Maya 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack Available

For some time now Maya 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack is available to artists. As the name implies, Subscription Advantage Pack is intended to be a some kind of reward for Autodesk Subscription program participants, who can expect some bonuses and goodies for their loyalty. Next I will tell about those "goodies" that Autodesk offers in this Maya update — and some of them are really cool. 

So, what we will receive if we managed to grab our hands onto Subscription Advantage Pack, that are released almost for every major Autodesk products, most likely promoting such way a Subscription program?..

Maya 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack new features

At first, it's a Substance procedural textures, which allows to choose a needed texture from library of almost 75 different texture types, including concrete, bricks, wood, leather and much more. Just to remind — procedural textures are created programmatically and therefore have some advantages over classic bitmap textures: they can be at almost unlimited resolution, can be changed very quickly and their parameters can be animated, what in theory can help achieve very interesting effects. Of course, you can always bake them to bitmap file and use as a classic texture anywhere you want.

At second, it's a Craft Animation Tools, which includes four cameras from Craft Director Studio for effective and easy animation of moving camera. For example, you can use some input device for camera control ( like joystiq ) and navigate through your scene, and plug-in will record this path as a camera animation. Additional system will help in creation of realistic and believable camera effects, such as operator's hand shaking, for example.

Besides the cameras, Craft Animation Tools in Maya 2011 SAP provides to it's users two car rigs for easy control and animation of such objects in real time. In other words, you can attach such rig to your car model and and control it with keyboard or gamepad, as if it was a some racing game car. Move your car around the scene with terrain recognition, and Craft Animation Tools will record anything you do as an animation, including wheels rotation. Great feature to those, who loves to work often with car simulations. But even more, there is similar rigs for two airplanes... 

In third, professional animators will benefit from up to 70 new Motion Capture samples, which can be used for pre-visualizations and own animations development.

In fourth, VFX artists can use new FX Assets, a ready-to-use and editable templates for special effects, such as fire, fireworks, snow, smoke and more.

Finally, you can take a look at video presentation of new features in Maya 2011 SAP:

Conclusion: if upgrade is available to you and nothing interferes in it ( like not working plug-ins )  — it's maybe have a point to try it out, because some of new features ( like Substance procedural textures ) in some cases can save a lot of time and make your work easier.