Autodesk Mudbox 2011 is the fourth official version of this software, a program that was originally created by a software company called Skymatter. Skymatter itself was created by former artists of Weta Digital, the special effects company behind movie director Peter Jackson and his now famous Lord of the Rings movies. When Jackson made a remake of King Kong in 2005 Mudbox was put into production.
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Autodesk acquired Skymatter Inc. in the summer of 2007 and have taken over development since then, releasing versions in 2009, 2010 and now 2011 (released earlier this year).
The What of Mudbox
Mudbox is a digital sculpting 3D software program with several different uses. In the visual-effects (VFX) industry Mudbox’s primary value is in creating high-resolution digital sculptures of creatures, characters and terrain. It is also a capable 3D painting tool and a tool for the creation of displacement and normal maps. 3D artists from hobbyist to studio professionals and animators can tap Autodesk Mudbox’s power and ease of use for rapid 3d sculpting.
What is powerful and useful about Mudbox is it utilizes 3D meshes and supports Catmull-Clark subdivision of mesh polys. One can work swiftly with a low-poly count mesh even after creating several surface subdivisions. The program blends into Autodesk’s arsenal of 3D applications nicely borrowing interface design coloring and features and works particularly well with Autodesk Maya in addition to Adobe Photoshop.
An Introduction
Mudbox 2011 features an updated user-interface that primarily changes in that it utilizes the same color scheme as Maya and Autodesk-related software packages. The Mudbox 2011 UI features a simple tabbed structure, a large primary 3d view window wrapped by layer, object and properties control palettes and tool and material trays at the bottom. (see image 01 below) The program has a very nice HUD (head’s up display) implementation within the primary 3d view window delivering key contextual messaging.
01 – Autodesk Mudbox 2011 has a very clean interface, relates well aesthetically to other Autodesk Media and Entertainment division software packages, such as Maya and Max.
When you open up Mudbox 2011 you are presented with a Welcome window overlaying the UI. (see image 01 above) The primary benefit of this window is to choose a template mesh. Mudbox speeds up character and object 3d modeling creation by providing templates such as a human head (bust), a bull, a human body, a cube or ball, et cetera. Also within this window are a series of video tutorials and quick start guides.
There are three primary functional areas in Mudbox: sculpting, painting and posing. In this release, the biggest new changes are in the introduction of a posing toolset and 3D painting.
As a general introduction, a model is chosen from a template form. This can be a humanoid, an animal, or basic form like a cube or sphere (as shown below, see image 02). When modeling you use the sculpt tools to create a basic sculpt stroke. This will produce either a positive addition or negative subtraction to the model’s mesh body. With each stroke of the sculpt tool, vertices on the mesh are affected. There are simple controls for the size and strength of the stroke using keyboard shortcuts with the tool. Another key aspect of sculpting is the degree of subdivision to the mesh itself. Mudbox 2011 allows for continued degrees of subdivision of the mesh, thereby increasing or decreasing the subtly of each tools’ deformations on the model.
02 – With various sculpting tools one can modify basic elements and increase subdivision levels.
03 – Mudbox features non-destructive sculpting layers and you can blend sculpt layers together.
When you sculpt in Mudbox you do so on “sculpt layers.” (see image 03) Mudbox calculates the differences between vertices after a stroke tool and records that difference (delta) on the layer. Deltas for all other layers are added up to arrive at the final shape of a model. Sculpt layers in Mudbox 2011 do not need to be in any stacking order because sculpt layers combine in an additive manner.
As you can see in the image above (see image 03), sculpt layers have opacity. Increasing the opacity amplifies the sculpting on that layer, while reducing it decreases the amplification.
04 – You can sculpt in Mudbox 2011 using stencils.
Mudbox already had stencil and stamp modeling in the previous version. With stencils Mudbox utilizes images to apply interesting sculpted details to the model. It does so by corresponding black pixels and white pixels differently to the affect of the tool. White values allow the tool to pass through and affect the model while black values don’t. In the image above the spiky hair on the human head was created using a stencil affect in the modeling. (see image 04).
When you apply a stencil, the image it is based on appears over the model. You then proceed to turn the model and sculpt as usual, this time the stencil’s effect transforms the model. (see image 05).
05 – Stencil image pattern is based on images.
06 – Mudbox 2011 introduces a new posing toolset.
New in Mudbox 2011 is a set of posing tools in the Pose Tool tray. Rotation of joints is a common goal with characters and animals. With the bull in the image above and below (see image 06-07) you set a joint using the Create Joint tool.
