Marc Petit, Sr. VP of the Media & Entertainment division of Autodesk sits down with vfxworld.com to discuss the direction their products are headed for 2008. The key idea he drives home is “realtime”. From previs with their “…research project called sextant” which they debuted at SIGGRAPH last year, to their newly acquired product “Mudbox 3d” which Petit says “…will be a standalone [but] we are also looking at better integration with Max and Maya.”

The other big push is for stereoscopy, from the creation of it in Max and Maya to grading it in Luster. Petit says they have been working closely with some customers on some large projects developing tools to assist on the creation side of stereoscopy but they’re just starting to understand what they need to create for people to manage those images. He also goes on to talk about how they are working on the concept of stereo grading as well.They will eventually have stereoscopy hit all of their products: Lustre, Smoke and Flame.