Autodesk 3DS Mac 8.0 Modeling and Animation S/w

3DS Max 8 is the newest version of Autodesk Media and

Entertainment's 3D modeling and animation suite and possibly one of the most

significant releases from Autodesk in quite some time. The software takes a big

step in the direction of character animation with the addition of hair, cloth,

and a non-linear animation module. 

Let's talk of some improvements. The Editable Poly Object

& Editable Poly Modifier have been improved a lot with the additional

features, saving a lot of time as compared to the earlier versions.

The Unwrap modifier is now more enhanced for the gaming

industry. The new Pelt Mapper tool inside it has an amazing pelt mapping

capability. Cutting a pelt takes literally seconds and the pelt mapper is quick

too.

Another major sub-tool is a Point-to-Point Seam

method that lets you quickly enhance the seams. This is going to be really

important as next-gen consoles will rely more on mapping than polys to pull off

amazing looks. For selection of UVs, 3DS Max 8 now has the ability to select

using loops, rows and grow/shrink which is very useful as these features were

lacking in the previous versions. The software now includes a render UVW

template.

Direct X Shader is something that the gaming industry was

waiting for. All you need to have is a proper hardware to be installed on

system. This helps in generating a Direct X Manager in the materials box where

you can make your own materials, save it as Direct X files, open these files in

the Direct X Shader and reuse them as many times you want. 

This is the first full version of 3DS Max that ships with

cloth, hair and fur. These systems were previously only available to 3DS Max

subscribers.

The Cloth Modifier uses geometry and mathematical formulas

to copy the way the cloth and in particular clothing, works in real world. The

Hair and Fur (WSM) modifier lets you define the look and style of the hair while

the render effect takes care of it. But it is time consuming and tedious.

Before simulating: The shirt is set to Cloth and the model to Collision object

After: The shirt confirms naturally to the model's shape

For animators, Biped has a number of new features added.

The links in tail, neck and spine have been increased. The bone-twist options

are now expanded to cover all biped limbs. We can animate bipeds more easily

with the Euler curves in the Workbench and curve editor, and can load and save

an animation.

The Rendering Dialog box has been modified. We can do batch

rendering that lets you create a list of rendering tasks for the current scene

to be performed sequentially.The radiosity engine has been improved and now

allows adaptive meshing and better solutions.

A feature called Adaptive Subdivision meshing has been

added. We can save all the files on the network related to the project at a

centralized location which can be accessed by the respective users. The XRef

features are made more robust and the new interface is a bit more elegant than

previous versions.

Bottom Line: If you want

incredible 3D realism with some of the best render engines, lots of different

ways to animate, and a program packed with features, go in for the new Autodesk

3DS Max 8.

Shobhana Srivastava