Tech giant showcased new features that boost cloud-enabled workflows focusing on empowering teams and artists to work more efficiently; also teased, new AI capabilities coming to Maya and Flame following company’s acquisition of Wonder Dynamics.
Autodesk unveiled its latest advances in generative AI and cloud-enabled workflows last week at SIGGRAPH 2024 including the release of Flow Generative Scheduling and a host of new AI capabilities in Maya and Flame. The AI tools focus on empowering teams and artists to work more efficiently.
AI-powered Flow Generative Scheduling
Powered by Autodesk AI, Flow Generative Scheduling helps keep projects running smoothly with less time than previously needed. Teams can now compare multiple schedule scenarios, evaluate tradeoffs, and create resource-optimized and balanced schedules on complex projects, all accessed via Flow Production Tracking (formerly ShotGrid) for an integrated collaborative workflow.
"For years, Flow Production Tracking has been the de facto connective tissue for VFX workflows,” said Autodesk Vice President of Production Management & Platform Mimi Hoang. “We're thrilled to bring Flow Generative Scheduling to help our customers plan and run projects more efficiently. Being able to evaluate different scenarios without impacting a live project, and then publishing a revised schedule directly into Flow Production Tracking is a game changer for creative teams.”
New Features to Boost Creative Workflows
Autodesk continues to explore AI to accelerate and augment artist workflows. New features coming to Maya and Flame come on the heels of Autodesk’s recent acquisition of Wonder Dynamics, makers of Wonder Studio, a solution that combines AI with established tools to help artists more easily animate, light, and compose 3D characters within live-action scenes.
“Artist’s time is the most valuable resource for our customers,” added Autodesk VP Content Creation, Media & Entertainment Eric Bourque. “Being able to bring them AI tools to augment their creative process unlocks a host of new possibilities. They can spend more time iterating on their creative ideas, and less time on repetitive tasks.”
Maya’s new ML Deformer enables artists to work with complex characters for animation, VFX, and game projects. The tool processes complex deformation systems and represents them with a fast, machine-learned approximation. For example, if you have a character with a complex deformation system that runs slowly, Maya can train to represent that deformation system using ML Deformer. Artists can use this fast representation to work more interactively and switch back to the original for final polish or render.
New Maya ML Deformer
Flame’s AI toolset continues to grow with ML Timewarp, a new mode that generates an intermediate frame between two frames in a shot for retiming of clips. Users benefit from high-quality renders and fully integrated tools maximizing workstation hardware and eliminating file transfer workflows across multiple tools. demanding workloads, the mode can be queued to render with remote systems via Autodesk Burn.
In addition, the latest versions of Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max, offer increased support for open standards and improved modeling, animation, simulation, look development, and enhanced rendering capabilities.
Learn more on the Autodesk website.
Source: Autodesk
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
