Overview
Award-winning Autodesk® Maya® software is a tool of choice for those in the film, television, game development, and design industries who desire a high-level of control over their 3D content workflows and pipelines. Artists and designers select Maya because of its intuitive user interface, which facilitates customization and fine-tuning of effective workflows, and technicians (technical directors and programmers) choose Maya for its reliability, open architecture, wide range of supported platforms, and the ease with which it can be incorporated into any existing or new production pipeline.
Productivity-Enhancing Workflows Get unmatched productivity through a combination of performance and workflow features, including marking menus, 3D manipulators, selective display, brush-based tools, selection management tools, and unlimited levels of undo. Advanced data and scene management functionality give you the flexibility to work the way you want.
Comprehensive 3D Modeling and Texturing Toolsets Access a full suite of production-proven polygon, NURBS, and subdivision surface modeling and texturing tools. The polygon workflow tools, including advanced selection functionality, attribute transfer tools, an interactive UV layout and unfolding mode, and optimization tools—have also been designed to promote efficiency.
Powerful Animation Functionality Animate characters and other scene elements with a comprehensive range of specialized keyframe, nonlinear, and advanced character animation editing toolsets, including animation layers, graph and dope sheet editors, constraints, expressions, a nonlinear animation data editor, full-body inverse kinematics (IK) system, skinning functionality, and Maya Muscle.
Advanced Visual Effects ToolsProduce any visual effect you can imagine, from highly realistic natural phenomena to stylized, 2D “painterly” effects. Maya software delivers dynamic interaction of hard and soft bodies determined by physical rules, along with the state-of-the-art visual-effects technology of Maya nCloth, Maya nParticles, Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Fur, Maya Hair, and more.
Flexible Rendering With Maya, you get the freedom to choose the right renderer and rendering pipeline for your project. A unified user interface and workflow provide easy and consistent access to the Maya hardware and vector renderers as well as the powerful mental ray® for Maya and mental ray for Maya network rendering (Satellite) options. You can also use the Render Layers and the Render Pass tools to create an efficient workflow from Maya to Autodesk® Toxik™ software and other compositing packages.
Tools for Extending and Customizing MayaCustomize, extend, and manipulate Maya. The fully integrated Maya Embedded Language (MEL) and Python® scripting languages give you high-level access to every aspect of the software so you can create custom windows, reconfigure the user interface, and issue commands from an HTML page. Moreover, the OpenMaya API/SDK completely unlocks the power of Maya for C++ and Python developers, providing direct, low-level access to all scene data required to make effective plug-ins and new types of nodes, shaders, manipulators, file importers and exporters, and more.
Award-winning Autodesk® Maya® software is a tool of choice for those in the film, television, game development, and design industries who desire a high-level of control over their 3D content workflows and pipelines. Artists and designers select Maya because of its intuitive user interface, which facilitates customization and fine-tuning of effective workflows, and technicians (technical directors and programmers) choose Maya for its reliability, open architecture, wide range of supported platforms, and the ease with which it can be incorporated into any existing or new production pipeline.
Productivity-Enhancing Workflows Get unmatched productivity through a combination of performance and workflow features, including marking menus, 3D manipulators, selective display, brush-based tools, selection management tools, and unlimited levels of undo. Advanced data and scene management functionality give you the flexibility to work the way you want.
Comprehensive 3D Modeling and Texturing Toolsets Access a full suite of production-proven polygon, NURBS, and subdivision surface modeling and texturing tools. The polygon workflow tools, including advanced selection functionality, attribute transfer tools, an interactive UV layout and unfolding mode, and optimization tools—have also been designed to promote efficiency.
Powerful Animation Functionality Animate characters and other scene elements with a comprehensive range of specialized keyframe, nonlinear, and advanced character animation editing toolsets, including animation layers, graph and dope sheet editors, constraints, expressions, a nonlinear animation data editor, full-body inverse kinematics (IK) system, skinning functionality, and Maya Muscle.
Advanced Visual Effects ToolsProduce any visual effect you can imagine, from highly realistic natural phenomena to stylized, 2D “painterly” effects. Maya software delivers dynamic interaction of hard and soft bodies determined by physical rules, along with the state-of-the-art visual-effects technology of Maya nCloth, Maya nParticles, Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Fur, Maya Hair, and more.
