Autodesk Maya commonly shortened to Maya, is a 3D computer graphics software that runs on Windows, OS X and Linux & ubuntu originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation (formerly Alias|Wavefront) and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc. It is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video games, animated film, TV series, or visual effects. Autodesk Maya is a powerful application which is used to create amazing environments, animations and other effects. If you are having trouble with finding good designing software then Autodesk Maya is your savior of the day. This Software is specially designed for the professionals as there are many such features which can only be handled by the experts. And at the moment Autodesk Maya is the one and only solution for all these featuresMaya is an application used to generate 3D assets for use in film, television, game development and architecture. The software was initially released for the IRIX operating system. However, this support was discontinued in August 2006 after the release of version 6.5. Maya was available in both "Complete" and "Unlimited" editions until August 2008, when it was turned into a single suite.
Users define a virtual workspace (scene) to implement and edit media of a particular project. Scenes can be saved in a variety of formats, the default being .mb (Maya Binary). Maya exposes a node graph architecture. Scene elements are node-based, each node having its own attributes and customization. As a result, the visual representation of a scene is based entirely on a network of interconnecting nodes, depending on each other's information. For the convenience of viewing these networks, there is a dependency and a directed acyclic graph.
Users who are students, teachers (or veterans or unemployed in USA markets) can download a full educational version from the Autodesk Education community. The versions available at the community are only licensed for non commercial use (once activated with the product license) and some products create watermarks on output renders. The software comes with a full 36 month license. Once it expires, users can log in to the community to request a new 36 months license and download the latest Autodesk product.
Components
Since its consolidation from two distinct packages, Maya and later contain all the features of the now defunct Unlimited suites.
- Fluid Effects
- A realistic fluid simulator based on simplified, incompressible Navier–Stokes equations for simulating non-elastic fluids was added in Maya 4.5. It is effective for smoke, fire, clouds and explosions, as well as many thick fluid effects such as water, magma or mud.
- Bifröst
- Bifröst is a computational fluid dynamics framework based on fluid-implicit particle simulation. It is available in Maya 2015 and later, following the acquisition of Naiad fluid simulation technology from Exotic Matter. Bifröst allows liquids to be modelled realistically, including details such as foam, waves and droplets.
- Classic Cloth
- A dynamic cloth simulation tool set utilizing a planar pattern based workflow inspired by the process used to design real world garment patterns. In modern productions, the Maya Cloth module has been largely replaced by the faster, more flexible nCloth system introduced in version 8.5. Prior to this, third party plugins, most notably Syflex, were generally preferred for their superior performance, simulation stability and their polygon modeling based workflow already familiar to 3D artists.
- Fur
- Fur simulation designed for large area coverage of short hairs and hair-like materials. It can be used to simulate short fur-like objects, such as grass, carpet, etc. In contrast to Maya Hair, the Fur module makes no attempt to prevent hair-to-hair collisions. Hairs are also incapable of reacting dynamically to physical forces on a per hair basis. Physics-like effects are achieved through nearby fur effectors that approximate the effect of physical forces averaged over nearby follicles.
- nHair
- Hair simulator capable of simulating dynamic forces acting on long hair and per-hair collisions. Often used to simulate computationally complex human hair styles including pony tails, perms and braids. The simulation utilizes NURBS curves as a base which are then used as strokes for Paint Effects brushes thereby giving the curves a render time surface-like representation that can interact with light and shadow. A simulation on the curves alone for other, non-hair purposes (such as flexible tubing, cables, ropes, etc.) is often known simply as Dynamic Curves.
- Maya Live
- A set of motion tracking tools for CG matching to clean plate footage. It has been largely obsoleted by MatchMover.
- nCloth
- Added in version 8.5, nCloth is the first implementation of Maya Nucleus, Autodesk's simulation framework. nCloth provides artist with detailed control of cloth and material simulations. Compared to its predecessor Maya Cloth, nCloth is a faster, more flexible and more robust simulation framework.
- nParticle
- Added in version 2009, nParticle is addendum to Maya Nucleus toolset. nParticle is for simulating a wide range of complex 3D effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust. nParticles are more flexible than Maya's previous particle system in that nParticles may be used to simulate viscous fluids as well as supporting true particle-to-particle collisions. nParticles also interact with the rest of the Nucleus simulation framework without the need for costly work-arounds and custom scripting.
- MatchMover
- Added to Maya 2010, this enables compositing of CGI elements with motion data from video and film sequences, a process known as Match moving or camera tracking. This is an external program but is shipped with Maya.
- Composite
- Added to Maya 2010, this was earlier sold as Autodesk Toxik. This is an external program but is shipped with Maya.
- Camera Sequencer
- Added in Autodesk Maya 2011, Camera Sequencer is used to layout multiple camera shots and manage them in one animation sequence.
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