Autodesk Decides to Reinvest in Mudbox

Autodesk has decided to reinvest in its digital sculpting and retopology software after several years of minimal product updates.

Autodesk has decided to reinvest in its digital sculpting and retopology software called Mudbox after several years of minimal product updates. According to the company’s AREA forum and the messages of senior product manager Jill Ramsay, Autodesk is not done with the tool yet. 

Art by HJ Park

The official Mudbox blog was all about silence after the release of Mudbox 2015. Autodesk started to integrate Mudbox functionality into Maya and Maya LT, so the customers were wondering if the tool was due to be retired.

The Mudbox 2018.1 update doesn’t actually bring new features, but the release means that the company is not done with the tool. Jill Ramsay states that the release “fixed over 75 major bugs, including some that go back to Mudbox v1, like not being able to undo subdvision”.

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.

We added a lot of functionality to Maya from Mudbox, but Mudbox remains a very viable standalone option, and we decided to reinvest in it starting this summer.

The fact that we [chose] to address stability and quality first [indicates] that we are serious about keeping Mudbox viable. It would have been easier to spend the time we spent on bug fixing adding a couple of features, but in the long run, the team decided it wasn’t the right order to do things in.

Jill Ramsay 

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Comments 5

  • Snipsnip

    One works with clay one works with mud, choose your poison.

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    Snipsnip

    ·5 years ago·
  • Juggulator

    ZBrush is king of sculpting software. In my opinion Zbrush  is far more intuitive and gives a more robust system like drag/retract brushes.

    0

    Juggulator

    ·6 years ago·
  • Anmator

    Even without the recent updates - still prefer Mudbox simplicity and just works over zbrush backwards UI and workflows, and price can't be beat - sept blegh! blender.

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    Anmator

    ·6 years ago·
  • Roman

    Cool beans, but why would the customers get back into it after such a treatment? I suppose, the majority of the industry is using Zbrush by now. There are also options like 3dCoat. These developers have been pushing out massive updates regularly. Why would the artists give up their current workflows and techniques going into a software, that could get discontinued at any moment. Autodesk will have pull out some real badass features if they want the artists to even look Mudbox's way.

    0

    Roman

    ·6 years ago·
  • Ivan

    Excellent!

    0

    Ivan

    ·6 years ago·

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