Flexible Rendering With Maya, you get the freedom to choose the right renderer and rendering pipeline for your project. A unified user interface and workflow provide easy and consistent access to the Maya hardware and vector renderers as well as the powerful mental ray® for Maya and mental ray for Maya network rendering (Satellite) options. You can also use the Render Layers and the Render Pass tools to create an efficient workflow from Maya to Autodesk® Toxik™ software and other compositing packages.
Tools for Extending and Customizing MayaCustomize, extend, and manipulate Maya. The fully integrated Maya Embedded Language (MEL) and Python® scripting languages give you high-level access to every aspect of the software so you can create custom windows, reconfigure the user interface, and issue commands from an HTML page. Moreover, the OpenMaya API/SDK completely unlocks the power of Maya for C++ and Python developers, providing direct, low-level access to all scene data required to make effective plug-ins and new types of nodes, shaders, manipulators, file importers and exporters, and more.
What's New
Create breathtaking 3D with Autodesk® Maya® 2009 software. Ten years since its industry-redefining launch, Autodesk Maya software continues to push the envelope, with a feature-packed release. Addressing the increasingly difficult challenges faced today by everyone from one-man shops to chief technology officers managing a complex production pipeline, Maya 2009 delivers a host of new features and enhancements intended to maximize productivity, optimize workflows, and offer new creative possibilities for users in film, television, games, and design.
New Selection ParadigmPowerful new selection features in Maya 2009—including true soft selection, and pre-selection highlighting—mean fewer mouse clicks, and less trial and error for common tasks.
Improved Modeling Workflow Maya 2009 delivers intuitive, productive modeling enhancements, including symmetrical modeling with soft seams, a tweak mode for rapid modifications, and a new Merge Vertex feature that enables you to combine parts of a mesh.
Maya AssetsWith Maya Assets, complex data can be effectively organized, shared, referenced, and presented. Maya Assets enables you to encapsulate a set of nodes into a container so that they can be treated as if they were a single node from a user’s perspective (selected attributes of interest from the contained nodes can be published to the container). This new feature also supports customized and user-specific views, flexible referencing, and the creation of customized libraries.
Animation LayeringA powerful new animation layering paradigm, built on technology from Autodesk® MotionBuilder® software, gives you more flexibility as you nondestructively create and edit animation. This toolset works with any attribute: animation layers can be blended, merged, grouped, and reordered, and can override or add to preceding layers.
Maya nParticlesMaya 2009 introduces the second module built on the highly acclaimed Maya Nucleus unified simulation framework: Maya nParticles. This newest toolset gives you an intuitive, efficient workflow for simulating a wide range of complex effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust. It features particle-to-particle collisions, particle and nCloth bidirectional interaction, powerful constraints, cloud and “blobby” hardware display, preset rendering, and dynamic behaviors.
Maya Muscle Maya 2009 includes the comprehensive Maya Muscle software, which helps you create life-like muscle and skin motion. This toolset allows you to direct muscle and skin behavior precisely, with secondary motion, collisions, wrinkles, sliding, and stickiness.
UV Layout EnhancementsThe ability to preserve UVs (when making modeling edits after the fact) as well as new UV unfolding and layout options —including an interactive mode—can increase your productivity by streamlining the otherwise time-consuming task of creating optimal texture coordinates.
Render ProxyA new Render Proxy feature in mental ray® enables you to replace scene elements with a simple low-resolution mesh, and only load the pre-translated data when required for rendering.
Render Pass EnhancementsA completely updated Render Pass feature set provides precise control over render output, making it easier to optimize integration with compositing packages such as Autodesk® Toxik™ software.
Create breathtaking 3D with Autodesk® Maya® 2009 software. Ten years since its industry-redefining launch, Autodesk Maya software continues to push the envelope, with a feature-packed release. Addressing the increasingly difficult challenges faced today by everyone from one-man shops to chief technology officers managing a complex production pipeline, Maya 2009 delivers a host of new features and enhancements intended to maximize productivity, optimize workflows, and offer new creative possibilities for users in film, television, games, and design.
New Selection ParadigmPowerful new selection features in Maya 2009—including true soft selection, and pre-selection highlighting—mean fewer mouse clicks, and less trial and error for common tasks.
