Maya Station

Autodesk Maya 2014 has been announced

Here are some quick links for all your Maya 2014 details.

What's New | Documentation | SDK Documentation | Release Notes | System Requirements

 

Around the Corner: a new M&E developer blog

There is a new blog in town!  Around the Corner, is a blog dedicated to
plug-in developers working with Maya, MotionBuilder, FBX and any other
technology that strikes our fancy at the moment of blogging.

This blog is authored by Cyrille Fauvel and me (Kristine Middlemiss, I am
sad to say I am departing this blog :()

To tell you a little about our selves we are 2/6’s of the Media & Entertainment worldwide team of API gurus providing technical services through the Autodesk Developer Network.

When either of us comes across some information on programming for Autodesk
technologies that we think you’ll be interested in, then you can expect it to
be posted here. That will be technical (how-to) solutions derived from
answering questions from ADN partners and from Autodesk forum users, sample
projects, white papers screencasts, conference presentation material, and other
information derived from our work. This blog is a vehicle to put lots of up to
date information in one place so you can easily find what you need to solve
your programming problems.

Enjoy!

Kristine

Maya 2013 has been released

Just wanted to make sure all our subscription customers are aware that Maya 2013 has been released.  You should now be able to see the latest downloads from your subscription page.

The system requirements page has also been updated for Maya 2013 so please make sure you check those out.

More information about the latest features can be found at autodesk.com/maya or you can also check out Cory’s Mayalicious blog over at the area which goes into greater details about the release.

For the folks that simply want to take the new release for a spin.  You can download the 30 day trial from our site.

 

Autodesk Maya 2012 Service Pack 2 & Subscription Advantage Pack Service Pack 1

Please be aware that Service Pack 2 for Autodesk® Maya® 2012 is now available to all Maya 2012 customers. The Service Pack 2 for Autodesk Maya 2012 addresses certain stability and performance issues identified by Maya 2012 customers. Click here to learn more about, and download the Service Pack 2 for Autodesk Maya 2012.  We also released Service Pack 1 for Autodesk® Maya® 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack customers and this is available to all subscription customers with valid Maya 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack entitlement. Please visit the Subscription Center to learn more about, and download the Service Pack 1 for Autodesk Maya 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack.

The two packages contain the same fixes and the only difference is that the Adantage Pack contains the extra features which where made available back in September 2011.

Much work went into release in an effort get better performance from the application.  Here is a list of all the fixes.

