PIXEL ART: Powerfull AutoDesk Maya

Create engaging and lifelike digital images, realistic animations, and extraordinary visual effects with Maya 3d modeling, animation, effects and rendering software. Whether you are a film or video artist, game developer, graphic artist, digital publishing professional, or 3d enthusiast, Maya 2008 helps you realize your creative ideas. Complete Complex Modeling Tasks Faster Maya2008 provides new and enhanced tools for both the high-level manipulation and componentlevel editing of polygon models. Redesigned support for Smooth Mesh previewing and workflows lets you create and edit smoothed meshes more efficiently. There are also a number of new and enhanced features that streamline other modeling| workflows: new tools that facilitate fast, precise shaping and forming of models, and new selection management features. The result is increased modeling efficiency that enhances your productivity as you create the highly detailed characters and environments demanded by today’s game, film, and video productions.

Maya 2008 KEY

New and Enhanced Modeling Tools and Workflows

Maya 2008 introduces considerable performance improvements and a number of new features that will make modeling workflows significantly more efficient.

Maya Smooth Mesh workflow, for instance, has been dramatically streamlined: you can now preview a smoothed mesh while editing the mesh cage—with superb performance, particularly on multiprocessor workstations. Other much-requested workflow enhancements include the ability to position objects along a curve, replace objects within a scene, and convert instances to objects. Additionally, a new Slide Edge feature—as well as significant enhancements to Booleans, Bevel, Bridge, Reduce, and other tools—lets you model more efficiently. Maya 2008 also delivers two new selection management features: X-Ray selection highlighting and the ability to “pick walk” edge loops.

Faster, More Accurate Viewport/Hardware.

Rendering Interactive previews are several steps closer to reality now that the Maya hardware rendering engine supports layered textures, multiple UV sets, negative lighting, and object space normal maps. Not only does this improve preview fidelity when using the High Quality renderer in the interactive viewport, it allows a greater range of effects to be rendered to final output using the Maya Hardware renderer. Moreover, accelerated draw and selection performance, together with more efficient updating of UI elements, facilitates level editing and speeds workflows.

Support for DirectX HLSL Shaders.
Maya 2008 lets you effectively create and display sophisticated looks for content destined for next generation game consoles.In particular, native support for DirectX HLSL shaders (in addition to the existing CgFX support) lets you work with assets in the viewport and see them as they will be seen on the target console.

Non-Destructive Skin Editing.

Animators/Animation TDs usually find it necessary to work iteratively on their rigged characters. Maya 2008 now streamlines iterative skinning workflows by enabling you to modify the skeleton of a bound character, without having to rebind it after: thus, preserving any work done after the skeleton was bound. This process is supported through new tools for inserting, moving, deleting, connecting, and disconnecting joints on a bound skeleton, as well as support for multiple bind poses.

API Enhancements.
Game developers can now more easily wrns for Maya using the new API for hardware shaders. This API includes native support for OpenGL® and DirectX shaders, built in support for shader parameters, and direct access to the Maya internal rendering cache. Also, a new constraints API lets plug-in developers write their own animation constraint nodes and commands derived from the underlying Maya constraint node and command architecture. This makes it easier to write custom constraints and have them interact with the rest of Maya in a manner similar to built-in constraints.

mental ray 3.6 Core.
Maya 2008 uses the latest mental ray 3.6 core, a release which boasts dramatic performance improvements in the translation of polygon meshes and instances for rendering, as well as for IPR (Interactive Photorealistic Rendering) start-up. Additionally, particle types previously supported only in the Maya Hardware renderer can now be rendered in mental ray, eliminating the need to combine outputs from multiple renderers.

Expanded Platform Support.

Support for Windows Vista has been added, enabling you to take advantage of the performance capabilities of this recent technology. Maya supports more platforms and operating systems than any other 3d graphics and animation package in the entertainment industry.