Improved Modeling Workflow Maya 2009 delivers intuitive, productive modeling enhancements, including symmetrical modeling with soft seams, a tweak mode for rapid modifications, and a new Merge Vertex feature that enables you to combine parts of a mesh.
Maya AssetsWith Maya Assets, complex data can be effectively organized, shared, referenced, and presented. Maya Assets enables you to encapsulate a set of nodes into a container so that they can be treated as if they were a single node from a user’s perspective (selected attributes of interest from the contained nodes can be published to the container). This new feature also supports customized and user-specific views, flexible referencing, and the creation of customized libraries.
Animation LayeringA powerful new animation layering paradigm, built on technology from Autodesk® MotionBuilder® software, gives you more flexibility as you nondestructively create and edit animation. This toolset works with any attribute: animation layers can be blended, merged, grouped, and reordered, and can override or add to preceding layers.
Maya nParticlesMaya 2009 introduces the second module built on the highly acclaimed Maya Nucleus unified simulation framework: Maya nParticles. This newest toolset gives you an intuitive, efficient workflow for simulating a wide range of complex effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust. It features particle-to-particle collisions, particle and nCloth bidirectional interaction, powerful constraints, cloud and “blobby” hardware display, preset rendering, and dynamic behaviors.
Maya Muscle Maya 2009 includes the comprehensive Maya Muscle software, which helps you create life-like muscle and skin motion. This toolset allows you to direct muscle and skin behavior precisely, with secondary motion, collisions, wrinkles, sliding, and stickiness.
UV Layout EnhancementsThe ability to preserve UVs (when making modeling edits after the fact) as well as new UV unfolding and layout options —including an interactive mode—can increase your productivity by streamlining the otherwise time-consuming task of creating optimal texture coordinates.
Render ProxyA new Render Proxy feature in mental ray® enables you to replace scene elements with a simple low-resolution mesh, and only load the pre-translated data when required for rendering.
Render Pass EnhancementsA completely updated Render Pass feature set provides precise control over render output, making it easier to optimize integration with compositing packages such as Autodesk® Toxik™ software.
Autodesk Maya Unlimited Features
Autodesk® Maya® Unlimited software, the ultimate version of Maya, is the choice of 3D artists and animators who are looking to make their projects stand out. Maya Unlimited includes all the functionality found in Autodesk Maya Complete and provides professional artists and animators with additional industry-leading innovations, such as Maya Fluid Effects, Maya nCloth, Maya nParticles, Maya Hair, Maya Fur, and Maya Live.
Maya Fluid Effects
Maya nCloth
Maya nParticles
Maya Hair
Maya Fur
Maya Live
Maya Fluid Effects
Maya Fluid Effects, a state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics toolset, brings a huge range of atmospheric, pyrotechnic, viscous liquid and open water effects to Autodesk Maya software.
Fast Interactive 2D Solver
Simulate 2D fluid motion in near real time and render it as a thin volume, surface, or height field.
Create animated textures, giving a unique look to logo animations and other 2D objects.
3D Fluid Solver
Represent the most complex fluid motion accurately.
Combine the 3D Fluid Solver with volumetric, hard and soft surface rendering options to create previously unattainable 3D effects.
Use the high-detail solve mode to reduce diffusion of density, velocity, and other attributes during simulation, making 3D simulations appear much more detailed without increasing resolution.
Spring Mesh SolverSimulate wakes and ponds with ripples.
Ocean ShaderModel realistic oceans with displacement and shading techniques.
PondsCreate realistic small bodies of water with true dynamic waves and ripples.
WakesAdd turbulence, bubbles, and ripples to enhance the realism of boat wakes.
Motion FieldsCreate simulated objects moving through a fluid, such as a character walking through thick smoke or fog.
Presets
Atmospheric: Simulation and volumetric rendering of clouds, smoke, snow, steam, and fog.
Pyrotechnic: Explosions, flames, and nuclear blast effects.
Viscous liquids: One of the hardest animated surfaces to represent using existing CG technology; makes lava, mercury, and mud possible.
Oceans and ponds: Create and preview ocean swells, calm oceans, rough seas, rippling ponds, white caps, and foam.
