Autodesk has announced Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 software—the latest version of its modeling, animation, rendering and compositing application. A new node-based material editor, innovative hardware renderer and full-featured compositor are new features offered in the 2011 release to help accelerate the creation of compelling imagery and entertainment content.
“Our first priority with 3ds Max 2011 was to make artists more productive in common everyday workflows,” said Stig Gruman, Autodesk VP 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.”
Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 has the following new and enhanced features:
Slate, a new node-based material editor that enables artists to more easily visualize and edit material component relationships
Quicksilver hardware renderer, a new multithreaded rendering engine that uses both the central processing unit (CPU) and the graphics processing unit (GPU), and can achieve up to 10 times faster rendering than traditional techniques on common graphics cards
Ability to view many 3ds Max texture maps and materials in the viewport to help develop and refine scenes in a higher-fidelity interactive display environment — without the constant need to re-render
Extended Graphite modeling and Viewport Canvas toolsets for 3D and 2D painting of textures directly in the viewport, along with the ability to paint with object brushes to help create geometry within a scene
Ability to non-destructively layer local edits on top of referenced content, helping artists to collaborate more efficiently
3ds Max Composite, a full-featured, high dynamic range (HDR)–capable compositor, based on technology from Autodesk Toxik software
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