What's New
Enhanced User Interface
Autodesk Maya 2011 3D animation software provides a consistent, enhanced user experience across all supported platforms—Mac OS® X, Windows® 32- and 64-bit, and Linux® 64-bit operating systems—with a revitalized user interface that offers a fresh new look, dockable UI elements, more flexible editors, and an updated color chooser and file browser. In addition, a new node browser within Hypershade displays nodes by category in a searchable tree list and provides easier access to frequently used nodes.
Accelerated Skinning Workflow
With Autodesk Maya 2011 you can create better skinned characters with more realistic deformations in less time. New skinning tools and workflows include a dual quaternion option for smooth skinning, interactive volume binding, multiple enhancements to the Paint Skin Weights tool, deformer weight mirroring, and a surface falloff mode for the Wrap deformer.
Nondestructive Live Retargeting
Reuse, correct, and enhance motion-capture and other animation data faster and more easily with a new nondestructive retargeting workflow that uses the Autodesk® HumanIK® (HIK) libraries. Transfer animation from one character to another and adjust retargeting parameters live to see and edit results without the need to rebake.
Accelerated Skinning Workflow
With Autodesk Maya 2011 you can create better skinned characters with more realistic deformations in less time. New skinning tools and workflows include a dual quaternion option for smooth skinning, interactive volume binding, multiple enhancements to the Paint Skin Weights tool, deformer weight mirroring, and a surface falloff mode for the Wrap deformer.
New Solutions for 3D Editorial
Accelerate pre-visualization and virtual movie-making production with new 3D Editorial capabilities in Autodesk Maya 2011. The new Camera Sequencer enables you to layout and manage multiple camera shots in a single animation sequence. Start laying out shots in Maya, or import an EDL in Apple® Final Cut Pro® XML or AAF formats from editorial with associated movie, audio, and timecode information. Then change the timings of shots, create alternate versions, and use Playblast to playback and review the sequence before optionally re-exporting an EDL to editorial for further refinement.
Enhancements to Assets & File Referencing
With Autodesk Maya 2011 you can more easily segment, reuse, and exchange data with or without file referencing. Data can be exported and imported as offline files to flexibly partition scenes, while reference edits can be imported, exported, and removed without unloading. A new option to create assets with transforms (DAG assets) enables them to be directly positioned, parented, instanced, and light-linked, streamlining the most common assets workflows. Other assets enhancements include creation from template, automatic template binding based on a user-defined mapping, and extended black box support.
64-Bit Support for Mac OS X
Mac OS® X users can access more memory to handle larger and more complex scenes with the new 64-bit executable.
3D Modeling
Polygon & Subdivision Mesh Modeling
Autodesk Maya provides a production-proven and intuitive toolset for creating and editing polygon meshes, including:
- Bridge, poke, cut, wedge, bevel, extrude, chamfer vertex, extrude along a curve, mirror cut, edge loop, edge ring, slide edge, and pick-walk tools
- The ability to preview or render smoothly subdivided meshes while editing a lower-resolution proxy or cage; subdivision meshes support variable creasing
- True soft selection, preselection highlighting, and camera-based selection culling
- Polygon reduction, data cleanup, blind data tagging, and level-of-detail tools for scene optimization
- The ability to transfer UV, color-per-vertex, and vertex position information between polygon meshes of differing topologies
Surface Modeling
Maya offers two methods for creating mathematically smooth surfaces that can be shaped using relatively few control vertices: NURBS and hierarchical Subdivision Surfaces.
- Subdivision Surfaces can have different levels of detail in different regions, enabling you add complexity only where needed.
- NURBS Surfaces can be attached, detached, aligned, stitched together, extended, filleted, or rebuilt with a high degree of control over parameterization and continuity.
- NURBS and Subdivision Surfaces can be converted to polygon meshes, and vice versa.
- Precise spline-based curve and surface construction tools include lofting, birail, beveling, extrusion, trim, boundary, offset, Booleans, rounding, and square.
