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Software

Mudbox 2018.1 released

Oct 06, 2017 by CGPress Staff
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Autodesk has announced a new version of Mudbox. Version 2018.1 fixes over 75 bugs and introduces a few feature improvements including more accurate map extractions, faster and more stable symmetrical sculpting, faster file import/export, improved undo/redo, more accurate operations between sculpting layers and mask brush and more.

Though primarily a bug-fix release, it is hoped by users that it marks a return to active development for the recently neglected sculpting tool.  In a post on Autodesk’s forum, Product Manager Jill Ramsay says of this release “I felt it was important to start with stability and quality over adding new features. Now that Mudbox 2018.1 is out the door, we’re already working on a feature update. I know things have been slow for the last couple of years (to put it mildly), and I understand your frustration, but we are getting back on track”. See the full list of fixes in the release notes.

Source: Nossgrr

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Equiso
7 years ago

2 years of no development and now a bugfix release??

Juang3d
7 years ago

Yeah… so people keep paying based on hope… while Autodesk destroyed all our hope and any kind of support willingness… forget about Autodesk tools, start digging, there are much better tools out there, Blender is far better than Mudbox for sculpting,

Cheers!

Alberto
Reply to  Juang3d
7 years ago

Blender far better than Mudbox for sculpting ???
You’re joking right ?
Sculptris why not on some levels but Blender’s sculpting is very far from butter smooth.

Now it is sad that Autodesk did nothing with Mudbox (I see a pattern here), even one of the original developers publicly admitted they could have done a much better job.
(then he sold his company so…)

Equiso
Reply to  Juang3d
7 years ago

Nahh, i love blender but i wouldn t go that far. For drafting 3 D coat is the best. After that, zbrush all way until you need to paint. 3D coat 350 euro, 5 years of update. Zbrush around 600, samething. The combo of both is still cheaper at long term, and far superior in any aspect.

Juang3d
Reply to  Juang3d
7 years ago

Have yo uused Blender at all for sculpting?

Do you know all the sculpt tools Blender has?

Are you telling me Sculptris has more tools? If that is the case it´s clear you don´t know the Blender sculpt toolset.

Please check this youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfjswDVU0XHyBN7UFG0Mi5Q

I´ll never say Blender is better than ZBrush… not at all, not even better than 3D Coat at all (even when I don´t use 3D Coat I know it has some pretty neat tools) but, please, it is FAR better than Mudbox right now, maybe Autodesk makes Mudbox evolve, but right now it´s not the case.

Cheers.

Alberto
Reply to  Juang3d
7 years ago

Yes I’ve used Blender for sculpting, and Zbrush, and Mudbox.

The number of brushes has nothing to do with the sculpting feel, in Blender nothing is smooth, it’s very polygonal, it has its uses to move some parts around, but we’re very far from the clay feeling of real sculpting.
Now of course some masochists can produce great work in it, of course, why not, if you like pain.

Mudbox has very good sculpting, less evolved than Zbrush but it’s way better than Blender. If I remember correctly it even has autoretopo like zremesher, but Autodesk being Autodesk they never marketed it properly. Sad.

Juang3d
Reply to  Alberto
7 years ago

Oh, yes, it has autoretopo… one that no one uses because it doesn´t work, it can´t do UV, and it can´t do dynamic topology, saying that everything is very polygonal… ok, enable the smoothing, increase the subdivision threshold to get a higher polygonal count, sorry but no, Blender has as much tools as Mudbox and way better tools and features.

In the end. The key thing here is that Autodesk is re-enabling Mudbox, but it feels like the moment they re-enabled Composite, Mudbox has only one toolset that I agree is better than Blender, Zbrush and I don´t know if it´s better than 3D Coat, wich is it´s painting tools, but they are far behind Substance Painter or Mari so..-

I insist, Blender has way better tools than mudbox, and specially blender don´t have the main feature of Autodesk tools, advertise something that don´t work.

equiso
Reply to  Juang3d
7 years ago

Yes I did. I have a custom skeleton+ skin modifier+ booleans+ dyntopo is an awsome workflow to begin with organic sculpting. Then, Blender brushes are very slow.More than the features, the issue is performance. Another drawback, is that the brush is viewport dependent. And baking higres to low res is not antialised.
For adding details or tweaking a mesh, they are awsome. Multires modifier and being able to blendshape that has huge benefits. Maya users now understand why blender people had been laughing at maya blendshapes for years. They recently got this functionality.

equiso
Reply to  Juang3d
7 years ago

I think the true shame, is to compare the development of 3d Coat – very small team- With mudbox. They did not improved it just to have basic sculping tools copying Blenedr ways. Instead of adding dyntopo or Pbr. 3-4 of talented programers full time may have done this and the app would be, at minimum, on track.

Juang3d
Reply to  equiso
7 years ago

We can disagree on Blender performance or toolset, but we totally agree on this, Autodesk always do the same, they do this to force people keep paying, and now that it´s rental only… well…

Murakami
7 years ago

Autodesk showed the incredible demo of their upcoming sculpt system in maya. So at least they are working on something. Maybe it will come with Maya 2020.

well
Reply to  Murakami
7 years ago

Mudbox is back because Autodesk finally realized that they cannot put Mudbox in Maya. The demo will not come true anytime soon. Probably not within 10 year.

Xerges
Reply to  Murakami
7 years ago

Mudbox team was working on Maya’s sculpting tools,
now that project is killed, they simply cannot put Mudbox in Maya as they intended.
Looking at the recent Autodesk pattern my guess is that the next program to be killed will be Mudbox, give it a few years, if it doesn’t rise sales then is gone,
same with Maya, after Mudbox is gone, give it a few years, if it doesn’t rise sale numbers then it will be out.

