Autodesk Maya 2009 Review
 Autodesk Maya 2009 Maya dominates with the release of nParticles and improved modelling, animation and rendering. By Mike de la Flor |
Maya users need not worry as Autodesk takes Maya’s continued development seriously. In its second major release since being acquired by Autodesk, Maya 2009 ships with much improved modelling, animation, rendering and compositing. In an effort to improve Maya’s core modelling tools Soft Selection has been greatly enhanced to manage dense meshes, symmetrical modelling is now available for the Move, Scale, and Rotate tools, and a new Tweak tool makes fast editing possible. To make UV editing easier Maya 2009 features a new Unfold and Relax tool that allows modellers to interactively unfold UVs. Though these are welcomed improvements Maya still needs to catch up to the modelling tools found in applications like modo and Silo. One area where Maya cannot be topped is in animation. Making its debut in Maya 8.5 the revolutionary Nucleus nCloth broke new ground with particle solvers that are aware or each other and can influence each other producing stable, fast simulation with fluid motion, and realistic self-collision. Now Maya 2009 ships with the next installation of the Nucleus family - nParticles. For ease of use and hyper-realism in cloth and particle simulations Maya cannot be beat. |
 Maya 2009 debutes nParticles, the next generation of the Nucleus family. Also in this release better modelling, improved rendering and an update to mental ray 3.7. |
Additional animation enhancements in this release include multi-threaded Fluid Effects, improved controls and new muscle types in Maya Muscle, and Motionbuilder-like animation layers that make it possible to edit animation non-destructively. A new render pass system provides artists with more compositing ptions and integrates better with Toxik. Also new in Maya 2009 is support for active, checkerboard, and anaglyph stereoscopic renders. And the obligatory mental ray update provides significant performance improvements. Maya’s animation tools, specially its Nucleus nCloth and nParticles, are unmatched in the industry making Maya the solution for professional animation. Continued multi-threading of different modules along with improve modelling and rendering make Maya 2009 worth the upgrade price.
Price: Maya Complete $1995, Maya Unlimited $4995, upgrades start at $895 Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars Manufacturer: Autodesk, www.autodesk.com Pros
Cons
System Requirement Software
The 64-bit version of Maya 2009 software is supported on any of the following operating systems:
These web browsers are supported for Autodesk Maya 2009:
Hardware At a minimum, the 32-bit version of Maya 2009 software requires a system with the following hardware:
At a minimum, the 64-bit version of Maya 2009 software requires a system with the following hardware:
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mm… luv it ))