Integration with MayaFully integrated with other parts of Maya—for example, a simulating fluid can act as a force on Maya particles or soft bodies and can be converted to polygon meshes.
Interactive Control with Maya ArtisanPaint attributes such as color, density, fuel, velocity, and temperature directly into the 2D or 3D fluid using the Maya Artisan brush interface.
RenderingStreamline workflows with integrated rendering in the Maya software renderer and mental ray® for Maya.
Back to top
Maya nCloth
As the first implementation of Maya Nucleus technology, Maya nCloth provides artists with the ability to quickly direct and control cloth and other material simulations in entirely new ways.
Maya Demo: Wind, Tearing, and Collisions with nCloth (Windows Media® 160k, 10Mb)
Any Fashion in Any Fabric
Maya nCloth is generated from modeled polygon meshes, a superior method of construction to the standard cloth-panel workflow.
Quickly transform any polygon mesh model (open or closed meshes) into a Maya nCloth object.
Manipulate cloth attributes with the easy-to-use Maya Artisan brush-based interface.
Make 3D objects as stiff, viscous, or flowing, and as tightly or loosely woven as you desire your fabric to be.
Create cloth-on-cloth simulations—such as a cape over a jacket or a shirt over pants—with believable influences and collisions.
Bend, stretch, shear, dent, or even tear Maya nCloth fabrics.
Use topology-independent constraints to fit a garment to the contours of a character; influence how the Maya nCloth settles on a character; control how the Maya nCloth moves during animation; or attach buttons, tear cloth, and merge different Maya nCloth objects.
Directability
Shape and influence results toward a manually modeled target (pose) even while the simulation is running.
Simulations are cached in the unified caching framework, so multiple simulations can be edited in the Trax timeline and blended together to achieve results not typically possible from a single simulation.
Collisions
Easily set up and manipulate realistic cloth collision behavior.
Completely automate collisions, such as passive object collisions, or set up collisions to give you a high degree of control over properties such as influences, order, and layering.
Support for self-collisions means highly realistic results without the self-interpenetration and implosion errors that other cloth systems frequently exhibit.
Interpenetration with the collision object is rare—in such instances Maya nCloth quickly recovers and continues the simulation.
Forces
Simulations using force fields result in the type of highly realistic motion that can be difficult to achieve via traditional animation methods.
Use any of the standard Maya dynamics forces or the integrated Maya Nucleus physics forces to automatically animate Maya nCloth.
Beyond Cloth
Create deformable plastics and metals with Maya nCloth.
Any supported geometry—whether a closed, sealed volume such as an inner tube or an open one, like an untied balloon—can be given the behavioral properties of an inflatable object, with internal and external pressure.
Simulate rigid-body and fluidic effects by adjusting cloth values such as stiffness.
Back to top
Maya nParticles
Autodesk Maya nParticles, the newest Maya Nucleus toolset, gives artists an intuitive, efficient workflow for simulating a wide range of complex 3D effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust.
Liquid Simulation
The Liquid Simulation functionality gives you an intuitive method to create effects such as pouring liquids and sloshing liquids in containers.
Specify the incompressibility and viscosity of the particles, as well as how much they are permitted to overlap.
Particle to Particle CollisionsMaya nParticles can collide with other nParticles, enabling them to accumulate within volumes.
Particle and Cloth InteractionBidirectional interaction with nCloth enables particles to affect cloth, and cloth to affect particles simultaneously, allowing complex effects to be easily simulated.
Particle ConstraintsnParticles can use a range of nConstraints, including Transform, Component to Component, Point to Surface, Slide on Surface, and Force Fields, providing an extra degree of control without the need to write complex expressions.
Cloud and Blobby Hardware DisplayAn accurate hardware display allows you to interactively preview the look of nParticles set to software render as clouds or blobbies.
Fill Object with ParticlesFill a mesh with nParticles with a single click, for an easy simulation starting point.
Ramp Widgets for Particle ShadingA built-in ramp widget allows for easy and intuitive mapping of various shading attributes such as Radius, Color, Opacity, Incandescence over time (or over age, radius, speed).
Creation PresetsCreate nParticles with a choice of dynamic and rendering behaviors, such as water and cloud, making initial setup faster and easier.
