2007 Autodesk User Group Meeting

The 2007 Autodesk User Group Meeting gathered together a sizable crowded to make several product announcements, to show off new features in 3ds Max, Maya and Toxik. The group was greeted by Marc Petit, Senior VP over the Media and Entertainment Group and then turned over to Shawn Hendricks use acted as the MC for the event.

The meeting started with the announcement that Autodesk had acquired Skymatter the creators of Mudbox, a software package that simulates modeling with clay. This announcement was cheered by the enthusiastic crowd. The Skymatter team was then invited up to the stage to explain how Mudbox came to be.

The next guest to take the stage was Christine Mackenzie, Executive Director or Marketing for Chrysler. She spoke about how Chrysler had used the Autodesk tools to create a virtual fleet saving a large amount of cost required to produce, ship and display prototype vehicles as a vehicle approaches its release date. Every attendee was also given a collectible toy car courtesy of Chrysler. I ended up with a green, sporty 2006 Dodge Challenger Concept muscle car. To end her talk, Christine revealed a brand new prototype of the Chrysler Demon vehicle located to the right of the stage (Figure 1).

The next part of the program showed off the latest features to be included in 3ds Max 2008. These features were demoed by Vincent Briseboise and included the following:

• Self Illumination materials that work with mental ray that can provide light to the scene using actual physical Candela values.
• A new mental ray Photographic Exposure Control with controls common on cameras including aperture, ISO and F-Stop.
• The mr Sky Portal control for focusing light from a daylight system shining through a window.
• The ability to view lights and shadows within the viewport in real-time.
• The new Scene Explorer interface, which provides a table of settings for all objects in the scene.
• The new Line of Sight tool to see what is obscured from a camera or light.

• A new X-Ray joints viewing method.
• A new Smoothing skin weight tool.
• The ability to rig models non-destructively.
• The new Move Joint tool.
• The ability to bind skin regardless of the current pose.
• The Copy Weight tool that appeared in Maya 8.5.

Shawn then introduced the new 3ds Max and Maya Masters who were each presented with a nice jacket and recognized by the user group for their achievements.

Then Vincent returned to show off some more new 3ds Max 2008 features including:

• The Preview Selection option available when poly modeling
• The new Normal constraint poly modeling option.
• The ability to divide a Chamfer into segments.
• The new Working Pivot that can be set as you work.
• The ability the apply UV mapping over several pieces at once.

Then Michel Besner, Senior Director of Product Management, gave all the attendees a look at some under wrap projects including the new Sextant tool that is being developed. Sextant is a visual design tool used to create storyboards. It includes a sketching mode and a timeline for sequencing. It also has review and annotation features. The tool can work with 2D and 3D content including the ability to import 3D models and motions.

Another look at research at Autodesk was provided by Duncan Brinsmead who showed off a number of fun examples of Maya in use. Duncan’s examples included using cloth to create a book with flipping pages, using hair to create a realistic, twisting phone cord, using a cloud field to simulate the look of ink being dropped and mixed in water, and a realistic slinky simulation.

In one of the best examples, Duncan showed an email received from a user who asked how they could create the effect of having the letters on a page fall away from the page and float to the ground. Duncan then displayed his response which had the letters of the user’s actual email fall away floating to the ground. Duncan concluded his interesting presentation with the simulation of several paper airplanes created in Maya.

Following the user group meeting, the attendees were treated to a private party called the Steel Beach Base aboard the USS Midway docked in San Diego bay complete with food, drink and a fireworks show. The party was sponsored by Autodesk and Café FX.

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