Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/14320
n n n n Review ces by averaging them with their neighbors. Skeletons have also seen a nice little update with new joint drawing styles. Tese mimic the standard curve-based handles that many riggers place into rigs as controls. Other nice animation features include a Camera Sequencer, which allows you to set up multiple cameras in a scene and switch be- tween them at specific points in the timeline. Tis allows you to play with multiple camera choreography to choose the best way to ren- der scenes. Te feature also allows import of an EDL from Apple’s Final Cut or any other major video editor to sync up Maya cameras with cuts done in a non-linear editor. As the effects editor refines shots, the shot list can be imported into Maya so the resulting render matches the current cut of a scene. Also Worth Noting For visualizing your scenes within viewports, Maya’s new Viewport 2.0 gives you far more accurate rendering. Tis feature relies on the ever-increasing performance of high-end graphics cards to display attributes such as textures, lighting, and shadows with greater accuracy. For anyone doing rotoscoping work, the 2D Pan/Zoom feature allows you to zoom in on a viewport without changing the camera angle. Instead of zooming the camera into the scene, you simply zoom the viewport itself. Special effects artists also get their share of new features in the product. Maya Fluids includes the ability for fluids to self-attract or self-repulse, which adds to the realism of swirling or expanding fluid effects. Maya’s nParticles get some new capabilities, such as surface tension and viscosity for simulating blobby surfaces and the ability for particles to emit fluids upon collision. For smoke and fire effects, the addition of new attributes that control the internal lighting of a simulation allow for such things as diffuse and ambient lighting, all of which can be previewed in viewports prior to rendering. Finally, a few improvements have been made to rendering, most notably the standardization of Mental Ray versions across Autodesk’s prod- uct line. Maya users can now employ a 3ds Max Mental Ray node to render, for example. Another new interface feature is the totally re- vamped Hypershade window and, after about 20 years, the demise of the Multilister, which first came to life when Maya was just a twinkle in Alias’ eye. Finally, Mac users can now enjoy full support for Backburner network render- ing on OS X. Te new interface alone makes this update a must-have for anyone using Maya. Te ad- ditional features also make it very compelling. Te new character rigging tools particularly stand out, but the modeling and special effects tools are quite nice to have, too. Add in a speed boost for OS X users and some other nice little tweaks, and you have a very solid release for those using Maya on any platform. n George Maestri is a contributing editor for Computer Graphics World and president/CEO of RubberBug animation studio. He also teaches Maya for Lynda.com. He can be reached at maestri@rubberbug.com. 78 July 2010