Various pre-SIGGRAPH product announcements

It used to be the case that software developers announced new products on the opening day of SIGGRAPH. This year however, several developers have jumped the gun, announcing product updates in the week preceding the show. The timing is presumably an attempt to ensure that the releases don‘t get lost in the blizzard of news announcements that ensues as harrassed journalists scurry to the press room on the first Monday.

Softimage and Caligari were first out of the blocks, unveiling XSI 7 and trueSpace 7.6 a full month before the show (now a free download, thanks to Microsoft‘s backing). Earlier this week, they were followed by The Pixel Farm, promoting true stereoscopic 3D tracking and updated camera solver in PFTrack 5.0; and e-on Software announcing that Vue 7 will be previewed at the show (same tools as Vue 6, but refined and updated).

This was followed by both Eyeon and Autodesk, announcing Fusion 6 and Mudbox 2009 and the 3ds Max 2009 Creativity Extension, respectively. Eyeon is also riding on the wave of interest in stereoscopic 3D workflows, adding a stereo compositing toolset and a complete new 3D system. The move follows The Foundry's lead in building stereo tools into Nuke 5.0, released earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Autodesk has unveiled Mudbox 2009, adding a new texture-painting toolset to the digital sculpting tool. Mudbox 2009 will also offer significant performance boosts and, unsurprisingly, improved normal and bump map interchange Autodesk‘s main 3D packages, Maya and 3ds Max.

The Creativity Extension to 3ds Max adds new particle operators (essentially the old Particle Tools Box 1 plug-in, formerly sold for $195, with a few bugfixes and better integration into the core software, we‘re told), a new geometry optimisation tool and support for multi-track audio. The release should go some way towards pacifying games and visual effects artists who felt that the new features 3ds Max 2009 were weighted too heavily towards visualisation professionals – those of them who are on subscription contracts, and can actually obtain it, at least.