07 – The green area indicates the section of the model that will rotate (bend) around a joint.
The green highlighted zone represents the region to be affected by the joint. For example, in image 06 above, the bull’s front left leg is set up for rotation around what would be the natural joint within that animal–which you can see in image 07. You cannot use weighted skeletons directly in Mudbox 2011; however, you can import them from other programs like Maya via FBX and use them for posing.
What’s new in Mudbox 2011
The introduction above should give you an indication of what Mudbox is and how it works as well as touch on some items that are new. What follows is a focus on what is new in Mudbox 2011.
In version 2011 Mudbox now supports true 64-bit computing on the Mac platform. This requires the Snow Leopard version of Mac OS X . The benefits of 64-bit are greater memory support and increased performance, helping artists work with increased subdivision meshes and higher poly count models. Other under-the-hood improvements include a new graphics card check upon startup and improvements in FBX import/export.
A very valuable new feature in Mudbox 2011 is the new Flatten to UV Space command. It creates a copy of the model with vertex positions that are identical to the UVs on the original model so you can paint or edit textures on the flattened representation of the original. (see image 08 below).
08 – Mudbox 2011 now features a flatten to UV space function allowing you to paint in 2D.
You can also use the pinch or grab tools to make basic UV position edits of the vertices on the flattened 2D version. However, one item we noticed is that using the selection tools didn’t allow us to make selections of faces on the original model and have those carry over to the flattened version and vice versa.
Mudbox 2011 features new 3d painting enhancements but they are really image adjustment tools rather than true paint brushes. Blur, Dodge, Burn and Contrast adjust texture properties while Hue, Shift and Invert make adjustments to color properties. There are four new blend modes in Mudbox 2011’s paint layers: Multiple, Add, Screen and Overlay. Layer blend modes are non-destructive modifications to paint layers so they are useful for iterative experimentation.
Version 2011 also has a number of texture extraction improvements. A new Vector Displacement Map option now exists within the Extract Texture Maps window. VDMs are useful because they can represent sculpted features that are off-normal (like overhangs and undercuts). Think of a human ear. And normal maps and bump maps can now be displayed simultaneously on the model.
Other paint related improvements include the importation of paint layers to a channel, paint bleed preferences that set the bleed amount beyond the perimeter of UV shell borders, and improvements to the existing Mudbox to Adobe Photoshop roundtrip ability. It is now possible to export the multiple paint layers within a paint channel in one operation using the new Export Paint Channel to PDS…and Import Paint Channel from PSD options.
Finally, Mudbox 2011 has two new movie recording features. You can record your actions within the user interface using the Record Movie feature or you can output a turntable animation of your model and watch it rotate around 360 degrees. And a big new improvement in version 2011 is the new Maya-based Color Chooser which replaces the system level color choosers in prior releases.
Closing Comments
Autodesk Mudbox 2011’s primary competition is Maxon’s BodyPaint 3D, especially as both are fully cross-platform and thereby available to Mac 3D users. Autodesk sells it separately or within the Entertainment Creation Suite which combines either Maya or 3ds Max along with MotionBuilder.
Autodesk Mudbox 2011 is very accomplished software, laid out logically within a very professional and attractive user-interface. It works equally well on the Mac as it does on Windows and has an expanding set of “program to program” interactions making it very suitable for a variety of creative pipelines. This being said there are a few items that can make Mudbox better in the future beyond some of the comments above. The Flatten to UV space is a good start but true UV editing tools are absent. We would love to see that, and other minor items, (listed below) addressed in future versions.
In the meantime, Mudbox 2011 offers Mac 3d artists and pros a true 64-bit digital sculpting and 3d painting environment and should be at the top of your list for considerations for such programs.
Pros: very intuitive and easy to master 3d paint system; absolutely superb tutorial and help system; new 2D painting with flatten to UV space mode; new vector displacement; new 64-bit Mac support; Adobe Photoshop integration has improved, offering better roundtrip layer-editing support; new Maya-based color chooser; new poser tools
Cons: no true UV editing, there are no tools to do even basic UV editing; the new poser tools are limited, you cannot create weighted skeletons directly in Mudbox 2011
Advice: For those wishing to venture into 3d painting and digital sculpting Autodesk Mudbox 2011 is a great choice to consider alongside other options such as Maxon’s BodyPaint 3D.
Cost: 750.USD online direct. Other pricing options include bundles. For further information visit Autodesk’s Mudbox product page here. www.autodesk.com
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