Mudbox 2009 Demo Videos

Really being tired of fixing displacement maps these days. Especially when the broken pixels are on the seams, then I'm hopeless, really. No software can do 32-bit realtime preview on mesh currently, let alone painting the seams. And Mudbox2009 is no exception. But what I hope is that MB09 is able to produce much better disp maps than previous version. And it's released on Oct 6th. So I guess I'll just ask Digimax to buy it as soon as it's available, LOL.
Here's the link to the new demo videos:
videos

My summary based on video:

GUI
I like the GUI a lot. It's simple and uncluttered. It feels like Maya, now my most familiar software, which is a good thing for me and our artists.

(screen capture from Autodesk demo video)

Sculpting Tools
Not much different from Zb3.1, I guess. It has stencils, steady stroke (similar to lazy brush in ZB), Grab (move), etc. As what I stated in previous post about MB2009, the performance has been increased a lot, and it also support 64-bit version, so it's a huge performance gain over previous version.

Texturing
There's only basic texturing tools shown in the video. There're only Paint Brush, Projection, Color Picker, Airbrush, Pencil, and Paint Erase in the menu. I don't see any tool similar to clone tools in Photoshop, and i'm quite dissappointed. It's an essential tool to fix texture seams. Yes, you don't get any seams when you paint directly on the mesh, but sometimes we just take texture from photoshop and continue painting it on the mesh, and seams will exist this way.
Let's see if there's workaround for this limitation. But it feels alot nicer than Zbrush IMHO. It has the advantage of polypainting (paint directly on mesh with the ability to manipulate camera while painting), and projection master (high resolution texture without the need to subdivide mesh too much).

(screen capture from Autodesk demo video)

Realtime HDR light render
Not an essential feature, but can be useful to show closer to final render result to Art Director, if needed.


Bottom lines: very solid release, and able to compete with or even surpass ZBrush3.1 in terms of performance and workflow, but not feature. It's feature-packed enough for our department though. A definite buy when it's released.

9 months to learn as much as possible

I have 9 months prior to contract expiry, and currently I'm not sure whether the Taiwan regulation still allows me to continue working here, and if so, whether Digimax does enough effort to keep me in. Thus, I need to accumulate as much experience as possible for my portfolio later, if I really screwed up here.
First thing is actually be familiar with basic to advanced rigging and animation, since currently this is the field I'm lacking the most. Also, I've started playing with Panda3D, a 3D game engine created by Carnegie Mellon University. It's easy to start with, and packed with enough feature to keep me busy for a while. Then I need to improve my technical knowledge, especially on Maths and advanced programming stuff.
So yeah, that's basically what I'm trying to accomplish in this 9 months. I still hope to be able to work in Taiwan for at least 1-2 years, but if my path is blocked, then I'm open to other countries too, such as Singapore, New Zealand, Europe, Canada, or even US :p.