Building Motion
MotionBuilder was the first new rev of an Alias app that came out the door after Autodesk acquired Alias, which had itself acquired MotionBuilder not much earlier from Kaydara. Now at version 7.5, MotionBuilder is a top flight character rigging and animation system. Maya was already renowned for the quality of its character animation, so the fact that Alias wanted MotionBuilder in its lineup is an indicator of its quality.
A great feature MotionBuilder 7.5 brings to the table is Character Extensions. In addition to highly precise control over arms, legs, and neck joints with forward and inverse kinematics, now you can manage additional body elements such as tails, wings, swords, or other objects associated with your character.
Even if you're not a professional animator, you can appreciate the value of a feature that guarantees your characters' feet always make contact with the ground properly. Another winner is that in addition to streaming live motion capture data, that information can be retargeted between characters. This is very useful for such things as syncopated dance routines or working out realtime moves with a low-res proxy and then assigning the data to a high-res model.
Perhaps most impressive is the Double-Solving feature that calculates the interaction of two interdependent characters, so that the solutions to the complex contact points between them are solved correctly. Very cool.
MotionBuilder works on both Mac and PC. The node-locked version costs $4195, the network version $4795.
3D Studio Max 9
At version 9, Max is a highly evolved piece of software. The program's $3495 price tag hasn't changed since it was first introduced, but its overall capabilities have increased enormously.
A while back Autodesk proudly released a version of Max that had a staggering "1000 new features." I realized that if it only took me ten minutes to master one, it would still take weeks of nonstop work to get them all under my belt. Thankfully, the last couple versions have cut down on the number of new features to focus more on stability and usability.
Nevertheless, the programs's core functionality has improved dramatically with every version. Components such as Character Studio, Hair, and physical dynamics simulation that were previously sold as addons or plugins created by third parties for hundreds or thousands of dollars, are now integrated into the base package at no additional cost.
The implementation of the mental ray image rendering engine (which not long ago cost as much as Max all by itself) is much easier to configure in this version. A collection of mental ray Architecture and Design shaders will help newbies get started with this deep rendering program that accurately simulates refracted lights and atmospherics. Another nice feature is the ability to smooth hard edges on objects in the rendering pass rather than requiring all geometry in a scene to consist of massive amounts of polygons.
Between its streamlined code and the greater RAM access enabled by the 64-bit version of the program, everything runs faster and feels more stable. Objects with very high polygon counts are much easier to model and manipulate in real time, and functions that have always been problematic (i.e., the program crashes) such as performing multiple Boolean additions and subtractions to objects is much improved. Complex actions such as Hair grooming have been improved as well.
This is the best version of Max yet. It's especially attractive for game designers, architects, and filmmakers doing pre-visualizations. If you already use Max and are investing in 64-bit hardware, the upgrade to Max 9 is a no-brainer.
Maya 8
3D programs are so complex that operating them can feel like sitting in front of a jet fighter's control panel. One of Maya's best qualities is its "artist-friendly" interface that shows only the elements you need to perform a certain class of actions, such as Modeling or Animation. Once you know what you're up to, the interface is almost infinitely customizable to your personal working methodology.
Game designers in particular will appreciate being able to use OpenGL, DirectX, and game-specific renderers directly in Maya design viewports so they can see exactly what their finished product will look like from the get-go.
Like Max, this version of Maya is more focused on workflow and stability than cramming in massive quantities of new features. Some new capabilities may seem trivial, such as a more interactive method of creating and placing object primitives in the workspace, but taken together, these small enhancements spell the difference between workflows that require technical directors and other specialists, and the potential for a one man band to go it alone.
I found many improvements directly attributable to the 64-bit implementation. Files that used to crash Maya 7 due to scene complexity now render without problems. Certain windows, such as Visor and Hypershade, that eat up surprising amounts of memory--enough to slow down scene playback in Maya 7--are no longer a problem.
Large polygon count models now update much more quickly when performing organic sculpting with the brush-based Artisan tool. A nice related feature is a color gradient that shows the dropoff when you perform soft surface deformations. I also appreciated the new Animate Turntable tool that moves a camera around a character or object so you can see all around it.
I rendered some files I'd created in the previous version of Maya, and was surprised to see that objects in the scenes rendered much more smoothly and with sharper detail than they had before. Apparently Maya 7 was throwing away polygons in complex scenes before rendering them, and Maya 8 doesn't. mental ray 3.5 gains from memory access in other ways. It now models subsurface scattering effects, such as the interior light bounce in marble or the subsurface lighting in skin more effectively.
You can use Transfer Polygon Attributes to assign vertex and UV mapping information from one mesh to another for high and low res versions of characters. A big advance is the ability to cache polygon geometry for fast playback of complex object deformations such as interframe blend shapes.
This 64-bit version of Maya 8 is the most capable and by far the most stable version yet.
