free.
Michel Besner, Autodesk Media & Entertainment senior director of product management, said, ?We have been looking forward to today?s launch of Area, because it enables Autodesk to further support its media and entertainment 3D user community. Through Area, the 3D community can support its own growth as the industry addresses the next-generation production challenges of increasingly complex games, television and film effects, and design visualisations.?
Area was announced on July 31 at the Autodesk user group meeting at SIGGRAPH 2006 in Boston. Rick Pumphrey of Blake Studios was enthusiastic about joining the Area community. "After learning about the upcoming Area site, I have been eagerly waiting to see it go live. The forums have the potential to put artists in contact with others who may be facing similar challenges on their projects. Additionally, Area is unique because users can dialogue directly with Autodesk's 3D product management in an open forum. I expect this community portal will help users get a better understanding of the people behind the world?s leading projects and the products they use to make them."
You can now purchase Softimage for around US$500. A massive drop in price. Softimage used to be priced above the competition and targeted at the higher end of the market. Softimage is light years ahead of 3DS max or Maya and is much easier to use. It will take Autodesk some time to catch up. I woudn't be surprised if the local industry starts moving across to Softimage in droves.
Max sucks. Maya is better. Softimage is better still.
Looks like Softimage is moving aggressively into the game space now. They purchased CAT and are developing CAT runtime for games.
I just read on gamedev that both Epic and Vault have moved across to Softimage.
You wont find a better modelling tool - and especially the HLSL shader tools, and the other integrated features like physics, and so forth. The fact you can get the entry level version for 500.. its impressive. Makes Max, and Maya look a little old, tired and clunky.
Crazy. Plus the entry level version has almost everything the professional version has. Check out SOFTIMAGE FACE ROBOT. Amazing stuff and perfect for in-game facial animation work.
"
Game Export Solution
Deformation: Face Robot transfers acting into runtime skinning information. It uses standard bones and weight maps. Find out more information about Game Export Deformation here.
Shading: Face Robot transfers wrinkling and facial nuances into runtime shading. It provides a custom shader to blend normal maps through skin stress. Find out more information about Game Export Shading here.
Advantages
Quality - Efficient process to achieve high quality in game acting with detailed facial nuances.
Speed - Fast, predictable and click-minimized process which is highly focused on facial performance.
Optimization - Works with low bone counts. This document covers a scenario of exporting to 30 face bones at runtime.
Scalability - Efficient mechanism to add and remove face detail on demand. Can have different output resolutions per game platform.
"
That's really awesome.