Autodesk Mudbox 2011 is part of the Autodesk 3D software suite. It is a digital sculpting program that also has painting capabilities. It operates in both the 32-bit and 64-bit environments of Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. The Mac OS X 10.6.2 version of the software only uses the 64-bit environment.
Standard Features in Autodesk Mudbox 2011
Organic and hard surface sculpts can be created in Mudbox. The sculpting tool set includes brushes such as spray, pinch, freeze, wax, imprint, scrape, foamy, repeat and bulge. Users can also create their own brushes. Autodesk Mudbox 2011 supports symmetrical sculpting on models that have been placed in an asymmetrical position. A user can use reference images on multiple planes as well.
In Mudbox, the sculptor can paint directly on his 3D model without concern for UV distortion. Specular, diffuse, bump, gloss, color and emissive maps can be created in the program. Paint layers are also supported in the software package. A user can bake ambient occlusion, normal and vector displacement maps.
Autodesk Mudbox 2011 has a direct production pipeline with certain 2D and 3D programs. 3D models can be transferred between other Autodesk products like Maya and 3ds Max. Texture files can be sent complete with layers to Adobe Photoshop. For those using other programs, Mudbox imports and exports the following file formats: OBJ, PNG, BMP, TIF, EXR and JPG. It only imports the GIF format.
New Features in Autodesk Mudbox 2011
Posing Toolset: This feature allows the user to pose the model in any position. It also allows the artist to import weighted skeletons from Softimage, Maya or 3ds Max.
Vector Displacements: This option creates mesh displacements that are not tied to the normals of the model. Vector displacements can be extracted and later used to create custom stencils and stamps or used in other programs.
Image Adjustment Brushes: These brushes can be used to manipulate textures with blend adjustments such as dodge, sponge, contrast, burn and hue.
