Autodesk is launching Maya Creative to make content creation more accessible by lowering the barrier to entry for artists at smaller facilities. This more affordable and flexible version of Maya is a great option for anyone looking to scale capacity or access professional 3D tools.
VFX facilities, as an example, are being pressured to create high quality content, quickly, for streaming services working to engage their subscribers. Eight in 10 people used video on-demand services in the last two years according to a recent Statista survey.
“Although they’re increasing, production budgets are not keeping pace with consumer demand, which puts pressure on companies to do more for less,” said Diana Colella, SVP, Media & Entertainment, Autodesk. “As larger facilities enlist freelance artists and boutique VFX houses to scale workload capacity, there is more demand for affordable industry-standard tools. For studios to compete, creativity and efficiency are paramount.”
Maya Creative features powerful modeling, animation, rigging, and rendering tools for film, television, and game development, including Maya’s full industry-standard creative toolset: high-end 3D modeling; UV, lookdev, and texturing; motion graphics; animation deformation; camera sequencing; rendering and imaging; and data and scene assembly. Maya Creative also includes Arnold renderer to meet the demands of complex and photoreal VFX and animation workflows.
Maya Creative is available on both Windows and Mac, and artists can use it as it makes sense for their work through Flex, Autodesk’s pay-as-you-go option for daily product use. Autodesk’s goal was to introduce a cost-efficient option for freelancers, boutique facilities, or small business creative teams, who don’t need the same API access or extensibility required for larger production workflows.
Independent creator Clifford Paul said that Maya Creative gives him flexibility as a freelancer working on diverse projects. He is required to use a variety of programs across client work, and he can access and pay for Maya whenever he needs it.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More