Autodesk expands Stingray VR support and streamlines Maya character creation

Autodesk is looking to give developers more ways to create by advancing its toolset with updates to its Stingray game engine and Maya LT 2016 animation and modeling software.

Unveiled at this week's GDC conference in San Francisco, Stingray v1.2 continues the push towards virtual reality with additional support for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift SDK v0.8, and improvements that speed up common tasks within the engine.

Talking specifically, the addition of multi-core completion will allow for faster project and asset imports with multi-CPU compiling. Entity support in story will enable shading environments to be animated with global illumination, fog, and depth of field.

The addition of improved UI flexibility also makes it possible to move, snap, and scale Stingray tools independently of each other and use multiple monitors in development, while rendered outline highlights should make it easier to find lost objects within large scenes.

The new Maya LT Extension 3 update, coupled with Stingray v1.2, will integrate several modeling, UV creation, rigging and animation improvements, and includes an updated exporter to simplify character creation.

Throughout GDC, Autodesk will also host a series of sessions spotlighting developers such as Eidos-Montreal and Fatshark, and present Stingray technology demos, including a session on building VR experiences.

For a full list of scheduled sessions just click here.

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