March 27, 2013, Game Developers Conference, San Francisco - We talked with Wesley Adams and Rob Hoffman from Autodesk about their entertainment creation suite. This set of tools was developed in conjunction with some production teams to make a different approach to development and to bypass beta testing.
These game development products are focused on the big budget games that are played on consoles. They can create content for all of the next-generation platforms and have more integrated tools and functions including AI and physics. The development products have two branches, one for the consoles and PCs, and another for mobile devices. All tools can access the hardware acceleration to accommodate the various hardware acceleration devices in the end platforms.
The full suite comes in Standard, Premium, and Ultimate versions and can include Maya, 3Dx Max, SoftImage, Motion Builder, MudBox, and SketchBook Designer. These 3-D modeling and creation tools can create simulations while in flexible pipelines. The 3-D tools use a DirectX 11 format for modeling, and can extract the geometries from photos and lidar scans.
The suite enables the user to tackle sophisticated effects including crowd simulations and fine details like hair and fluids. The sculpting, texturing, and painting toolsets create more believable characters in complex environments. The animation tools can edit and clean up motion data. The package is available for a 30-day trial. For more details see www.autodesk.com
The industry is changing as development is moving more towards asset creation. The base tools have application to many areas including view port performance, checking the context of the final assets, etc. To help the industry make this transition, they are working on the Open Data Initiative to create assembly tools that can access assets from any tool. They are making design tools that can be useful in a normal work environment while providing workstation performance.
