SAN FRANCISCO — Autodesk (www.autodesk.com) has launched Maya 2019, the latest version of its 3D animation, modeling, simulation and rendering software. The new release features significant updates to help artists achieve their creative vision within a faster, more interactive and visually engaging working environment.
Maya 2019 addresses the key challenges artists face throughout production, providing faster animation playback to reduce the need for playblasts, higher quality 3D previews with Autodesk Arnold updates in viewport 2.0, improved pipeline integration with more flexible development environment support, and performance improvements that most Maya artists will notice in their daily work.
“The new features in Maya 2019 give artists a more responsive working environment so they feel more creatively engaged and can iterate faster to produce better quality,” explains Chris Vienneau, senior director of media & entertainment products at Autodesk. “Cached playback is going to reduce the need for playblasts by animators, and Arnold updates take the guesswork out of the equation, by making viewport previews closer to the final Arnold render.”
Arnold upgrades improve realtime previews in viewport 2.0, allowing artists to preview higher quality results that are closer to the final Arnold render for better creativity and less wasted time. New performance and stability upgrades help improve daily productivity in a range of areas that most artists will notice in their daily work. New filters within the graph editor make it easier to work with motion capture data, including the Butterworth filter and the key reducer to help refine animation curves.
Rigging has been improved with new updates that help make the work of riggers and character TDs easier, including the ability to hide sets from the outliner to streamline scenes, improvements to the bake deformer tool and new methods for saving deformer weights to more easily script rig creation.
Pipeline integration has also been improved, making it easier for pipeline and tool developers to create, customize and integrate into production pipelines.
For those looking to learn Maya, sample rigged and animated characters are provided, making it easy for students to learn and quickly get started animating.
Maya 2019 is available as a standalone subscription or with a collection of end-to-end creative tools within the Autodesk Media & Entertainment Collection.