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A collaboration between Unity and Autodesk means that game devs and artists using tools from both companies should have an easier time in the future.

Alissa McAloon, Publisher

October 4, 2017

1 Min Read

If you’re a game developer or artist working with tools from both Unity and Autodesk, the next update to Unity 2017 comes with some potentially good news for your workflow.

Unity has detailed some of the new additions coming to the full Unity 2017.2 update later this month, and integrating 3DS Max and Maya into the engine is one of the bigger changes on the list.

Early into the Unite Austin 2017 Conference, the two companies announced that they had forged a partnership to better integrate their game development products for the next big Unity update.

Through that arrangement, Autodesk has granted Unity source code access to its Autodesk FBX SDK, something both companies believe will help deliver a streamlined asset sharing and in-game iteration process to artists and devs working with both products. 

While this sadly won’t extend to some of Autodesk’s recently discontinued tools, the upcoming 2017.2 release will introduce improved import and export capabilities for Autodesk’s FBX filetype that extend to support both the Autodesk interactive physically based shader and custom properties.

Additionally, Unity says 2017.2 will come packaged with a number of updates to the Timeline and Cinemachine tools as well as optimized support for ARCore, ARKit, Vuforia, and Microsoft Mixed Reality. The full rundown on everything mentioned during the Unite Keynote can be found on the Unity blog, while the update itself is due out later this month. 

About the Author(s)

Alissa McAloon

Publisher, GameDeveloper.com

As the Publisher of Game Developer, Alissa McAloon brings a decade of experience in the video game industry and media. When not working in the world of B2B game journalism, Alissa enjoys spending her time in the worlds of immersive sandbox games or dabbling in the occasional TTRPG.

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