Autodesk is will soon be offering an exclusive new 3ds Max subscription service called Pro Booleans, which delivers expanded flexibility for the installed modeling tools in 3ds Max.
Pro Booleans, based on Power Booleans from NPower Software, is a production-proven tool set from a company specializing in 3D modeling, surface and translation technologies. Pro Booleans is ideal for building highly detailed inorganic shapes such as vehicles, hand-held items or mechanical objects appealing to 3D artists in vfx, game development and design visualization. Other aspects of Boolean modeling include creating detailed surfaces with minimal numbers of polygons.
Pro Booleans is best known for quality modeling results, and avoids common Boolean modeling pitfalls that can generate surface flaws and other errors such as creating long, thin pieces of geometry. Pro Booleans will also offer 3ds Max subscription customers Pro Cutter, a tool designed to dismantle a model in a number of different ways. This feature can be used as a simple and effective method for animating effects such as shattered glass and other similar procedural systems.
Autodesk expects to deliver Pro Booleans for its 3ds Max 8 subscription customers in the winter 2006. Autodesk 3ds Max 8 software is available for $3,495 and the 3ds Max Subscription is available for $440. Power Booleans is available for purchase for non-subscription customers for $295 directly from NPower Software.
Autodesk Inc. (www.autodesk.com), which recently acquired Alias, is the leading software and services company for the manufacturing, infrastructure, building, digital media and wireless data services fields. Founded in 1982, Autodesk is headquartered in San Rafael, California.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
