Autodesk announced the new features of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite 2014 today. The versatile workflow includes award-winning 3D animation, visual effects and creative tools, Autodesk Maya 2014, Autodesk 3ds Max 2014, Autodesk MotionBuilder 2014, Autodesk Mudbox 2014, Autodesk Softimage 2014 and Autodesk Sketchbook Designer 2014, all which have been updated to offer new workflow enhancements that help artists collaborate, manage complexity and move data through their pipeline more efficiently.

“Modern production teams must manage multiple complex, visually demanding projects at any given time, and Autodesk works closely with world renowned entertainment studios to develop the most powerful solutions,” said Chris Bradshaw, senior vice president, Media & Entertainment at Autodesk. “The Entertainment Creation Suites provide a unified and flexible workflow, offering teams of all sizes the ability to better manage across a globally distributed creative workforce. Each product in the toolset saves valuable production time, while giving artists more creative freedom to work with the best tool for the job at hand.”

Flexible Toolset Scales to Project Needs

With three configurations, the Suites scale to meet the demands of any sized team, budget or project. The Standard edition includes industry-recognized 3D software and offers a choice of either Autodesk Maya 2014 or Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 with Autodesk MotionBuilder 2014, Autodesk Mudbox 2014 and Autodesk Sketchbook Designer 2014.

The Premium edition offers all the software of the Standard Suite, but with the addition of Autodesk Softimage 2014 3D animation and visual effects software.

With the Ultimate Suite, customers have access to the value of the Premium edition, with the added benefit of including both Maya 2014 and 3ds Max 2014.

“Our objective is to create videogames that … push the envelope in matters of emotion,” said Guillaume de Fondaumière, co-CEO, Quantic Dreams.

Hundreds of Autodesk customers harness the power of the Suites to create thrilling entertainment projects. Quantic Dream, a 180-person Paris-based game studio, took advantage of the Suites to create their next video game, BEYOND: Two Souls. Channeling the power of the Suites, the Quantic Dream team created true-to-life characters to breathe life into their upcoming psychological action thriller.

The title stars Academy Award nominee Ellen Page (Inception, Juno) as Jodie, a young woman whose link to an unseen entity gives her supernatural powers. She is supported by another Oscar nominee in Willem Dafoe (Platoon, Spider-Man) who plays Nathan Dawkins, a government scientist who works with Jodie to analyze her powers. In BEYOND, gamers will play through fifteen years of Jodie’s story, experiencing the most striking moments of her life. Like its predecessor Heavy Rain, BEYOND will allow players to shape the course of the story through their decisions and actions taken in the game.

With Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites, all the characters of BEYOND: Two Souls come to life, with realistic textures, emotions and reactions. Gamers will instantly recognize the critically acclaimed actors as their emotions bridge the virtual world to enter every gamer’s living room.

Upgrades Deliver Powerful Creative Enhancements

Every tool in the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites offers new ways for artists to efficiently bring more life-like and realistic behaviors to their creations.

Autodesk Maya 2014 Puts Creativity Back at the Artists’ Fingertips

Autodesk Maya 2014 helps artists and developers create content to meet the increasing expectations of modern audiences. The 2014 update includes an expanded, integrated modeling feature set; intuitive Grease Pencil; and innovative new Paint Effects features that are designed to improve productivity and enhance creativity. The Maya DX11Shader, working with enhancements to Viewport 2.0, enables artists to work in a high-quality real-time environment that closely matches final output. New Scene Assembly, a File Path Editor, and URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) support tools allows for easier building and managing of large and complex worlds.

Autodesk 3ds Max Extends Artist Creative Capabilities

Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 offers new solutions to answer today’s modern 3D challenges. The new Populate feature saves artists time and allows them to quickly and easily generate moving or idle crowds with life-like human reactions and activity.  Additional updates include: a significantly enhanced and more efficient Particle Flow toolset; and a performance-enhanced viewport that now supports Microsoft DirectX 11 shaders. Perspective Match and Vector Map tools allow artists to extend their creative capabilities by crossing the 2D/3D divide.

Autodesk Softimage 2014 Easily Integrates into Existing Pipelines

The new Camera Sequencer toolset offers the ability to cut between multiple cameras to edit clips, leaving the original animation data unchanged; directorial control over scenes; improved CrowdFX and ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) features enable artists to use the concept of passes and partitions in any combination with any aspect of ICE; and an improved High-Quality Viewport delivers a higher fidelity interactive experience. Autodesk Softimage 2014 now offers easier integration into existing pipelines through improved support for animation data exchange via the Autodesk FBX 2014 format.

Autodesk MotionBuilder 2014 Helps Studios Refine Motion Capture

With Autodesk MotionBuilder 2014, studios can more efficiently manipulate and refine motion capture and other character animation data for use in onset visualization, previsualization, virtual cinematography, feature film production and game development. Linux operating system support is now available, as well as new motion capture workflow options; artist-friendly methods for positioning, measuring and selecting objects; the ability to use custom viewport renderers; and an API (Application Programming Interface) for file referencing.

Autodesk Mudbox 2014 Allows for Easier Iteration, Creative Freedom

The latest update to Autodesk Mudbox offers single-click automatic and manual options to manipulate meshes or to precisely control various aspects of the output mesh with a user-directed solution. Artists can now concentrate purely on aesthetic considerations as they sculpt, without altering the underlying structure. Enhanced multi-touch workflows now include support for stencils and additional touch-enabled input devices.

Autodesk SketchBook Designer 2014 Offers Maximum Creative Choice

Autodesk SketchBook Designer 2014 is an intuitive hybrid paint and vector toolset that enables exploration and presentation of new ideas for characters, props and environments. Additional benefits include: sketching, painting and image compositing workflows; easy color manipulation; mixed media workflows and an industry-unique transformation tool. The dynamic, scalable user interface is optimized for both pen and mouse interaction and is designed to offer maximum creative freedom.

Availability

Product availability varies by country. Details and license purchasing options are available at http://www.autodesk.com/purchaseoptions. For the full product details, visit the Autodesk Entertainment
Creation Suite product page.