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Copyright © 2002. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved. Additionally, new character animation tools, rigging for bipeds and quadrupeds, blending inverse and forward kinematic animation, simulating hair and fur dynamics, animation mixing, and more have been included in the new version. The product's particle system and accompanying tools have also been redesigned for version 3 to include new scripting options, support for intersecting volumes, new shaders, new emission controls, and several new particle tools. Version 3 ships with an updated cartoon rendering system featuring new materials and advanced controls of shading parameters. The upgrade also offers new tools and productivity improvements for game developers and interactive artists including support for programmable real-time shaders (also supported in the open dotXSI file format). Other features for developers include new and enhanced mesh modeling tools, improved UV texturing tools, and a new API and viewers for developers who want to work directly with the open dotXSI file format in their own products. Version 3 will be available in October of 2002, according to the company, but those that purchase between July 15, 2002 and the shipment date will be allowed to upgrade at no charge. Additionally, customers purchasing by September 15, 2002 will receive a temporary license (expires on November 16, 2002) to Softimage|XSI BatchUniversal, a processing and rendering solution incorporating mental ray version 3. Also shown at SIGGRAPH was a crowd simulation toolkit, which helps artists control the choreography of large groups of animated characters. The tools include a graphical editor for developing hierarchical finite state machines for controlling character actions, interactive previewing and recording of crowd scenes (the resulting animations are editable by the artist), and an IDE and debugger for building custom tools and libraries within the crowd simulation pipeline. Final packaging for the Crowd toolset will be announced shortly. A development kit for PlayStation®2 is planned. Alias|Wavefront Alias|Wavefront showed off its latest version (4.5) of Maya in San Antonio, highlighting several advanced features including new integrated fluid volume and surface simulation, geometry conversion from subdivision surfaces to NURBS, new shaders, API enhancements, and workflow improvements such as notes, annotations, and more. Additionally, the company announced that it will shortly be releasing a free public beta of version 1.5 of its mental ray for Maya rendering solution – a plug-in rendering system based on mental images’ new mental ray 3.1 renderer.
Copyright © 2002. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved. One of the best new features found in Maya Unlimited is the new fluid engine, which integrates the ability to simulate a range of atmospheric, pyrotechnic, and liquid effects. The system includes 2D and 3D fluid dynamics solvers. 2D fluids can either be implemented as a thin volume, a surface, or a heightmap, allowing it to be used in a number of ways, such as simulating the surface of a body of water – an application made even more compelling with the addition of a new ocean shader. With either of the solvers, Artisan can be used to directly paint attributes such as fluid color, density, fuel, velocity, and temperature onto the fluid object to influence the action and appearance of the simulation. The engine provides new volumetric rendering techniques for generating a range of effects from clouds and gasses to water and other liquids to solids such as porous rock. Finally the fluid engine interacts with other Maya objects – for example, a model moving through the fluid volume actually affects the simulation, displacing fluid, causing turbulence, and so on. Also in Maya Unlimited 4.5 come additional enhancements to the fur system. These include a library of fur presets for ease of use and shortened learning curve, new fur UV tools, lighting controls, and better control over fur interactions with other geometry and during compositing operations. Maya Complete and Unlimited users alike will benefit from new workflow enhancements in Maya 4.5, including new snapping and alignment tools, new shelves (toolbars) and shortcut menus, attribute notes and presets, and annotations. The new version also includes the ability to convert subdivision objects to NURBS objects and back again – letting users select the most appropriate geometry type for their given tasks as needed. New smoothing and proxy modeling and texturing tools will also be a boon to users. Version 4.5 delivers a number of other enhancements to the animation, dynamics, and rendering sub-systems. One rendering feature in particular, however, will likely catch many artists’ eyes - the new ramp shader. The ramp shader allows complete control over object rendering based on polygon vs camera and light orientation, allowing a huge range of customizable effects – from multi-hued surfaces (with color changing depending on which direction you look at the object) to cartoon or specialty shading. Maya Complete is priced at US$1,999 (upgrade $699) in the United States. Maya Unlimited includes all of the features of Complete along with Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Fur, Maya Cloth, and Maya Live. Unlimited is priced at US$6,999 (upgrade for US$999). NewTek
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