Maya Complete integrates the world's foremost modeling, animation, visual effects, and advanced rendering technologies into one complete workflow solution. That's why film and video artists, game developers, visualization professionals, Web and print designers and -3D enthusiasts everywhere- turn to Maya to take their work to the next level.
User Interface
Artist-friendly
An integrated workflow, intuitive interface, and unique artist-friendly features make it easy to produce stunning 2D and 3D images, lifelike animation, and stunning visual effects with the Maya software. Intuitive brush-based technology such as Maya Artisan, Maya Paint Effects and 3D Paint allow artists to realize their creative expression freely and naturally with a familiar brush-based paradigm.
Efficient
Maya software's patented gesture-based marking menus enable users move efficiently between different areas of the software and perform menu selections much more rapidly than with conventional menus. Options for image viewing and animation playback also make Maya software's user interface convenient and comfortable to use.
Modeling
NURBS
One of the world's most precise curve and surface modeling toolsets with fully editable construction history.
Polygonal Modeling
A full complement of sophisticated polygon modeling tools focused on detailed creation, editing, and texturing of polygonal models. Powerful polygon reduction tools dramatically reduce the size of models while preserving important details.
Sub-Division Surfaces
A distinctive hierarchical approach for local refinement control allows users to begin modeling with a simple object, and selectively generate increasing levels of detail only where needed. Hierarchical navigation and editing tools allow the user to work freely at different levels of detail.
Soft Modification Tool and Deformer
This is just one of many superior tools in Maya software's modeling treasury. It makes manipulating geometry a more intuitive process as it combines selection with manipulation, like sculpting with clay. You can move, scale and rotate a selection and subtly blend changes with surrounding geometry. When used in Deformer mode, the software creates an "object history" that can be edited and animated, for example, the "bug under a rug" effect.
Animation
General Animation
A broad range of specialized tools for keyframe and procedural animation. Movement can be defined manually via keyframing, automated using mathematical or logical expressions, or driven by the value of other attributes. For example, the rotation of an elbow could drive a bulging muscle.
Forward and Inverse Kinematics (FK and IK)
FK is used for direct control of individual joints in a character's skeleton. IK allows for the manipulation of a series of joints with a single control; the software calculates the movement of the rest of the joints. Three built-in IK solvers reduce time to create high quality character animation. FK/IK blending allows you to blend between animation applied directly to joints and animation controlled through IK chains.
Skinning
Sophisticated skinning methods offer precise control of skin behavior, even in the most challenging areas such as shoulders. Smooth Bind Skinning allows geometry to be connected to skeletons so that the character deforms smoothly as the joints are moved.
The Trax" Animation Editor
Alias continues to introduce tools that advance non-linear animation technology. The TRAX animation editor is the focal point for animation within Maya. Animators have new ways to edit, combine, and repurpose various types of animation data from keyframes to expressions and constraints to motion capture.
Visual Effects
Dynamics
Maya recreates the effects of real-world forces and collisions to produce natural-looking motion. Set characteristics such as mass, friction, gravity and initial movement and Maya simulates the result.
Rigid-Body Dynamics
Realistic high speed simulation of multiple rigid objects, including dynamic constraints such as nails, hinges, barriers, pins, and springs.
Soft-Body Dynamics
- Accurate and rapid simulation of flexible objects allowing for the easy creation of secondary motion effects like muscle jiggles, floppy hats, etc.
- Powerful spring architecture offers precise control of any flexible surface down to the individual springs.
Particles
- Particles are used to simulate natural phenomena such as gases, smoke, dust, snow, rain and fire. Apply forces such as gravity, wind and turbulence that affect particle movement.
- Intuitive, interactive control over particles, fields and emitters.
- Library of ready made effects such as fire, shatter, fireworks and lightning.
- Deformers on particles are particularly useful for creating simulations that defy physical reality-such as a wisp of smoke coiling around a character. Most deformers - including lattices, clusters and non-linears - can be used on particles, providing new levels of control over particle simulations.
Rendering
Hardware Renderer
Quickly generate images for pre-visualization and broadcast quality final output. With interactive high quality hardware rendering, you'll see representations of your work in the scene views as you build and modify them. Hardware plug-in shaders, including cgFX, are supported and you can visualize color per vertex or per pixel effects.
Hardware rendering generates high-quality images significantly faster using the power of next-generation graphics cards and can be used from the Maya user interface or the command line.
Note:
Hardware rendering requires specific graphics cards, please see alias.com/qual_charts for more details.
Mental Ray for Maya
As one of its standard renderers, mental ray for Maya offers advanced rendering innovations from mental images' mental ray rendering technology. Installed automatically with Maya within a unified rendering workflow, mental ray for Maya offers physically accurate, photo-realistic rendering options such as global illumination, caustics and ultra accurate lighting calculations.
Programing
Maya API/SDK
The key that unlocks the power of the Maya software architecture for programmers and technical directors.
- The Maya API is written in object oriented C++
- Existing data such as geometry, lights, shaders, transforms, scene hierarchy and dependency graph nodes can be queried and modified
- Access to high level polygon operations
- New objects such as new light and shader types available to the renderers can be created
- Can be used to create custom model views and editors
- Manipulator functionality can be extended and new manipulators created
- Access to OpenGL calls for overriding the drawing of the mesh in the Maya viewport with per pixel/vertex hardware shaders
- Comprehensive node/attribute locking callback mechanism
- Callbacks for file based operations such as pre file open, pre file save, pre file reference
- Attach outside renderers to Maya via the open rendering interface
MEL
Repetitive tasks can be automated with drag-and-drop simplicity due to the Maya Embedded Language (MEL). MEL can also be used to rebuild the user interface to create artist-friendly access to powerful low-level data, and to execute MEL commands in the embedded browser.
- Maya Embedded Language offers full scripting of any Maya software feature - everything can be accessed
- Artists and technical directors can easily create custom windows and scripts or reconfigure the Maya user interface to make a completely new custom application
- Because MEL scripts are recognized by the embedded web browser, MEL commands can be issued from an HTML page