New: Autodesk Updates Maya, 3ds Max to 2023

Highlights of Autodesk 3ds Max 2023

Below, read excerpts of the new features, summarized from What’s New in 3ds Max 2023.

• gITF support. Use glTF materials and export your 3ds Max files as compact .gltf or .glb files.
• Retopology Tools 1.2. Handle larger amounts of data with less setup and preparation by enabling the Remesh option as a pre-processing step.
• Snap Working Pivot. Snap Working Pivot is a new method to adjust the Working Pivot while performing a variety of functions, such as using Smart Extrude, adding bones, or rigging.
• Autobackup Toolbar. The toolbar provides a simple means to visualize and interact with the Autobackup process.
• Physical Material Aligned with Autodesk Standard Surface enables the Physical Material found in 3ds Max to be 100 percent compliant with the Autodesk Standard Surface in Maya.
• Arnold Renderer – MAXtoA. 3ds Max 2023 includes MAXtoA 5.1.0 which introduces new features, bug fixes, performance optimizations, and production improvements.
• Smart Extrude allows for a partial cut-through on an Editable Poly object.

Highlights of Autodesk Maya 2023

Below, read excerpts of the new features, summarized from What’s New in Maya 2023.

• Updated USD plug-in for Maya. Updated Universal Scene Description (USD) support in Maya lets artists work seamlessly with USD in conjunction with Maya workflows. USD for Maya v0.16.0 is included with your installation of Maya 2023.
• Bifrost 2.4.0.0. Bifrost 2.4.0.0 introduces Bifrost-USD, combining the power of USD to assemble, organize, and edit assets non-destructively with the flexibility and friendliness of the Bifrost graph.
• Introducing Blue Pencil. Blue Pencil lets artists and animators create 2D drawings and annotations in the viewport. Replacing the earlier Grease Pencil tools, Blue Pencil offers more features and flexibility, including more drawing tools for text and shapes, as well as functionality like layers, retiming, and transformation. It’s great for pre-production animation blocking or annotating a scene file with notes and suggestions.
• Improved Boolean Operations. Create and edit boolean operations in fewer clicks using the new Boolean node.
• Improved User Experience. Maya has undergone a number of improvements for first-time and returning users alike. These include a new Application Home hub, Interactive Tutorials, Search, and Viewcube.
• Mesh Wireframe Opacity. Alpha channels are now available in the Color Chooser, letting you set the opacity of the wireframe on objects.
• Improved Animation Performance. Maya 2023 includes several animation performance improvements to help speed up your work, including updates to Cached Playback, Evaluation Toolkit, and Bake Simulation options.
• Create VR for Maya. Create VR for Maya is an immersive conceptual design tool that empowers artists and designers to start their creative process directly in 3D.
• Deformer updates. New Retargeting and Mirror capabilities, Solidify scaling options, and extra Deformer falloffs have been added to the Maya deformation arsenal. Also new: Tangenital Damping, Mirror Morph Mode, Retarget Morph Mode, Tangenital Constraints, and a new Scaling section. Please see the full release notes for more on Deformer updates, as there is a lot more!

Highlights of Arnold 2023

The following is directly from the Arnold 2023 Features page.

• Arnold GPU. Switch seamlessly between CPU and GPU rendering.
• Subsurface scatter. High-performance ray-traced subsurface scattering eliminates the need to tune point clouds.
• Hair and fur. Memory-efficient ray-traced curve primitives help you create complex fur and hair renders.
• Motion blur. 3D motion blur interacts with shadows, volumes, indirect lighting, reflection, or refraction.
• Volumes. Render effects such as smoke, clouds, fog, pyroclastic flow, and fire with volumetric rendering.
• Instances. Efficiently ray trace instances of many scene objects with transformation and material overrides.
• Subdivision and displacement. Create smooth, curved surfaces with support for Catmull-Clark subdivision.
• Open Shading Language (OSL) support. Use Open Shading Language (OSL), an advanced shading language for Global Illumination renderers.
• Light Path Expressions. Get power and flexibility to create Arbitrary Output Variables with LPEs to help meet the needs of production.
• Adaptive sampling. Use another means of tuning images to reduce render times without jeopardizing final image quality.
• Toon shader. In combination with the Contour Filter, an advanced toon shader provides a non-photorealistic solution.
• Denoising. Powerful denoising solutions offer you the flexibility to use much lower-quality sampling settings.

Mudbox 2023

With Mudbox, Sculpt and paint highly detailed 3D geometry and textures. There is a 404 error on the release notes for Mudbox 2023, but in brief, this release includes minor updates, including a new installer on Linux.