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If you’re a fan of VRay in Maya already, then you’re in luck as the Chaos Group has just announced that all VRay for Maya users are eligible for the VRay RT Beta program.

In order to obtain access everyone who would like to participate in the V-Ray RT BETA Program should be a current V-Ray for Autodesk Maya user registered at the Chaos Group website. If you would like to participate in the beta program your log in information will be used as an application to the Beta program and you will be able to immediately download and install V-Ray RT for Maya.

Just drool over the possibility of interactive real-time photorealistic rendering, while you model!

via Chaos Group / Chaos Software official website – home – V-Ray® – award winning, production-ready 3D rendering solutions.

Graphics beta, chaos group, maya, software, vray

Emoiz has a huge list of 100+ tutorials for 3dsMax and Maya compiled from around the internet.  Several of them have already been included elsewhere, but it’s a good mix of character modeling, architectural modeling, and more.

Maya and 3D Max both tools are powerful for 3D modeling, animation, texturing, rendering and visual effects software. These software were developed for the film industry and is now being used for design, visual effects, games, film, animation, visualization and simulation. In this article we present for you a Ultimate Collection of Maya and 3D Max Tutorials and Best Practices for your creativity.

via 100 Plus Stunning 3D Max and Maya Tutorials | EMOIZ.COM.

Graphics 3dsmax, list, maya, tutorial

While at SIGGRAPH, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Autodesk about some of their new offerings, the 20th Anniversary of 3dsMax, and the ‘rivalry’ between Maya and Max.  All in all, Autodesk doesn’t look to be shedding the title of ‘Behemoth of the Computer Graphics Industry’ anytime soon, and they’ve got lots on their plate to prove it.

First off, and central to many of their SIGGRAPH events, was the 20th Anniversary of 3dsMax.  Autodesk held a special lunch event with Tim Miller (owner of Blur Studios) and some Autodesk higher-ups to discuss the last 20 years of the product, and where they plan to go from here.  You can hear Tim Miller talk about 3dsMax in a special video at The Area, and his presentation at the event was similar. However, he showed some of the work he’s done over the last 20 years and his personal experiences with the product.  I personally loved hearing him talk about being briefly hired by a “major studio” prior to Blur, and quitting in frustration with how poorly the “Industry” tools on SGI workstations performed in comparison to 3dsMax on a wimpy little PC.  He concluded his talk with the amazing Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer that Blur created.

The other thing Autodesk was eager to talk about at SIGGRAPH was their new “Suites” products.  Similar to Adobe’s Suites, now you can buy collections of Autodesk products in a Suite which cuts the price (obviously) and adds guaranteed 1-click interoperability between applications via the FBX systems.  Their new Entertainment Creation Suites shown here, give you your choice of 3dsMax or Maya, along with SoftImage, Motion Builder, and MudBox.  Whether you choose 3dsMax or Maya, the price does not change and they guarantee the same 1-click interoperability between all of the apps.  That means you’ll be able to click a model inside 3dsMax or Maya and click 1 button to have it immediately transferred over to MudBox for refinement, and then click a button to send the results back to 3dsMax or Maya when you’re done.  It’s a whole new level of interoperability not previously available without extensive plugins and file transfers/import/export mundaneness.

This leads to the last point that you really had to dig to get to at SIGGRAPH:  Neither 3dsMax nor Maya are going away anytime soon.  Several people (myself included) had expected that Autodesk’s acquisition of Maya would mean the end of the product as Maya’s features merged into 3dsMax.  Not the case, as both products have continued on parallel and unique development paths since the acquisition, and Autodesk still has plans for many new features for both products.  The fact that you can get the suites with either case at no cost difference seems to really drive home the point that Autodesk simply sees them as two tools to accomplish the same task : Act as the Central Hub for all of their other products.  Model in MudBox, animate in Motion Builder, Render in Mental Ray, but link it all together in 3dsMax or Maya.  Both products now offer identical capabilities, but expose them in different ways based on their historical audience.

I asked some Autodesk engineers about this, and they echoed the sentiment.  If they tried to make 3dsMax more like Maya, users would probably leave for Cinema4d.  If they tried to make Maya more like 3dsmax, Users would probably leave for Houdini.  Leaving the two products along, but unifying them “under the hood” to reduce development time, lets each product play to it’s strengths and lets users remain comfortable in the environment they’ve spent the last 20 years working in.

So what’s in store for the products?  The main thing it seems we’ll be seeing is an extensively redesigned UI.  They admit that the current UI’s have gotten a bit cluttered with way too many rollouts.  They currently have a project underway to redesign the GUI (some of which has already happened in the last 2 versions of 3dsmax) to be more streamlined, and have such lofty goals as a 20s load-time (Wouldn’t that just be AWESOME?). They are also embracing new computer architectures and working to add more features for multicore/multiprocessor systems, taking advantage of those big quad-core/hex-core chips on the way.  But that’s not all, they’ve got a long list of things they’re working on, and I guarantee we will all love every bit of it.

If you were at SIGGRAPH & talked to Autodesk, what all did you see that interested you?

Graphics 3dsmax, autodesk, feature, maya, siggraph

An odd effect that I’m not sure what you’ld use it for, JMS has a short video demonstrationg a true “Reverse Perspective” plugin for Maya that he has developed.

Essentially, the positions of the vanishing-point and the focal-point are swapped. So now we are at the vanishing-point, where geometry shrinks to nothingness, and the focal-point lies some distance ahead, beyond which objects scale to infinity.

