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Autodesk Project Excalibur (XBR) Technology Preview

February 17th, 2010 Randall Hand

Users to Autodesk products may have heard of the upcoming ‘Project Excalibur’ or Autodesk XBR which was leaked a while back, and shown in a public webinar on January 27th. Now some great example videos have come out showing some of the soft modeling features that make it a possible competitor for ZBrush and add a whole slew of new functionality.

After the break I’ve embedded two more for you to enjoy.

If you’re not familiar with Project Excalibur, CGArchitect has the entire webinar online here.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a computer graphics programmer and news junky that's been working in the field for the last 15 years. He's responsible for visualizations generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, ytnef, mullion support in ParaView, and VizWorld.com.

Graphics autodesk, software, xbr

Never Erase
This is absolutely not a competitor to zbrush… or many other apps for that matter. Soft selection and paint are hardly new. See.. Modo for example.
Randall Hand
@Never Erase Definitely not a competitor right now, but these features do eat into ZBrush’s “space”.. IF they continue to develop it, then it could after a few versions.
Of course by then, ZBrush will have added plenty of new features to maintain their supremacy.
Sushant
This has nothing to do with z-brush. As a matter of fact, this is max 2011, already out and used (and loved) by many users like me. The painting tools are amazing, may be they can give a fight to poly paint of zbr, but it cannot sculpt.
Andrea
i think its much more better if the developers try fix che original code…in fact 3ds max its full of bug, always crash everyday, in any kind of sector….mapping, modelling, rendering, skinning.
look like a race for put inside tools and tools without remove old features like radiosity and lighttrace ( you have MR inside!!! ) the result its a 3d package slow, lazy, and not optimized….new modelling interfaface in poly modelling its simple idiot! you never know when appear the tool in the screen!!! and everytime i need search it in some corner of screen with mouse pointer…..
Parker
These days it seems that it is all competition and no completion. 3ds max has got some new features but it is filled with bugs. Can autodesk for once focus on rectifying all the bugs and errors before releasing new version every year that has got a few things added to it.
http://www.davidedwards.me David
Agreed, stop trying to compete with zbrush, just fix the core Max code itself. Max will never feel like zbrush, it’s just too clunky. Zbrush is like a scalpel at what it does, a simple instrument designed for one purpose, and does it very well.
Tyler
Since Autodesk decided its goal was to become a monopoly, it has yet to come up with anything unique, creative, or stable. They need to stop trying to take over every aspect of digital design, and focus on making a quality solid project.
Freiheit
I agreed with Andrea. I think that Autodesk didn`t change max`s core from 5.1 version. Thats why it`s installation size is about 1.4 Gb – with such a week features it`s huge size :)