UVs, Normals & Color-Per-Vertex
Beyond the position of vertices that define their shape, meshes can carry essential data for software, interactive, or in-game 3D rendering. To manage this, Maya offers:
- A streamlined workflow for creative texturing—including UV creation and editing, auto-projection, interactive relaxation, layout, lattice, and smudge tools
- Multiple UV sets that support separate texture coordinates for separate texture channels
- Per-instance UV sets that enable a single mesh to be used to represent multiple objects, reducing scene overhead
- Multiple sets of animatable color-per-vertex (CPV), prelighting, user-defined normals, and normal map generation suitable for game design
Autodesk Mudbox Interoperability
Sculpt highly detailed organic models with Autodesk® Mudbox® 3D digital sculpting and texture painting software. The complementary toolset provides a more intuitive brush-based 3D modeling experience that features 2D and 3D layers to more easily manage sculpting and painting iterations on multiple meshes and maps.
- Import geometry from Maya into Mudbox via the Autodesk® FBX® file format.
- Paint detailed textures directly onto the high-resolution 3D mesh.
- Export geometry and texture details out of Mudbox for use in certain other applications such as Adobe® Photoshop® software and Maya.
- Use the modeling layers in Mudbox to create poses or facial expressions for blendshapes in Maya.
Animation
General Animation
Maya delivers a broad range of specialized tools for keyframe, procedural, and scripted animation, including:
- A highly controllable, nondestructive animation layering system that works with any attribute
- Trax Nonlinear Animation Editor for nondestructive mixing, blending, and editing of poses and animation clips
- A comprehensive assortment of generalized constraints
- A powerful and intuitive Set Driven Key tool that enables you to keyframe complex relationships between animated parameters
- Graph and Dope Sheet Editors that provide more powerful, precise function curves to control how animated attributes change over time
- A full set of deformers for static modeling or animation
Character Creation
Create, skin, rig, and pose believable characters that can help animators be more productive. Maya 3D animation software includes:
- Built-in Spline IK, Spring IK, and single chain and lightweight 2-bone solvers
- A full-body IK system for natural articulation of biped and quadruped models
- The ability to smoothly blend between IK and FK animation
- Maya Muscle advanced deformation tools for realistic or highly stylized muscle and skin motion, including wrinkling, jiggling, and collisions
- Substitute Geometry tool to transfer skinning information between models
- Nondestructive workflow that enables you to insert, move, delete, connect, and disconnect joints on a bound skeleton
MotionBuilder Interoperability
Add Autodesk® MotionBuilder® 3D character animation software to a Maya pipeline to help increase production efficiency and increase the quality of results for high-volume character animation projects.
- With its real-time 3D engine and dedicated toolsets for character rigging, nonlinear animation editing, motion-capture data manipulation, and interactive dynamics, MotionBuilder is an ideal, complementary toolset to Maya, forming a unified end-to-end animation solution.
- Quickly and easily transfer assets via Autodesk® FBX® data exchange technology to take advantage of collaborative, iterative, cross-product workflows.
Dynamics & Effects
Rigid & Soft Body Dynamics
Create more realistic simulations of multiple rigid and flexible objects at higher speeds.
- Connect rigid-body objects with constraints: Nail, Hinge, Barrier, Pin, and Spring
- Keyframe the active/passive states of rigid-bodies.
- Use soft-body objects to create secondary motion effects, such as muscle jiggle and floppy hats, with paintable goal-weights.
- Simulate the motion of natural forces with dynamic fields: Air, Drag, Gravity, Newton, Radial, Turbulence, Uniform, Vortex, Volume Axis, and Volume Curve.
- Control attributes such as Friction, Bounciness, Damping, Mass, Velocity, Spin, and Torque.
- Use Shatter to break an object into multiple rigid or soft-body pieces.
Maya nParticles
Maya nParticles provides an intuitive, efficient workflow for simulating a wide range of complex 3D visual effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust.
- Create pouring liquids and sloshing liquids in containers.
- Self-collision enables nParticles to accumulate within volumes.
- Map shading attributes such as radius, color, opacity, and incandescence over time (or over age, radius, speed).
- Flexible nConstraints provide an extra degree of control without the need to write complex expressions.