Back to top
Maya Hair
Create realistic hair and dynamic curves directly within Autodesk Maya software.
Creation Tools
Create a grid of follicles on any NURBS or polygon surface.
Add, delete, or edit follicle attributes.
Copy or transfer hair from one character to another.
Constraints and Styling
More than 10 hair modeling presets are available, including pigtail, bun, curls, dreadlocks, and highlights.
Constraints allow for the simulation of effects, such as ponytails and hair clips.
Built-in curl and braid attributes make intricate styles easy to achieve per follicle or over larger areas.
Collisions
Hair can collide with arbitrary geometry or with implicit volumes.
Self-collision between clumps makes the realistic simulation of hair/ character interaction possible.
Rendering
Directly render hair in the Maya software renderer or mental ray for Maya.
Output dynamic curves to a curve renderer such as Pixar RenderMan®.
Integrated Dynamics
Maya Hair features built-in hair gravity and turbulence.
Connection to the existing dynamic forces of Maya gives real-world results for hair effects.
Beyond Hair
Hair system can be used to make any NURBS curve dynamic, for a wide range of dynamic effects such as ropes, chains, and dynamic lofted surfaces.
Create advanced character rigs using dynamic spline Inverse Kinetics (IK).
Back to top
Maya Fur
Use Autodesk Maya Unlimited software and Maya Fur to easily create realistic fur, short hair, wool, and grass on NURBS or polygonal models.
Maya Artisan User Interface
Paint fur attributes, such as clumping, baldness, length, and curl, directly across multiple NURBS or polygonal surfaces.
“Comb” and style fur.
Fur Types
Design multiple types of fur on each surface—for example, a head surface can have body fur, eyelashes, and whiskers.
Set fur attributes, such as width, length, baldness, opacity, scraggle, curl, and direction, globally or map them locally.
Map base and tip colors using procedurals or file textures to create such effects as random leopard spots, or precisely placed tiger stripes.
Use clumping controls to create natural looks such as wet, matted, or dirty fur.
Presets
Use preset fur descriptions, including squirrel, bear, bison, and wet Labrador.
Create and save new presets.
Blend between presets.
Total Integration
Attractor system allows fur movement to be keyframed or to react to dynamic forces within Maya.
Use dynamic curves as attractors.
All attributes can be animated.
Use animated file texture sequences on any attribute to create complex changes over time.
Rendering
Integration with the Maya software renderer and mental ray® for Maya software.
Output results as composite images or as separate render passes for post-processing.
Fur is self-shadowing and supports cast shadows and render-efficient root and back shading in the Maya software renderer, as well as raytraced shadows in mental ray.
Motion blur and depth of field are fully supported.Back to top
Maya Live
The Maya Live match-moving tools combine 2D live-action and 3D elements.
Match 3D Elements with Live-Action Shots
Use Maya Live to extract information from live-action footage to create an exact duplicate of the original camera. Precisely match the original motion and seamlessly blend live-action and CG elements.
Camera moves are not restricted in the live-action scene. For example, bouncing, hand-held shots, slow pans, dollies, tracking shots, aerial shots, and tilts are supported.
Flexibility
Use footage of any resolution as source images.
3D graphic information is attained automatically.
Maya Live features fast video image playback and scrubbing.
Fast, Integrated 2D Tracker
Tracked objects can be occluded and can enter and exit the frame.
Bidirectional tracking is available.
Tracking observations allow selection of noise-level tolerance.
Pretrack filtering minimizes grain and noise.
Reconstruction of Live-Action Elements as 3D GeometryPlacing of locators in true 3D positions (in the live-action scene) aids in the reconstruction of computer graphic scene geometry and precise positioning of 3D objects relative to the live-action scene.
Output to External ApplicationsExport to industry-standard 3D software compositing solutions.
Autodesk® Maya® Unlimited software, the ultimate version of Maya, is the choice of 3D artists and animators who are looking to make their projects stand out. Maya Unlimited includes all the functionality found in Autodesk Maya Complete and provides professional artists and animators with additional industry-leading innovations, such as Maya Fluid Effects, Maya nCloth, Maya nParticles, Maya Hair, Maya Fur, and Maya Live.
