When Autodesk unveiled demo videos for Mudbox 2015 earlier this week, it was unclear whether the software's new multi-touch capabilities would be compatible with the Surface Pro.
The company originally introduced Intel HD graphics 4000 compatibility in the 2014 extension (2014.5) available only to subscribers, but for some reason, gestures refused to work on the Surface Pro.
I reached out to Autodesk support who were unable to confirm that the compatibility issue had been resolved in this latest version. But thanks to a resourceful reader, I was provided a link to the 2015 trial version so that I could test the program myself.
Because a picture is worth a thousand words and video is worth at least ten thousand, see for yourself how well the program runs on the "lowly" first gen Surface Pro with 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB storage.
Mudbox 2015 runs just as well or better on the Surface Pro 2. The only slight hiccup I experienced was when I first installed the program on the Surface Pro seen above. That pc didn't have the Wacom feel driver installed and the pen refused to work although touch did. Once I installed the feel drivers and rebooted, everything worked smoothly.
ZBrush is the king of the hill of sculpting apps, but its crowded UI make it very difficult to use on the Surface Pro. With its relatively uncluttered interface and new interactive capabilities, Mudbox 2015 definitely leaps to the head of the Windows 8 tablet pack.
Autodesk's 2015 offerings are scheduled to be released in mid-April. I'll update this post as soon as trial downloads become publicly available.
