Animation projects continue to grow in size and complexity, while studios are expanding rapidly to keep pace. The only things that are not being extended are the production deadlines. No wonder everyone's talking about collaborative workflow, more efficient production, and how to maximize creative output. But while others talk, 3D Studio MAX®, the industry-leading 3D animation solution from Kinetix®, has done for workgroup productivity what it has traditionally done for individual creativity-set the standard.

Film and video animation projects are becoming more complex each day, even as project lead-times shrink and new digital formats proliferate. Studios need to make the most of their artists' creativity while improving their production flow to meet today's intensifying demands. The comprehensive abilities of 3D Studio MAX® enable stunningly realistic special effects and award-winning imagery for broadcast graphics, cartoon episodes, or feature films. Meanwhile, 3D Studio MAX® provides the speed, streamlined workflow, and scalability film animation studios need to supercharge their collaborative efforts and get projects out the door in multiple formats on time and on budget.

Your most valuable competitive advantage is communication. It’s what pre-serves the integrity of your designs and wins new contracts. Colleagues and prospective customers need to see your designs the way you envision them. Now they can. 3D Studio VIZ® software from Autodesk lets you accurately communicate your design intent throughout the life of your project. AutoCAD® compatible, PC-based, Internet-enabled 3D Studio VIZ works the way you do. So you’re always ready for the next big idea. That’s why tens of thousands of architects, land planners, mechanical designers, and others are already using 3D Studio VIZ software.

3D Studio VIZ R3 is the next generation of Autodesk's full-featured 3D design conceptualization and presentation product that leverages core 3D Studio® multimedia technology across design markets. This release offers interoperability with AutoCAD 2000 and an extensive new feature set that makes it a valuable tool for a wider range of designers.and for cross-disciplinary collaboration.

character studio® is the latest release of the powerful extension to 3ds max, the world's best-selling professional 3D animation and modeling solution. Crowd creation. Animating large numbers of characters individually is time consuming to the point of being impossible. character studio 3® software's groundbreaking research in the field of behavioral animation yields a rich new set of tools and controls for intelligent animation of large systems of arbitrary characters.

Flocks of birds, schools of fish and legions of non-terrestrial beings can be created quickly while still maintaining control over the characters. Managed IK pivot points character studio 3® also introduces a dedicated system for using and managing Inverse Kinematic pivot points. IK pivot points allow for smooth motions at the end of an IK chain, like rotating the contact point of the foot walking across the ground from the heel to the ball to the end of the foot. Never before has a set of tools enabled this process with both minimal effort and perfect results.  

Lightscape is the industry-Ieading application for lighting design and rendering. The first application to incorporate both radiosity and raytracing technologies with real-world lighting, Lightscape simulates the true physical properties of light and materials by capturing lighting effects not normally obtained with conventional rendering systems. Using industry standard IES specifications from lighting manufacturers, designers can use Lightscape to prototype. analyze and present to their clients how a building or object will appear when specific materials and lighting conditions are used.  

Digital content creators also use Lightscape to illuminate and render compelling real-time virtual environments for film, broadcast, web and interactive gaming applications. The radiosity technology of Lightscape produces accurate photometric simulations of diffuse lighting, soft shadows and color bleeding between surfaces, and images of natural realism not attainable with other rendering techniques.