Since the acquisition of Alias by Autodesk in 2006, the 3D industry has been anxiously anticipating a dramatic overhaul of the Maya software. The subsequent versions, Maya 8 and 8.5, showed adequate improvement and a few significant new features, such as 64 bit support and python integration, however they did not live up to most users raised expectations. Thanks to CGChannel and Autodesk, I received a copy of the recently announced Maya 2008. Although it's not the grand transformation that we've all been hoping for, it once again introduces more powerful, streamlined features that most users will benefit from.

So whats new?
Maya 2008 brings a great number of new features and improvements over the current tools for both the complete and unlimited editions. In my opinion, the two biggest areas of improvement are polygon/subdivision modeling and character rigging. The rendering pipeline also received notable upgrades in this version. Overall I saw improved stability, but to my disappointment, it seems as though the animation toolset received little attention since the previous version of Maya.
The Maya Mesh Smooth workflow has been dramatically streamlined: users can now preview a smoothed mesh while editing the mesh cage. Variable creasing is now supported on vertices as well as edges, providing greater control over the resulting surface shape.

First Impressions:
The first thing you might notice is ViewCube, the new navigation helper in the top right corner of the perspective viewport. Besides the design change, there are more preset angles available. Once set, you now have the option to rotate the camera, all without leaving the perspective viewport. Otherwise, the overall layout and interface have not noticeably changed.

Improvements in Modeling:
Probably the most impressive addition to Maya 2008 is the Smooth Mesh Preview. With this feature, polygon objects become an amalgamation of Maya's polygon smooth proxy mode and a subdivision surface. When the polygon object is selected, you can now quickly raise or lower the resolution to one, two, or three levels of smoothness by simply pressing the 1 , 2 or 3 keys on the keyboard. For those that require higher levels of detail, additional subdivisions are available by using the Page Up or Page Down hot keys. Furthermore, you can model both the base cage or the result object, no matter the resolution, without adding a single deformer. In summary, it pretty much eliminates the necessity of the "smooth" deformer. This feature alone is a tremendous time saver, either for personal use or if your studio's pipeline utilizes Maya as its modeling package.

The second greatest advancement that works harmoniously with the new Smooth Mesh Preview option is the Crease Tool. Stored under Polygon (mesh) tools, this handy feature allows you to crease edges or vertices in real-time, without modifying the topology. Better yet, it couldn't be easier to use. Simply select one or more vertices and/or edges in the cage of your model and middle mouse dial the crease as much as you want.

Another related feature is the Reduce option. It keeps the topology in quads rather then converting it into triangles, as it did in previous versions. I was impressed by the clean, accurate results. This is very useful for creating lower resolution representations of your model. I predict it will be especially helpful for riggers or those that are concerned with a limited polygon count. This feature also allows you to cache the result and playback reduced geometry at high speeds, without deleting history.

Other notable improvements related to modeling include: the Slide Edge Tool, which lets you easily select and slide edges on polygonal surfaces, pickwalking for edgeloops and components, and an improved Polygon Bevel Tool, which now carefully handles UV assignments. There are also several new hot keys for the Artisan painting tool. If you hold the Ctrl key while painting, it will alternate the tool's action from Add to Remove. Likewise, holding the Shift key while painting will change the action to Smooth. These may be minor additions, but they improve a users productivity and speed, and we all know that in this industry, time is money.

The one modeling feature I was hoping would debut in Maya 2008 is a true sculpting toolset. I can only hope for better next time based on Autodesk's recent acquisition of Mudbox.

Improvements in Modeling:
Probably the most impressive addition to Maya 2008 is the Smooth Mesh Preview. With this feature, polygon objects become an amalgamation of Maya's polygon smooth proxy mode and a subdivision surface. When the polygon object is selected, you can now quickly raise or lower the resolution to one, two, or three levels of smoothness by simply pressing the 1 , 2 or 3 keys on the keyboard. For those that require higher levels of detail, additional subdivisions are available by using the Page Up or Page Down hot keys. Furthermore, you can model both the base cage or the result object, no matter the resolution, without adding a single deformer. In summary, it pretty much eliminates the necessity of the "smooth" deformer. This feature alone is a tremendous time saver, either for personal use or if your studio's pipeline utilizes Maya as its modeling package.

The second greatest advancement that works harmoniously with the new Smooth Mesh Preview option is the Crease Tool. Stored under Polygon (mesh) tools, this handy feature allows you to crease edges or vertices in real-time, without modifying the topology. Better yet, it couldn't be easier to use. Simply select one or more vertices and/or edges in the cage of your model and middle mouse dial the crease as much as you want.

Another related feature is the Reduce option. It keeps the topology in quads rather then converting it into triangles, as it did in previous versions. I was impressed by the clean, accurate results. This is very useful for creating lower resolution representations of your model. I predict it will be especially helpful for riggers or those that are concerned with a limited polygon count. This feature also allows you to cache the result and playback reduced geometry at high speeds, without deleting history.

Other notable improvements related to modeling include: the Slide Edge Tool, which lets you easily select and slide edges on polygonal surfaces, pickwalking for edgeloops and components, and an improved Polygon Bevel Tool, which now carefully handles UV assignments. There are also several new hot keys for the Artisan painting tool. If you hold the Ctrl key while painting, it will alternate the tool's action from Add to Remove. Likewise, holding the Shift key while painting will change the action to Smooth. These may be minor additions, but they improve a users productivity and speed, and we all know that in this industry, time is money.

The one modeling feature I was hoping would debut in Maya 2008 is a true sculpting toolset. I can only hope for better next time based on Autodesk's recent acquisition of Mudbox.

Improvements in Cloth:
Overall, NCloth did not receive many changes. The major additions are the NConstraint Membership Tool and improvements to Wind Effect. In general, the wind dynamic behaves much more naturally. I also noticed a new feature that creates a fake wind-blocking effect.

Improvements in Rendering:
The rendering toolset received several updates as well. You can now preview and render normal maps in object space. Rendering hardware particles in mental ray is also now available, even with motion blur. Maya 2008 also lets you convert your textures to openEXR. In doing this, mental ray only loads a portion of the textures necessary for the render, allowing you to render texture-heavy scenes much faster.

Another new feature converts Maya hair into native mental ray hair by default. There are many new mental ray shaders available, including the new material_x shader which lets you simulate architectural materials. In addition, native mental ray light linking is supported so you no longer have to worry about individual light linking per shader. IPR rendering also received great improvements, especially in the speed of its render time.

Improvements in API:
The most noticeable change is the upgrade of Python Interpreter to version 2.5. I was glad to find new documentation about PyQT and specifically getting QT to run in Maya, which was included in the Maya 2008 devkit. For those who are unfamiliar, QT is a cross-platform interface framework used for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) which most studios use extensively.

I also discovered new classes added to OpenMayaAPI, such as hardware shading and proxy constraint API, as well as support for the threading of non-Maya API code and an octree-based closest-point-to-mesh algorithm.


Final Thoughts:
Maya 2008 is a solid release with many streamlined improvements in the modeling, rigging and rendering toolsets. This is especially great if you are using Maya in a small company to handle the majority of your pipeline. Many of the added features should have been present in earlier versions, so with this release I believe it would be fair to say that Maya is playing catch-up to its biggest competitors, rather then setting industry standards as it once did. Hopefully the next version will pay greater attention to the animation tools, as I believe it's the most prominent reason that Maya is losing its users to XSI. With the growing competition nipping at its heels, Autodesk needs to rise to the challenge and deliver a truly revolutionized product in 2009.

Labels: autodesk maya 2008, maya 2008