- Use geometry instancing to replace particles with objects.
- Bidirectional interaction with Maya nCloth enables particles to affect cloth, and cloth to affect particles simultaneously.
Maya Fluid Effects
Simulate and render more realistic atmospheric, explosive, viscous liquid and open water effects using Maya Fluid Effects.
- Select from presets for clouds, smoke, snow, steam, fog, nuclear explosions, flames, lava, mercury, mud, ocean swells, calm oceans, rough seas, rippling ponds, white caps, and foam.
- Use 2D fluids to create distinctive animated textures.
- Integrated with other parts of Maya: for example, a simulating fluid can act as a force on particles; objects can affect a fluid as they move through it, such as a character walking through thick smoke; and boats can create wakes on oceans.
Maya nCloth
Create realistic clothing and other deformable materials using the integrated Maya nCloth toolset.
- Convert polygon mesh models into an nCloth object.
- Paint cloth attributes like bend, stretch, shear, and dent.
- Make 3D objects stiff, viscous, or flowing.
- Use topology-independent constraints to attach buttons, tear cloth, and control movement.
- Simulate cloth-on-cloth, such as a shirt over pants.
- Use self-collisions to achieve highly realistic results without self-interpenetration errors.
- Blend multiple cached simulations together to achieve complex effects.
- Bidirectional interaction with Maya nParticles enables cloth to affect particles, and particles to affect cloth simultaneously.
Hair & Fur
Create realistic fur and hair with natural-looking movement, using integrated Maya Hair and Maya Fur toolsets that feature:
- Presets for Hair styles and Fur types such as pigtail, bun, dreadlocks, grass, sheep, and wet Labrador
- Constraints enabling the simulation of effects, such as ponytails and hair clips
- Paintable attributes for localized effects and fur “combing”
- Dynamic and keyframable controls for motion and collisions
- The ability to use Hair to make a NURBS curve dynamic, for a wide range of effects such as ropes, chains, and dynamic lofted surfaces, as well to create advanced character rigs
3D Rendering & Imaging
Integrated Renderers
In addition to the native Maya software renderer, Maya provides:
- Integrated mental ray® for Maya, with advanced photorealistic features: global illumination, final gathering, caustics, ambient occlusion, blurry reflections and refractions, motion-blurred particles, and image-based lighting
- Five licenses of mental ray® for Maya Batch* and 8 licenses of mental ray® for Maya Satellite
- A vector renderer, to turn 3D content into 2D content for the web or print, with output to Macromedia® Flash® and Adobe® Illustrator® software
- A hardware renderer, to generate high-quality images faster
- The ability to override the viewport with certain third-party or proprietary renderer
*Feature available only with network license.
Rendering Features
Maya nParticles provides an intuitive, efficient workflow for simulating a wide range of complex 3D visual effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust.
- Create pouring liquids and sloshing liquids in containers.
- Self-collision enables nParticles to accumulate within volumes.
- Map shading attributes such as radius, color, opacity, and incandescence over time (or over age, radius, speed).
- Flexible nConstraints provide an extra degree of control without the need to write complex expressions.
- Use geometry instancing to replace particles with objects.
- Bidirectional interaction with Maya nCloth enables particles to affect cloth, and cloth to affect particles simultaneously.
Maya Composite
Simulate and render more realistic atmospheric, explosive, viscous liquid and open water effects using Maya Fluid Effects.
- Select from presets for clouds, smoke, snow, steam, fog, nuclear explosions, flames, lava, mercury, mud, ocean swells, calm oceans, rough seas, rippling ponds, white caps, and foam.
- Use 2D fluids to create distinctive animated textures.
- Integrated with other parts of Maya: for example, a simulating fluid can act as a force on particles; objects can affect a fluid as they move through it, such as a character walking through thick smoke; and boats can create wakes on oceans.
Painting in Maya
Create realistic clothing and other deformable materials using the integrated Maya nCloth toolset.
- Convert polygon mesh models into an nCloth object.
- Paint cloth attributes like bend, stretch, shear, and dent.
- Make 3D objects stiff, viscous, or flowing.
