Autodesk buying over game technologies,what do you think that they are up too ?

[Jason Amstrad]

If you have followed Autodesk for a while,then you'll see that they have bought over game technologies like Kynapse AI , Illuminate Labs Beast and Turtle , HumanIK.
What do you guys think Autodesk is up too ?
Do you think that they are secretly working on a powerful game engine or something ?

[Tom Havlik]

Autodesk is a tools vendor giant, not really game middleware. They also own just about every modeling package worth mentioning except zbrush.

Usually the companies that make engines also make games. I mean, I'm not saying Autodesk jumping into the middleware industry is impossible, but I think they've only produced a couple programs domestically and all the others were acquired over the years.

With all these engines out there, and with what I've seen from them, this just wouldn't seem practical. I could be easily wrong, though.

[rebb]

They're just greedy, thats all .

[heron3d]

I seriously doubt it. Maya, their 3d program was their baby for a long time but as the industry evolved, games became a huge source of industry jobs, more so than movies. At the time Z-Brush was changing pipelines all over the industry, Massive was released and there where innovative new ways to rig and animate (HumanIK). Rather than reinvent the wheel they began buying new technologies (Mudbox, Kynapse etc). I think their purpose is to make them available to all 3d users of Maya, Max, Softimage with an option to output to a game engine or film. HumanIK can be used for both. Kynapse will have the same functionality as Massive (I believe). And now Softimage ICE will one day be available in Maya.