Tips for 3D Artists - What to Expect from Autodesk's New Maya 2019

Autodesk, as the largest platform with software solutions for architects, graphic designers, interior designers, engineers, 3D animators, and 3D visualizers – in one word, 3D artists – continues to surprise all art enthusiasts with new versions of their well-known programs. Things are even better in 2019!

Back in the day, each new version or update of Maya software brought lots of benefits and advancements. Autodesk's development team once again invested lots of efforts to improve all the features of this commonly used modeling, simulation, animation, and rendering software based on the users’ and the market's demand.

Things have changed a lot if we compare the first version of Autodesk's Maya 2008 with the latest one, but the latest version of Autodesk's Maya 2019 is much better than Autodesk's Maya 2018, too.

Let's explore new features and tools!

New features in Maya 2019

We have tested the latest version of Maya 2019, and you should try it too! You should download the trial version and see for yourself. When it's about Autodesk's Maya, things might appear too good to be true!

The latest version of Maya has enhancements in almost all fields, including performance, animation, character animation, rendering and shading, motion graphic, as well as modeling.

PERFORMANCE

It's clear that all the processes in Maya 2019 are faster than ever. Moreover, the latest version of Maya offers plenty of improvements related to performance.

Loading files in Viewport 2.0, selecting or deselecting objects, and pre-selection on dense meshes are only some of the processes that are faster in Maya 2019. Besides, snapping is improved too.

Cached Playback – Thanks to this improvement, users will be able to see changes made to animation, but without creating a Playblast. Depending on the type of modifications and the size of the scene, users can now see all the changes faster because Cached Playback automatically caches the scenes.

Evaluation Toolkit – Evaluation Toolkit is also improved with a few new sections, including a Debugging section, Cycle clusters section, Custom Evaluators section, and Modes section. Each new section will facilitate your work and speed up the processes.

New Profiler view options – Thanks to this option, organizing the Profiler information of a complex scene has never been simpler. Some of the new options are Show Critical path, Collapse Selected events, including Collapse Selected events repetition, and Expand Selected events, including Expand Selected events repetition.

ANIMATION

New Graph Editor Filters – The graph Editor Curve menu is enriched with two new features: The Butterworth and Key Reducer filters.

Time Editor Suspend Refresh – Using the latest version of Maya, users will never have issues related to fine-tuning while working with large scenes. The Real Time Refresh option allows faster scene updating in real time.

Graph Editor Auto Frame – Options Auto Frame Both Axes and Auto Frame Time included in the latest version of Maya allow users to center the Graph View in both the time and value axes.

CHARACTER ANIMATION

Motion Capture samples – The Content Browser of the latest Maya includes new motion capture skeletons.

Deformer Advances – Thanks to these improvements, users can now color the skeletons. Other improvements related to Deformer are Bake Deformer Tool, Skin menu, Bake deformers on a character, as well as new wire deformer options such as Wire Tool and GPU-supported deformers.

RENDERING AND SHADING

Maya is a commonly used rendering software in various industries, and that's why the software developers have improved all aspects of 3D animation in Maya 2019.

Render Setup – This tool provides users with the option of simultaneously setting multiple layers for batching, as well as the ability to control automatically included lights.

Arnold viewport rendering – The latest version of Maya 2019 provided users with the ability to render Arnold region directly using the Maya viewpoint. Some of the available options are Display of AOVs, Debug Shading, Isolate Selected, and Region Rendering.

Besides, rendering and shading are improved with the Color Management option, as well as a better experience of loading and browsing materials and textures.

MOTION GRAPHICS

We have noticed that there are a lot of new features and options related to motion graphics. MASH node enhancements will amaze you, but MASH-based and type-based smart presets will facilitate all the processes.

MASH node improvements – Options like Dynamics, Channel Randomizer, ID, Instancer, Offset, Placer, and Repro aren't new, but each feature is improved.

Smart Presets – MASH-based features such as Explode this Mesh, Instant Forest, Fix Intersections or Pile of Stuff will automatically improve mash-based motion graphic, and users will be able to use commonly used effects faster.

On the other hand, Maya 2019 allows storing of type based presets such as Copy Type Style, Decode, Drop, Float Up, Jump Forward, Rotate in X or Y, Scale in, and Slide in, in the Content Browser folder.

MODELING

Although there aren’t a lot of new features related to 3D modeling, those small changes will improve the user experience.

FBX support for Blend Shape target hierarchies – Using the latest version of Maya 2019, users will be able to import and export FBX object while automatically including the whole hierarchy of blend shape objects.

UV Editor – UV editor is also changed and improved. Some of the improved options are Unpack, Layout UVs Options, as well as command Reset UV Editor UI.