As you have probably read, Autodesk has signed an agreement to acquire Skymatter Unlimited, makers of the Mudbox 3D modeling software. Mudbox was initially developed by a group of freelancers working at Weta Digital while struggling to create certain aspects of Peter Jackson's King Kong. "The gap in Max and Maya has been in organic mapping and sculpting," noted Rob Hoffman, senior product manager, 3D media and entertainment division of Autodesk. "The acquisition of Mudbox will fill that gap."
Mudbox current retails for $649. The deal is expected to be finalized within two months. Autodesk reps would not comment on whether Mudbox would be a standalone project or be integrated into Maya and/or Max, but Hoffman did offer this clue, "if you want to look at how things have been handled historically, look at when Maya acquired Kaydara. Both remained seperate but over time grew closer and closer together," hinted Hoffman.

Click here for more details on Mudbox or watch the demo below.

Autodesk also released new versions of Maya, Max and Toxik, with most of the news being improved efficiencies and workflows. I'll take their word for it. One intriguing tidbit in the 3ds Max release is the new integrated MAXScript ProEditor, which seeks to make the task of customizing tools easier. "In the past writing scripts has always been in the hands of engineers and/or highly technical people, but not the artist. With Script ProEditor we believe the artist will be able to write their own scripts to tailor the software to their needs," said Hoffman.