Mudbox 2010 will have enhanced integration with Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3DS Max and Autodesk Softimage. It will also feature a range of new creative tools and workflows, and a software development kit that means it can be customized by teams and used in specific pipelines.

It will be bundled as part of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites, which comprise a choice of Maya 2010 or 3DS Max 2010, together with Mudbox 2010 and Autodesk MotionBuilder 2010.

Christoph Schädl, character artist at RABCAT Computer Graphics, was a beta tester for Mudbox 2010. “I love to work with Mudbox because the intuitive user interface lets me focus entirely on my creative vision,” said Schädl. “My favorite feature in the 2010 release is the ability to paint across multiple texture maps, in different paint channels without any seams. That means you can paint really huge textures — up to 50K and more.”

Key features of Mudbox 2010 are:
- Interoperability with Adobe Photoshop: New workflows make using Mudbox in conjunction with Photoshop easier. Mudbox 2010 can import PSD files to use as paint layers, as well as export paint layers as PSD files for touchup.

- Simpler interoperability with Maya, 3DS Max and Softimage: Mudbox adds support for Autodesk FBX file transfer technology, enabling artists to import and export scene data containing more information than the usual OBJ file format. Painted texture maps, cameras and image planes can be retained, resulting in higher-fidelity transfers that help to save artists’ time.

- Software development kit (SDK): Mudbox 2010 introduces a C++ SDK that production teams can use to customize and integrate Mudbox into pipelines.

- New creative tools and workflows: The 2010 version also includes new brushes, support for reordering of paint layers, ambient occlusion map baking, new viewport filters as well as the ability to render images directly from the viewport.