What's New in 2013 >

# What's New in Action

Alembic Format Support

You can now import and work with Alembic geometries in Action. The Alembic (.abc) file format is an open-source format developed for exchanging complex 3D geometry data. Alembic files are highly portable and application independent so they can be shared, processed, and played back by a number of applications.

Complex scenes and animations can be exported as an Alembic file from Maya, for example. This workflow lets you easily pass complex scene data to various areas of your production pipeline, such as between animation and simulation or animation and lighting, without the large overhead of fully editable scenes.

Improvement to Lens Flares

When adding a Lens Flare in Action, you can now include multiple Border FX objects to attach to the various texture components. The Border FX object settings were formerly located in the Lens Flare menu, but you were limited to global Border FX settings per Lens Flare. With this new workflow, you can attach lens flare components to different Border FX objects, with each Border FX object having different settings.

3ds Max GroupId Support

A new Use GroupId option is available in the Action Geometry menu's UV Map settings. When importing FBX models created in 3ds Max that have GroupId info, this option allows you to ignore or respect this property. By default, it is enabled, so that in Action, the model looks as similar as possible to how it looks in 3ds Max.

Improved Interactivity in Action

Improvements have been made to increase interactivity when working in Action. In particular:

- Interactivity is improved when viewing the schematic and Result view in a 2-up viewport layout.
- You should notice interactivity and rendering speed improvements when working with high polygon count geometries.