Autodesk announces Maya LT Extension 3, that includes some enhancements to auto-rigging, animation, sculpting, blendShapes, retopology and modeling.
Quick Rig for Fast and Easy Character Rigging
Maya LT Extension 3 features a new “Quick Rig” that was developed to speed up the process of making character rigs. In fact, it is a 1 click system that can have even the most novice users easily create a character rig.
The Quick Rig Tool generates a bipedal rig that uses the HumanIK animation system within Maya and MotionBuilder.
The automatic placement is pretty magic actually, but the tool does allow for more user interaction by letting you place the key components of the rig where you want them within your geometry.
The new tool automatically creates a pretty good base for mesh skinning, making the process darn-near foolproof.
Human IK
Autodesk made some changes to the Human IK system, which now supports put to 5 roll bones per limb. This is an important change that will make double-boned limb twists such as forearms much more realistic.
The HumanIK UI in Maya LT Extension 3, has received an update that makes it much cleaner and easier to use. You can now zoom in on individual limbs to show the roll bones per limb.
Symmetry Modeling
Most of the modelling tools within Maya LT Extension 3 now support a new symmetry mode.
This includes Quad Draw, making it much faster to retopologize models. In addition, the new Mirroring function can easily handle things like merging only axis borders, a new smart threshold option, mirror across world, object, and bounding boxes, and mirror selected components.
Updated Game Exporter
The Game Export routine Maya LT Extension 3 will now let you select objects in the viewport, create a named set with a single click and view it in the game exporter as an object to be exported.
You can also click-drag, which will scroll through the key frames in the animation letting you pick the clip’s start and end times.
Maya LT Extension 3 at GDC
Throughout GDC, Autodesk will also host a series of sessions spotlighting developers such as Eidos-Montreal and Fatshark, and present Stingray technology demos, including a session on building VR experiences. Scheduled sessions include:
Wednesday, March 16
12:30-1:30pm PT — Eidos-Montreal’s Narrative Driven Experiences (West Hall Rm. 2014)
3:30-4:30pm PT — Technical Intro to Autodesk’s Stingray Game Engine (West Hall Rm. 3022)
Thursday, March 17
11:30am-12:30pm PT — Post Mortem: “Warhammer: The End Times – Vermintide” (West Hall Rm. 2014)
4:00-5:00pm PT — Building VR Experiences in the Autodesk Stingray Game Engine (West Hall Rm 3022)
