Create breathtaking 3D with Autodesk® Maya® 2008 software. This latest release delivers faster, more efficient tools and workflows for creating stunning, high-resolution characters, environments, and character performances. This includes new features for producing high-resolution models and a new, nondestructive editing workflow for character rigging and skinning. Maya 2008 also lets game developers more effectively create and display sophisticated looks for content destined for the next-generation game consoles. Furthermore, Autodesk continues to build on those strengths that make Maya an ideal application around which to establish a digital content-creation pipeline by increasing the software’s extensibility and by continuing to offer support for more platforms than any other 3D package in the entertainment industry.

Key Features and Enhancements

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. The Maya Mesh Smooth 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—can let 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

Truly WYSIWYG interactive previews are several steps closer 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 overall workflows.

Support for DirectX HLSL Shaders

Maya 2008 can let you effectively create and display sophisticated looks for content destined for the 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.

Nondestructive Skin Editing

Animators and animation technical directors 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 write high-performance hardware shading plug-ins 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 rendering cache. Also, a new constraints API can let 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 that boasts dramatic performance improvements in the translation of polygon meshes and instances for rendering, as well as for IPR (Interactive Photorealistic Rendering) startup. 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™ operating system has been added, that enables you to take advantage of the performance capabilities of this recent technology.