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Each release of Autodesk Maya and the Entertainment Creation Suite marks a step forward in the possibilities of movie special effects and digital animation. The recent release of Maya Entertainment Creation Suite 2011 (ECS) stays true to this trend.
Maya ECS 2011 includes essential applications for creating animating, character rendering, and adding effects Maya 2011, Mudbox 2011, and MotionBuilder 2011. There is also a version of the suite that comes with Autodesk 3ds Max in the place of Maya 2011.
Essentially, Maya is for 3-D animation, modeling, and other stages of rendering animations and objects. MotionBuilder is geared toward real-time character animation. MudBox is a digital sculpting and 3-D painting application, which is similar to shaping with digital clay. The applications sync well between one another, with the help of Autodesk FBX 2011 data integration, which allows users to quickly transfer their work between applications.
All three applications have been improved and dotted with new tools in the 2011 releases, although Maya 2011 seems to have received the most work of the three.
Autodesk is among the leading companies in 3-D design and creative software. Their applications include some of the major names in video editing, 3-D animation, and architecture design. Maya and MotionBuilder were used in the creation of Avatar, as well as in other big-name films, although the software suite can be used for virtually anything related to animation, character design, or 3-D rendering.
Maya seems to have received the most attention among applications in the suite, with quite a long list of new features and enhancements that make the update well worth it. As for Mudbox and MotionBuilder, there is a bit less in terms of new features, but some nice updates nonetheless.
The biggest update for Mac users is newly added 64-bit support in Maya 2011 and Mudbox 2011, which makes the applications run much faster and use the computer’s resources better. MotionBuilder is still Windows only, however.