Imbalance has announced the release of Ragdoll Dynamics 3.0 with tools to automate character physics in Maya. New features include:
- Live Mode with a click-and-drag interface strips traditional rigs of their complexity, replacing them with a system that helps animators capture their rig as if they were playing with an action figure.
- The ability to turn existing Maya rigs into physically based versions of themselves. The developers claim that the resulting rig will not only be easier to animate, and stem from the same workflow an animator is used to, but will see CPU performance improvements of 10-100x, taking complex rigs from 5fps to 500fps.
- Fourteen characters are now available in a high-res asset library, designed to help animators start experimenting with the Ragdoll feature set. Animators can use a premade spaceman, alien, dog, human and more to create previs, test ideas, or see how the physics structure could be applied to one of their own assets. Each ragdoll an artist builds up can also be stored here, making it easy to apply physics to future models.
- An interactive mode allows artists to work with the same Maya-like controls they are used to on interactive models. Instead of keying shots and waiting for the playback to reveal if things are going right, animators can see how changes are occurring live, resulting in a much faster workflow.
- A new Ragdoll Freelancer license tire, that is feature-complete, perpetual and available for $199.
Find out more on Imbalance’s website.
