Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/57248
Review n n n n By GEORGE MAESTRI Modeling•Animation Maya 2012 I n the past few years, Autodesk has been revising the way it releases software. With Maya 2009 and 3ds Max 2009, the company went to yearly releases. This makes it easier to incorporate the latest changes, but it adds fewer features to each release, as well. Maya 2012 comes to the market with a number of new features, most centering on character animation and dynamics. Animators will be happy with this new release of the software. HumanIK has been expanded and is much easier to use. At the core of this new functionality are two new windows in the HumanIK tool kit. The Character Controls window is a sweet way to select and manipulate a rig. The Characterization is a slick way to map a skeleton to a Human- IK rig. Combined with the new skinning features found in Maya 2011, HumanIK gives you a fast and easy way to create a character rig. The connection to MotionBuilder has been improved through the enhanced HumanIK tools; rigs created in HumanIK can now be sent directly to MotionBuilder. Maya 2012 has incorporated a number of improvements to View- port 2.0. This feature showed promise in previous versions in that it allowed for a fairly realistic viewport render of a scene, complete with accurate textures and lighting. The update finally takes Viewport 2.0 beyond just visual reference. Most of the common manipulators and tools are now available, so you can actually work in a realistically ren- dered viewport. The update also enables advanced rendering effects, such as ambient occlusion and motion blur, to be previewed, thereby eliminating time-consuming render passes. To get the most out of this feature, you will need a fairly robust graphics card, such as an Nvidia Quadro workstation-class card. Other rendering enhancements include the ability to create render- pass nodes using Hypershade and to view the output of those passes di- rectly in Render View. You also can create basic composites using render passes and standard Maya shading utility nodes, which can be nice for quick composites without exporting to an external application. With this new release, Autodesk has started bundling applications into suites. At the standard price of $3495, Maya now includes Maya Composite (formerly Toxik) and MatchMover. The $4995 Standard Suite adds MotionBuilder for animation and Mudbox for digital sculpting. The $6495 Premium suite adds Softimage, which offers additional special effects and animation tools. Interoperability between these applications has been improved. Sending objects to MotionBuilder and Mudbox is as simple as a single click. Special effects artists will be Maya 2012 $3495 (standard) Autodesk www.autodesk.com Maya's new HumanIK features give users an easy way to create rigs for human-like characters. happy with the tighter Softimage integration, which is part of the new suites. Maya now includes a one-click workflow that lets you transfer data between Maya and Softimage. This can be useful for those who use advanced Softimage features, like ICE particle effects or Face Robot for character animation. Maya's nDynamics also has seen a number of improvements. A num- ber of preset effects, called Effects Assets, have been added to provide a good starting framework for a number of common fire and fluid effects. This can make working with these complex objects much easier and faster. Liquids now have multiple simulation methods, allowing you to select different solvers for different effects. There are also new tools to determine how fluids interact with air, as well as the ability to create falling mist. The Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) plug-in for Maya from Pixelux Entertainment is included. The plug-in helps you create high- ly realistic shatter, destruction, and deformation simulations that can include multiple interacting materials. The DMM plug-in available with Maya will solve as many as 1500 tetrahedrals, making it useful for small scenes. For bigger shots, you'll have to upgrade to the full version of the software. Maya 2012 is a solid release and particularly useful for those work- ing in the areas of character animation and special effects. The new HumanIK is particularly valuable for those moving between Maya and MotionBuilder, and is useful for anyone using motion capture. The new effects features are another big reason to upgrade to this re- lease. Finally, improved integration makes it much easier to get Maya to play along with the many other Autodesk products. n February/March 2012 45