Autodesk VIZ 2006 starts shipping today!

VIZ 2006 starts shipping today and it's an awesome product. It features many new features compared to MAX 7, which is different than VIZ 2005 and MAX 6.
VIZ 2006 has the following new features:

• Radiosity Adaptive Subdivision - now we can do what we did in Lightscape, the mesh is only subdivided where needed.
  
• Scene State - users can now save a state, which contains lighting, materials, object properties and much more. Then they can restore it later quickly swapping lighting schemas, materials, etc.
  
• Batch Render - ever needed to render dozens of cameras at different resolutions, with different rendering parameters or even different lighting? Now you can do it with Batch Render.
  
• mental ray 3.3 - Global Illumination was never that easy. Just setup your scene with Photometric Lights, just like you would do for Radiosity, and you're done. Either Radiosity or GI will give you the exact same results. And now you do not need to tweak dozens of parameters in GI. Just one or two and you'll be set. Besides GI, mental ray 3.3 now offers a couple Sub Surface Scattering shader, and it also supports IES Sun.
  
• Sweep Modifier - This modifier allows you to do a quick loft with any number of paths, pre-built cross sections, and even allows you to align the cross sections on screen.
  
• Renderable Splines - Now renderable splines can have non circular cross sections
  
• Ortho and Polar are back!
  
• File Link enhancements - There were several enhancements to File Link to give users better and faster workflow, and also allow users to be able to achieve workflows from previous releases. Revit DWGs also can be linked into VIZ and the materials will be imported correctly.
  
• Inventor Import - users can now import inventor files directly into VIZ
  
• DWF Export - VIZ now exports 3D DWF files
  
• Content Browser and Tool Palettes - with the tool palettes, it's now very easy for the user to create and assign materials. Besides materials, the new tool palettes also offer studios, lights and cameras. With the Content Browser, users can now share content between each other and it works as your main content library.
  
• Walkthrough Assistant - After 2 releases, the walkthrough assistant is back on steroids. It supports multiple cameras, free and target cameras, and allows you to choose a path not only for the camera but also for the target.
  

In a nutshell, VIZ 2006 is worth it. You know I'm biased to talk about it, so don't simply take my word - just talk to an Autodesk Reseller, get a demo copy and try it out!