The effect is achieved entirely in-camera. The scene and models themselves have no unusual scaling, they're laid out in a normal / perpendicular fashion; the way the camera 'sees' the scene is altered to create the effect. Perspective is truly reversed.

via True Reverse Perspective on Vimeo.

True Reverse Perspective from JMS on Vimeo.

Graphics maya, plugin

This week’s recommended resource comes from Eric Luhta, and his ‘How to Cheat in Maya 2010‘.

Take your animations to the next level with this essential guide to Maya 2010. Packed with character animation techniques and the secrets of professional animators, How to Cheat in Maya 2010 provides the tips and tools to help you create high quality animation in the most efficient way possible. This comprehensive guide to animating with Maya contains gold-mine coverage, including animation techniques, using Maya’s tools with the 12 animation principles, working with constraints, and even foolproof lighting tricks to show off your work.

With this essential handbook, learn which circumstances call for which techniques, and how to get quality results fast. You will not only learn how to be productive in Maya, but also be given access under the hood to the actual scene files of a professional animator. Covering such topics such as pose to pose blocking, layered animation, fixing gimbal lock, facial animation, and much more, How to Cheat in Maya 2010 is an invaluable resource for artists and animators alike.

With Maya2011 around the corner, it can’t hurt to brush up on some of the lesser-used features of 2010 in preparation.  This book is available at Amazon and in the VizWorld.com Store.

Graphics feature, maya, resource of the week

Autodesk has just announced the newest version of the 3ds Max modeling and rendering package, 3ds Max 2011.  From the initial announcements, it sounds impressive:

“Our first priority with 3ds Max 2011 was to make artists more productive in common everyday workflows,” said Stig Gruman, Autodesk vice president of digital entertainment. “We have re-architected core parts of the software, introduced a much requested node based material editor streamlining workflows and added new features, like the painting tools and the Quicksilver hardware renderer, to help customers meet or beat their deadlines without compromising either creativity or quality.”

But that’s not all.  They also have just announced a new Maya 2011 to match:

“Maya continues to help artists set new standards in entertainment with credits such as ‘Avatar’ and ‘Uncharted 2: Among Thieves,’” said Stig Gruman, Autodesk vice president of digital entertainment. “The 2011 release is a key milestone for Maya. With a new customizable UI and a new graphics architecture, Maya strengthens its position as a foundation for modern film and game pipelines. The innovative 3D editorial timeline helps communicate and validate the creative vision behind a project and enables previs and virtual moviemaking workflows for users.”

Both products seem to share the always-present-and-frustrating UI redesign, as well as some other fantastic features like compositors, hardware renderers, and more.

Read the full releases for all the details.  Both products will be available in April.

Graphics 3dsmax, autodesk, maya, software

VRay users can check out the new collection of shaders for Maya, created by Paul Markowski Dreisen and Oilver.  In addition to the shaders, you can download a MEL script that can convert 3dsMax materials into VRay Shaders suitable for Maya.

Check out sample renders of the shaders here.

Check out the MEL script here.

Vray For Maya Shaderlibrary | cgheute.

Graphics maya, shaders, vray

Autodesk has named the recipients of their prestigious Masters awards for 2009, handing out 15 awards to 3ds Max, Softimage, and Maya experts.

Over the past few months we’ve asked you, as a member of the 3D Community, to nominate talented artists for Autodesk Maya® Master, 3ds Max® Master, and Softimage® awards for 2009.

All of the talented people nominated were recognized as exceptional people doing exceptional things with—and for—3D CG through the work they produce, through mentoring, and for their contribution to advancing the Autodesk tools they use. Then we asked you, 3ds Max, Maya, and Softimage artists, to vote—and vote you did—by the thousands.

Congratulations to all the winners!

via The Area :: Autodesk Masters :: Autodesk® Masters 2009.

Graphics 3dsmax, autodesk, maya, softimage

Illuminate Labs has just released a new version of their precomputing lighting texture baking tool Turtle for Autodesk’s Maya 2010, and updated their gallery to show its use in several new games.

Based on the same core lighting technology, LiquidLight®, as the world’s leading game lighting middleware, Beast™, the brand new Turtle 5.1 includes several new features boosting productivity as well as visual quality.

“Titles like Dante’s Inferno, Dragon Age: Origins, EVE Online and God of War III prove Turtle to be a lighting tool that any Maya game studio should consider.” says Magnus Wennerholm, CEO.

Be sure to hit their Gallery and see the screenshots for EVE Online, Army of Two: 40th Day, and WET.

via Turtle now supports Autodesk Maya 2010 — Illuminate Labs.

Graphics maya, software, texture, turtle

FurryBall, a GPU accelerated renderengine for Autodesk Maya boasts real-time simulation of lighting effects and physics inside the native Maya Environment.  From their website:

Have you ever dreamed of a 3D renderer implemented directly into Maya 3D that has the capacity to light, rotate, or change parameters  in real-time in scenes that contain textures, bump maps, soft shadows, reflections, refractions, and dynamic hair? Your dreams have come true – introducing FurryBall!

Demonstration videos on their website do a good job showing the capabilities, and a 30-day trial (registration required) is available on their website.  The full version sells for $490 – $2200, depending on the feature set.

See a commercial rendered entirely via FurryBall on a GeForce GTX285, 1 minute per frame, after the break.

FurryBall GPU realtime renderer for Maya.

Read more…

Graphics furryball, maya, realtime, renderer