Maya Fluid Effects
Maya nCloth
Maya nParticles
Maya Hair
Maya Fur
Maya Live
Maya Fluid Effects
Maya Fluid Effects, a state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics toolset, brings a huge range of atmospheric, pyrotechnic, viscous liquid and open water effects to Autodesk Maya software.
Fast Interactive 2D Solver
Simulate 2D fluid motion in near real time and render it as a thin volume, surface, or height field.
Create animated textures, giving a unique look to logo animations and other 2D objects.
3D Fluid Solver
Represent the most complex fluid motion accurately.
Combine the 3D Fluid Solver with volumetric, hard and soft surface rendering options to create previously unattainable 3D effects.
Use the high-detail solve mode to reduce diffusion of density, velocity, and other attributes during simulation, making 3D simulations appear much more detailed without increasing resolution.
Spring Mesh SolverSimulate wakes and ponds with ripples.
Ocean ShaderModel realistic oceans with displacement and shading techniques.
PondsCreate realistic small bodies of water with true dynamic waves and ripples.
WakesAdd turbulence, bubbles, and ripples to enhance the realism of boat wakes.
Motion FieldsCreate simulated objects moving through a fluid, such as a character walking through thick smoke or fog.
Presets
Atmospheric: Simulation and volumetric rendering of clouds, smoke, snow, steam, and fog.
Pyrotechnic: Explosions, flames, and nuclear blast effects.
Viscous liquids: One of the hardest animated surfaces to represent using existing CG technology; makes lava, mercury, and mud possible.
Oceans and ponds: Create and preview ocean swells, calm oceans, rough seas, rippling ponds, white caps, and foam.
Integration with MayaFully integrated with other parts of Maya—for example, a simulating fluid can act as a force on Maya particles or soft bodies and can be converted to polygon meshes.
Interactive Control with Maya ArtisanPaint attributes such as color, density, fuel, velocity, and temperature directly into the 2D or 3D fluid using the Maya Artisan brush interface.
RenderingStreamline workflows with integrated rendering in the Maya software renderer and mental ray® for Maya.
Back to top
Maya nCloth
As the first implementation of Maya Nucleus technology, Maya nCloth provides artists with the ability to quickly direct and control cloth and other material simulations in entirely new ways.
Maya Demo: Wind, Tearing, and Collisions with nCloth (Windows Media® 160k, 10Mb)
Any Fashion in Any Fabric
Maya nCloth is generated from modeled polygon meshes, a superior method of construction to the standard cloth-panel workflow.
Quickly transform any polygon mesh model (open or closed meshes) into a Maya nCloth object.
Manipulate cloth attributes with the easy-to-use Maya Artisan brush-based interface.
Make 3D objects as stiff, viscous, or flowing, and as tightly or loosely woven as you desire your fabric to be.
Create cloth-on-cloth simulations—such as a cape over a jacket or a shirt over pants—with believable influences and collisions.
Bend, stretch, shear, dent, or even tear Maya nCloth fabrics.
Use topology-independent constraints to fit a garment to the contours of a character; influence how the Maya nCloth settles on a character; control how the Maya nCloth moves during animation; or attach buttons, tear cloth, and merge different Maya nCloth objects.
Directability
Shape and influence results toward a manually modeled target (pose) even while the simulation is running.
Simulations are cached in the unified caching framework, so multiple simulations can be edited in the Trax timeline and blended together to achieve results not typically possible from a single simulation.
Collisions
Easily set up and manipulate realistic cloth collision behavior.
Completely automate collisions, such as passive object collisions, or set up collisions to give you a high degree of control over properties such as influences, order, and layering.
Support for self-collisions means highly realistic results without the self-interpenetration and implosion errors that other cloth systems frequently exhibit.
Interpenetration with the collision object is rare—in such instances Maya nCloth quickly recovers and continues the simulation.
Forces
Simulations using force fields result in the type of highly realistic motion that can be difficult to achieve via traditional animation methods.
Use any of the standard Maya dynamics forces or the integrated Maya Nucleus physics forces to automatically animate Maya nCloth.
Beyond Cloth
Create deformable plastics and metals with Maya nCloth.
Any supported geometry—whether a closed, sealed volume such as an inner tube or an open one, like an untied balloon—can be given the behavioral properties of an inflatable object, with internal and external pressure.
