Tech giant Autodesk has had nearly seven months to decide how it would position its newly acquired line of Alias products, including Maya 3D animation and FX software, in tandem with its own 3ds Max release. The systems were formerly fierce rivals, but Autodesk has decided to keep them on their own courses, while also allowing them to talk to one another.

The acquisition of Alias was first announced last October, and saw Autodesk shell out US$197 million by the time the purchase was finalized in January. NAB2006 was the film and TV industry’s first look at both the Maya and 3ds Max packages under the Autodesk umbrella.

According to Rob Hoffmann, senior entertainment product marketing manager, the two brands will remain separate and continue to be guided by their respective development teams.

‘Prior to the acquisition, Autodesk had a roadmap for 3ds Max and Alias had a roadmap for Maya,’ says Hoffmann. ‘After the acquisition, those roadmaps stay intact, except for that we’re working on interoperability. We are going to be working to improve the communication between the two packages in terms of taking the assets from one package and migrating over to the other.’

Hoffmann says the Alias tools will help shops establish a post-production pipeline using Autodesk software, making data movement back and forth much cleaner.

‘The tools that people have come to rely on will continue to be there for them,’ he says. ‘That is one of the most important things to us – that the customers realize that their tools aren’t going anywhere.’

Although new versions of both 3ds Max and Maya are in the works, says Hoffmann, no updates were available for NAB. Instead, Autodesk threw its marketing weight behind a number of updated products, including the MotionBuilder 7.5 character animation software – which also came over in the Alias purchase – available for both PC and Mac OSX.

According to Hoffman, the software features an improved multi-character solver, allowing for more natural and fluid physical interaction between animated characters, and an improved ‘undo’ system.

Autodesk also showed its Toxik 2007 collaborative digital compositing program with updates including a new Paint system with a component that provides easy removal of wires and film gear that make it into a shot accidentally. But that won’t be the big draw of the software, according to Autodesk spokesperson Roohi Saeed.

‘Instead of having one hero system that is very closed, Toxik can have a lot of artists talking to each other, working on a shot together,’ she says. ‘One person can work on the foreground, while another does the background, instead of everything being sequential. It is a whole new way of working.’

Toxik 2007 is already available for PC use and the Linux operating system. The previous version of the product was used on the upcoming Darren Aronofsky sci-fi film The Fountain, which will debut this month at Cannes before a wide release in October. Autodesk Maya was also used on The Fountain, as it was on the summer release Superman Returns, which also utilized 3ds Max and Discreet Flame. Flame was also used on X-Men: The Last Stand, out this summer as well.

www.autodesk.com