New Features
Autodesk Mudbox 2011 has a host of new features to help improve the working experience. The new posing toolset allows you to place a quick joint system for your mesh so that you can test the deformation under different positions. The pose tools include Create Joint, Pose, Weights, and Move Pivot to help you set-up and manipulate your model while sculpting in real-time.
Paint texture maps in 2D is a really amazing feature that allows you to use the paint tools on a flat version of your model. Under Mesh, the Flatten to UV space operation takes the models vertex points and flattens the mesh in the exact position of the UV coordinates. That way you can paint the model as if it were a 2D image in Photoshop. When you are finished, the Unflatten from UV space returns the geometry to its original sculpted form.
Mudbox Community is an online resource which can be accessed directly from within Mudbox. Users can upload and share assets like stamps, stencils, base meshes, tutorials, and gallery of their work for others to peruse. A user forum also allows others to ask questions and to get feedback from their peers without having to move to a browser.
Any channel can be exported as a flat texture map into Photoshop for further work.
Mudbox has made it easier to coordinate projects between itself, Photoshop, and Maya. As mentioned earlier, Mudbox can now export to Photoshop in which the layers that are contained under a channel can be opened up as independent layers within Photoshop. Any time you save, those changes are immediately updated back in Mudbox. Likewise, Mudbox can send the mesh, materials, and painted textures over to Maya to do continued work as you see fit.
Paint layer blend modes, like those found in Photoshop, give users a way to change the way a layer interacts with the mesh material underneath in a non-destructive way. Blend modes Multiply, Add, Screen, and Overlay can lighten, darken, or alter the contrast of the paint layer below it.