Alberto
Reply to  Xerges
7 years ago

Maya dead ?!?! Blender better than Mudbox for sculpting ??
Are people on crack in here ?

Objectivity people please.

Autodesk doesn’t have a good track record, this is true, they do lots of stupid stuff, but saying Maya is dead is complete nonsense.
Now if this happens I promise to go around the world totally in the nude.

Xerges
Reply to  Alberto
7 years ago

just remember you were told,
I’ve been tracking the numbers for many years,
usually ppl don’t realize these things until it’s too late…
don’t act surprise when the time comes,
why do you think Autodesk bought Maya so cheap?
why do you think Maya’s has been changing owners so many times?
how come only development in Maya has been plugins for the last 6 years?
do you (Alias) sell something (Maya) that is great and successful?

first will fall Mudbox, then Maya

Yuri
Reply to  Alberto
7 years ago

You’re severely underrating Blender. It’s sculpting is very powerful, although it does require a lot better hardware as you are working with generic data that is not low level optimized for sculpt as for example ZB with its custom graphics api. Regardless with half decent gaming card, it is no longer an issue as it was 10 years ago. I’m working with 10-50 mil subtools/objects and quite frankly last time I worked with mudbox it choked with denser meshes as did 3DCoat.

Modern 3D is ever more challenging and multifaceted. That is why by looking at recent updates of ZB we can see a clear trend with adaptation of fully featured DCC app tools: Polymodeling toolset, arrays, live booleans, transformation gizmos, scattering etc. It’s a trend, a vector of software evolution. That begs the question: which is a more natural evolution – a fully featured DCC application adapting a powerful sculpting module (as we seen with impressive Maya/mudbox demo) or Zbrush/Mudbox adapting half the tools of Maya? Given that sculpting programs are intended to be fast, light and simple to use as well as how hardware’s no longer a limit, I’d put my money on DCC apps getting sculpting modules right(eventually). After all Blender’s already there, Modo or Maya might impress in near future as well. I admit, it has a few quirks, but 3/4 cases benefits over losing full construction history upon .obj export greatly outnumber the cons.

Regarding Maya. No doubt it’s the leader and I do not proclaim its imminent demise. Although such market leading position is just what makes the monopolies arrogant, relaxed, stagnant. Their main intent is to extract maximum cash for minimal development expense – welcome Cloud. Meanwhile Blender has open roadmap and very ambitious development pace with big core updates. Maya is and has largely been stagnant. Just as Lightwave, XSI and even Max, it’s becoming old school in many ways. Time passes and while major DCC apps stagnate and cannot introduce bigger core changes, Blender rips out the old and replaces with latest and greatest. Artist will always seek competitive advantage and with increased adaptation, there might just become time when even hardest skeptics will find themselves pleasantly surprised by what it can do for them. I am one as I shunned it for nearly 2 decades, however today it’s my primary tool.

Alberto
Reply to  Yuri
7 years ago

No one is underrating Blender.

Blender is the future, Eevee looks amazing. I’m excited about Blender. Very much.

But let’s be objective, people in studios are practical, they don’t care about Autodesk or Blender or Houdini or else, they use what works.
If Zbrush gets you the job done, then they use Zbrush.
If Blender can do the job better than Maya or 3dsmax then they’ll switch in a day, even if they used 3ds max for 20 years.

Here the subject is Mudbox and sculpting, right now if you want to use Blender for sculpting, good for you.
I own Mudbox, I don’t use it because Zbrush is far better.
I spent time wanting to sculpt in blender and got very frustrated, the mesh you get is very far from Clay or Mud…
I get far better results for organic sculpting in Zbrush, Mudbox or Sculptris.

Blender is doing some things right, but not everything is perfect.

Samuel
7 years ago

Well, I´m working on a zero budget short film right now and for texturing mudbox is still the best deal…Mari indie is similarily priced on rental but has some limitations that make it useless for high detail painting.
And although substance looks super fun an artist friendly, it doesn´t have a usable workflow for multiple UV tiles at all, so for me it was still number one choice for texturing. For sculpting I still use Zbrush though…

But as soon as substance has proper support for multiple UV tiles its gonna get tough…

Xerges
7 years ago

Mudbox is already dead… we are just waiting for an Autodesk announcement (same as Maya, their numbers are so low that both are practically dead),
ZBrush is the king in sculpting and modeling,
Substance Designer and Painter are far better for texturing…
it doesn’t have sense to keep developing failed programs (also they will not sell them to other companies)

Juang3d
7 years ago

Regarding Blender as a sculpt tool… please read this artist opinion (he gives some free brushes too)

https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?409326-Zbrush-Orb-Brush-pack-for-Blender-3D

He says he can sculpt up to 50 million polys in Blender… I have not been able to go further than 7 million with Mudbox

Cheers.

Patrick
7 years ago

I just must say that Mudbox was a good app. Even now it more user friendly than Mari vs Substance.
But 5 years without real development – so now MD really dead. But I like it and hope for good future fot them.

Juang3d
Reply to  Patrick
7 years ago

I agree with that, but the worst thing here.. as always with Autodesk… is licensing… I´m happy to have Blender, substance painter and Zbrush as my main toolset now… no need for Mudbox.

There was a time when I upgraded from 3dsmax licenses to a Maya Premium Suite license, and I stayed that way for many years… and I have to say that the evolution has been minimal in general… well we got XSI removed…

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