- Use topology-independent constraints to attach buttons, tear cloth, and control movement.
- Simulate cloth-on-cloth, such as a shirt over pants.
- Use self-collisions to achieve highly realistic results without self-interpenetration errors.
- Blend multiple cached simulations together to achieve complex effects.
- Bidirectional interaction with Maya nParticles enables cloth to affect particles, and particles to affect cloth simultaneously.
Toon Shader
Create realistic fur and hair with natural-looking movement, using integrated Maya Hair and Maya Fur toolsets that feature:
- Presets for Hair styles and Fur types such as pigtail, bun, dreadlocks, grass, sheep, and wet Labrador
- Constraints enabling the simulation of effects, such as ponytails and hair clips
- Paintable attributes for localized effects and fur “combing”
- Dynamic and keyframable controls for motion and collisions
- The ability to use Hair to make a NURBS curve dynamic, for a wide range of effects such as ropes, chains, and dynamic lofted surfaces, as well to create advanced character rigs
Professional Camera Tracking
- See how Autodesk MatchMover is used to apply 2D tracking to some real footage and bring it in to Maya and lock in a CG element.
- Extract accurate 3D camera and motion data from live action video and film sequences and insert CG elements seamlessly into a scene using Autodesk® MatchMover™ software.
- Push-Button Matchmoving provides advanced automatic 3D tracking; this easy-to-use feature can be used with supervised tracking to handle complex shots.
- Precision manual controls enable you to create a unique 3D reference system for your camera and 3D content.
- Advanced workflows can be based on filtering and fine tuning of tracking parameters, tracking from multiple footage and stills, tracking of moving objects, and 3D tracking constrained by motion-control data.
Pipeline Integration
Scripting & API
Maya is an open, highly extensible application; artists, technical directors, and developers can create scripts and write plug-ins to help increase efficiency, customize features, and create competitive differentiation.
- Choose from the artist-friendly Maya Embedded Language (MEL) or the highly-extensible Python® scripting language.
- Write Maya plug-ins and stand-alone applications that run from the Maya command line in C++ or Python.
- Develop new types of Maya objects, including file translators, hardware shaders, surface shapes, manipulators and locators, and scriptable commands.
Learn more about the Maya Scripting and API features in the Developer Center.
2D & 3D Integration
Maya offers streamlined workflows for working with industry-leading 2D paint, vector, and compositing applications.
- Use Render Layers to manage multiple passes a single scene. Renders are prepared for optimal output to the compositor of choice—or Adobe® Photoshop® (PSD) or Adobe® Flash® (SWFT) output—with objects and elements isolated in individual layers.
- Generate and update a compositing tree from within Maya based on the render layers in the scene.
- Create and edit bevels on Adobe® Illustrator® files, while maintaining the ability to update the original.
- Rough-out 3D Paint in Maya and then export textures to Adobe® Photoshop® software for further refinement.
Entertainment Creation Suites Workflow
Access the power of industry-leading 3D animation and modeling technology in one unbeatable software suite. Purchasing a suite saves you up to 35 percent* on the cost of buying all 3 products separately. In addition to Maya, the Autodesk Maya Entertainment Creation Suite offers:
- Autodesk® Mudbox™ software, for fast and intuitive sculpting of highly detailed models
- Autodesk® MotionBuilder® software, to quickly and efficiently create, manipulate, and process large amounts of animation data.
Use Autodesk® FBX® technology to quickly transfer assets between these applications for efficient collaboration.
*International pricing may vary. Savings based upon U.S. MSRP.
Data & Scene Management Tools
As scene complexity continues to increase, Maya provides tools and workflows to more efficiently manage large data sets.
- A powerful dependency graph architecture enables artists to view and edit node relationships.
- Assets and file referencing enable artists to segment scenes for performance and to manage collaborative, iterative workflows. Nodes can be grouped into containers and provided with custom and user-specific views.
- Editable and animatable construction history enables extensive modification of modeled data without the need to rebuild.
- Render Proxy in the mental ray® rendering software enables scene elements to be replaced with a simple, low-resolution mesh: pretranslated data is loaded only when required for rendering.
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