Simulate rigid-body and fluidic effects by adjusting cloth values such as stiffness.
Back to top
Maya nParticles
Autodesk Maya nParticles, the newest Maya Nucleus toolset, gives artists an intuitive, efficient workflow for simulating a wide range of complex 3D effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust.
Liquid Simulation
The Liquid Simulation functionality gives you an intuitive method to create effects such as pouring liquids and sloshing liquids in containers.
Specify the incompressibility and viscosity of the particles, as well as how much they are permitted to overlap.
Particle to Particle CollisionsMaya nParticles can collide with other nParticles, enabling them to accumulate within volumes.
Particle and Cloth InteractionBidirectional interaction with nCloth enables particles to affect cloth, and cloth to affect particles simultaneously, allowing complex effects to be easily simulated.
Particle ConstraintsnParticles can use a range of nConstraints, including Transform, Component to Component, Point to Surface, Slide on Surface, and Force Fields, providing an extra degree of control without the need to write complex expressions.
Cloud and Blobby Hardware DisplayAn accurate hardware display allows you to interactively preview the look of nParticles set to software render as clouds or blobbies.
Fill Object with ParticlesFill a mesh with nParticles with a single click, for an easy simulation starting point.
Ramp Widgets for Particle ShadingA built-in ramp widget allows for easy and intuitive mapping of various shading attributes such as Radius, Color, Opacity, Incandescence over time (or over age, radius, speed).
Creation PresetsCreate nParticles with a choice of dynamic and rendering behaviors, such as water and cloud, making initial setup faster and easier.
Back to top
Maya Hair
Create realistic hair and dynamic curves directly within Autodesk Maya software.
Creation Tools
Create a grid of follicles on any NURBS or polygon surface.
Add, delete, or edit follicle attributes.
Copy or transfer hair from one character to another.
Constraints and Styling
More than 10 hair modeling presets are available, including pigtail, bun, curls, dreadlocks, and highlights.
Constraints allow for the simulation of effects, such as ponytails and hair clips.
Built-in curl and braid attributes make intricate styles easy to achieve per follicle or over larger areas.
Collisions
Hair can collide with arbitrary geometry or with implicit volumes.
Self-collision between clumps makes the realistic simulation of hair/ character interaction possible.
Rendering
Directly render hair in the Maya software renderer or mental ray for Maya.
Output dynamic curves to a curve renderer such as Pixar RenderMan®.
Integrated Dynamics
Maya Hair features built-in hair gravity and turbulence.
Connection to the existing dynamic forces of Maya gives real-world results for hair effects.
Beyond Hair
Hair system can be used to make any NURBS curve dynamic, for a wide range of dynamic effects such as ropes, chains, and dynamic lofted surfaces.
Create advanced character rigs using dynamic spline Inverse Kinetics (IK).
Back to top
Maya Fur
Use Autodesk Maya Unlimited software and Maya Fur to easily create realistic fur, short hair, wool, and grass on NURBS or polygonal models.
Maya Artisan User Interface
Paint fur attributes, such as clumping, baldness, length, and curl, directly across multiple NURBS or polygonal surfaces.
“Comb” and style fur.
Fur Types
Design multiple types of fur on each surface—for example, a head surface can have body fur, eyelashes, and whiskers.
Set fur attributes, such as width, length, baldness, opacity, scraggle, curl, and direction, globally or map them locally.
Map base and tip colors using procedurals or file textures to create such effects as random leopard spots, or precisely placed tiger stripes.
Use clumping controls to create natural looks such as wet, matted, or dirty fur.
Presets
Use preset fur descriptions, including squirrel, bear, bison, and wet Labrador.
Create and save new presets.
Blend between presets.
Total Integration
Attractor system allows fur movement to be keyframed or to react to dynamic forces within Maya.
Use dynamic curves as attractors.
All attributes can be animated.
Use animated file texture sequences on any attribute to create complex changes over time.
Rendering
Integration with the Maya software renderer and mental ray® for Maya software.
Output results as composite images or as separate render passes for post-processing.
Fur is self-shadowing and supports cast shadows and render-efficient root and back shading in the Maya software renderer, as well as raytraced shadows in mental ray.
Motion blur and depth of field are fully supported.Back to top
Maya Live
The Maya Live match-moving tools combine 2D live-action and 3D elements.
