SHAPES 2.1 for Maya Launches Personal Learning Edition

the Brave Rabbit have updated SHAPES blend shape editor for Maya to version 2.1. The update is mostly bug fixes to make SHAPES operate more stable, along with a few new features.

SHAPES is a complete blend shape editing tool designed to unify the process of creating and editing blend shapes and correctives.

Also with the release of SHAPES 2.1 comes a new student edition and personal learning edition. The PLE is aimed at new users who want to try SHAPES first, or use it as a personal learning edition.

Of course the free version of SHAPES is not meant for commercial production. It is also not be used by educational institutions.

The SHAPES 2.1 student or PLE will display a message every time SHAPES is used or a scene is loaded containing a blend shape setup built with SHAPES.

SHAPES 2.1 now sports a modifiable feature set. This will let users select the parts of the SHAPES interface that is needed fort he task.. This reduces the screen space needed to work with SHAPES and keeps the interface nice and clean.

SHAPES 2.1 features:

  • improved installation with the new installer
  • student version for non-commercial/non-educational institution purposes
  • interface preferences
  • added an auto update function to refresh the target list when an undo event occurs; can be turned off when the scene interaction gets slow due to large data sets; warning messages inform the user about the chosen state
  • improved checking for corrupted target/label/range information which prevents a mesh from loading causing errors
  • improved handling of orphan weights which lost their alias name; the alias name of the weight now may be either reconstructed or a new ‘unknown’ alias is assigned
  • preset buttons for slider ranges
  • added some basic paint functions to the paint weights button right-click menu
  • added the option to toggle the wireframe when using the brush
  • improvements to the corrective animation workflow so that the slider stays in place when a key should be set at the current value

A complete list of new features and changes is documented in the changelog.pdf of the SHAPES installation.