Match 3D Elements with Live-Action Shots
Use Maya Live to extract information from live-action footage to create an exact duplicate of the original camera. Precisely match the original motion and seamlessly blend live-action and CG elements.
Camera moves are not restricted in the live-action scene. For example, bouncing, hand-held shots, slow pans, dollies, tracking shots, aerial shots, and tilts are supported.
Flexibility
Use footage of any resolution as source images.
3D graphic information is attained automatically.
Maya Live features fast video image playback and scrubbing.
Fast, Integrated 2D Tracker
Tracked objects can be occluded and can enter and exit the frame.
Bidirectional tracking is available.
Tracking observations allow selection of noise-level tolerance.
Pretrack filtering minimizes grain and noise.
Reconstruction of Live-Action Elements as 3D GeometryPlacing of locators in true 3D positions (in the live-action scene) aids in the reconstruction of computer graphic scene geometry and precise positioning of 3D objects relative to the live-action scene.
Output to External ApplicationsExport to industry-standard 3D software compositing solutions.
System Requirements
Software
The 32-bit version of Autodesk® Maya® 2009 software is supported on any of the following operating systems:
Microsoft® Windows Vista® Business operating system (SP1 or higher)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional operating system (SP2 or higher)
Apple® Mac OS® X 10.5.2 operating system or higher
The 64-bit version of Maya 2009 software is supported on any of the following operating systems:
Microsoft Windows Vista Business (SP1 or higher)
Microsoft Windows XP x64 Edition (SP2 or higher)
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 4.0 WS operating system (U6)
Fedora™ 8 operating system
These web browsers are supported for Autodesk Maya 2009:
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6.0 internet browser or higher
Netscape® 7 web browser or higher
Apple® Safari® web browser
Mozilla® Firefox® web browser
Hardware
At a minimum, the 32-bit version of Maya 2009 software requires a system with the following hardware:
Windows: Intel® Pentium® 4 or higher, AMD Athlon® 64, or AMD Opteron® processor
Macintosh®: Intel®-based Macintosh® computers
2 GB RAM
2 GB free hard drive space
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL® graphics card
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive
At a minimum, the 64-bit version of Maya 2009 software requires a system with the following hardware:
Windows and Linux: Intel EM64T processor, AMD Athlon 64, or AMD Opteron
2 GB RAM
2 GB free hard drive space
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive
Note: Maya 2009 is also capable of running on other configurations, such as boutique distributions of Linux. However, enumerating systems that are not tested and cannot be supported, or that fall below the requirements for a productive user experience is beyond the scope of the online qualification charts.
Software
The 32-bit version of Autodesk® Maya® 2009 software is supported on any of the following operating systems:
Microsoft® Windows Vista® Business operating system (SP1 or higher)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional operating system (SP2 or higher)
Apple® Mac OS® X 10.5.2 operating system or higher
The 64-bit version of Maya 2009 software is supported on any of the following operating systems:
Microsoft Windows Vista Business (SP1 or higher)
Microsoft Windows XP x64 Edition (SP2 or higher)
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 4.0 WS operating system (U6)
Fedora™ 8 operating system
These web browsers are supported for Autodesk Maya 2009:
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6.0 internet browser or higher
Netscape® 7 web browser or higher
Apple® Safari® web browser
Mozilla® Firefox® web browser
Hardware
At a minimum, the 32-bit version of Maya 2009 software requires a system with the following hardware:
Windows: Intel® Pentium® 4 or higher, AMD Athlon® 64, or AMD Opteron® processor
Macintosh®: Intel®-based Macintosh® computers
2 GB RAM
2 GB free hard drive space
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL® graphics card
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive
At a minimum, the 64-bit version of Maya 2009 software requires a system with the following hardware:
Windows and Linux: Intel EM64T processor, AMD Athlon 64, or AMD Opteron
2 GB RAM
2 GB free hard drive space
Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card
Three-button mouse with mouse driver software
DVD-ROM drive
Note: Maya 2009 is also capable of running on other configurations, such as boutique distributions of Linux. However, enumerating systems that are not tested and cannot be supported, or that fall below the requirements for a productive user experience is beyond the scope of the online qualification charts.
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