MAYA‐100 Add editable location field in the File Browser
MAYA‐101 Maya doesn't always switch between single/multi pane views
MAYA‐188/7273 Merge vertices pops users out of translate mode
MAYA‐206/7797 Graph Editor updating while hidden
MAYA‐548 Dope Sheet Editor memory usage
MAYA‐874 Split Polygon Tool and Interactive Split Tool for grouped polygon object issues
MAYA‐1287 Inconsistent hotbox ‐displayCenterOnly behavior
MAYA‐1618/8988 Hotbox menus appear in inconsistent positions with multi‐monitor setups
MAYA‐1633 mental ray: light map baking issue with normal maps
MAYA‐1673 GUI/QT/Attribute Editor slowing down workflow
MAYA‐1799 Import window creates namespace except when file is dropped into viewport
MAYA‐1801/7660 Channel Box mirroring Attribute Editor width
MAYA‐1944 Outliner scroll bar is the wrong color and is very hard to see
MAYA‐2155 Improve performance of window –ex query
MAYA‐2350 Performance issue in importing large mesh
MAYA‐2657 Import Objects from Multi‐level Reference causes crash
MAYA‐2909 Referenced MEL commands lost after Import
MAYA‐3109 Some icons in UV Texture Editor are not able to open up option windows
MAYA‐3169 Interactive split doesn't let you add a single vertex to an edge
MAYA‐4427 Hypershade performance issue
MAYA‐4444 MFnMesh::setFaceVertexNormals() performance issue with mesh data
MAYA‐4476 Issue with Copy and Paste from Script Editor into Thunderbird
MAYA‐4481/7615 Move tool (and others) hang mid‐move, then can’t undo
MAYA‐4503 Collapsed marking menus with ATI Radeon 5870 graphics card
MAYA‐4515 Qt include files not included in the runTime/include directory tree
MAYA‐6101/8519 Marking menus don't work in tear off panels
MAYA‐6137/8000 Reinstate workflow using CTRL to activate window
MAYA‐6138/7512 Editing keys in Graph Editor destroys undo queue
MAYA‐6331 MItMeshPolygon::getUVArea() returns last calculated value on mesh with tweaks
MAYA‐6443 Issue with sub‐frame caching for negative frames
MAYA‐6560 Python API: MDGMessage.addPreConnectionCallback() causes crash
MAYA‐6753 Turtle not rendering in command line
MAYA‐6772 Referencing in an object causes crash
MAYA‐6776/7720 TskinPercentCmd problems
MAYA‐7549/7930 Lag when switching between panes
MAYA‐7583/7918 Pop‐up menu crashes in Shelf Editor icon previews
MAYA‐7585/8209 Maya crashes if a Paint > Sculpt operation is flooded (on poly edges)
MAYA‐7625 Removing a reference causes crash
MAYA‐7661 Tool settings: blank state issue
MAYA‐7666/7718 Ghosting an animation layer causes crash
MAYA‐7701 Correct timeline performance issue
MAYA‐7702 Windows sometimes lose saved settings and open at 0,0
MAYA‐7748 OGS: Improve object manipulation performance
MAYA‐7814/7929 Selecting and translate/rotate/scale on vertices quickly results in crash
MAYA‐7817 Change selection priority of GPU Cache objects
MAYA‐7917 Poly tool doesn't block or handle undoing operations correctly
MAYA‐7920 Interactive split should reset after completing an operation
MAYA‐8013 Improve how interactive split handles bad data
MAYA‐8164/9151 Grouping with multiple input NURBS curves in attachCurve and file referencingcauses crash
MAYA‐8244 Poly separate is slow to make results active
MAYA‐8296/8505 Quick move tool marking menus freezes then causes crash
MAYA‐8423/9130 Opening a file after Graph Editor pinning causes crash
MAYA‐8552/9173 Unloading tool context plug‐in after deleting tool context by deleteUI causes crash
MAYA‐8726 artUserPaintCtx no longer respects vertex selection
MAYA‐8769/8979 The Shift key is taking focus and removing UI when trying to type in Hypershade
MAYA‐8834 Render View not showing updates during renders (appears blank until renderfinishes)
MAYA‐9568 nParticle expression using opacity causing nCache crash
MAYA‐9582 mental ray: Output Shader fix for Camera (Shave/Haircut)

and everything else that came before it.  More details are in the above link in PDF format.

Maya 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack is available for download

The Autodesk® Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk® Maya® 2012 is available exclusively for Autodesk Subscription customers through download at the Autodesk Subscription Center.

Download Your Subscription Advantage Pack

Features:

• Alembic point caching—Efficiently manage complex simulated and animated data, with the ability to read and write Alembic open computer graphics interchange format.
• Bullet Physics—Create highly realistic soft body, rigid body, and ragdoll simulations with high-performance open source AMD Bullet Physics engine.
• New Node Editor—Manage and debug complex node networks with a new Node Editor that features drag-and-drop connections, color coding, and three levels of detail.

There are a couple of videos showing these features on Cory's blog.

Installation:

Unlike Maya 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack, which installed to a separate directory labelled "Maya 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack", the Maya 2012 SAP is installed in the same directory as your current installation of Maya 2012.

Prior to installing the Maya 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack, you will need to uninstall your current installation of Maya 2012.

Furthermore, Maya 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack does not create a "maya/201x.5" folder for your user preferences as was the case for the 2011 release, and will therefore pick up your Maya 2012 user preferences automatically.

Thanks,

Owen

Maya API Training and Maya API DevLab 2011

Enthusiasts of the Maya API should watch out for free training from Autodesk.

There are two events running in Vancouver, right after Siggraph:

•  Maya API training (12th-13th August)
•  Maya API Dev Lab (13th August)

Please read the blog post for details of each course and registration links.

API wishlist surveys for Autodesk products

Our annual API wishlist surveys are now live:

Autodesk® 3ds Studio Max® - http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22CAV8THY63/

Autodesk® Maya® - http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22CAV7HHXCE/

Please do take the time to provide us with your input: it’s one of the most direct ways to influence the direction of the Autodesk products you customize or for which you develop applications. Our various Engineering teams take this feedback very seriously when prioritizing the APIs to expose over the coming releases of our software. And if you (optionally) provide your email address in the survey, I’ll send you a copy of the results once they’ve been compiled.

The surveys will remain open until July 3rd, 2011. Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Posted on behalf of Cyrille Fauvel.

Owen

 

A new Autodesk blog - installation and licensing

If you think that Autodesk licensing is more fiendish than say, the King of Fiends of Fiendland, you may be interested in checking out what these guys have to say:

http://upandready.typepad.com

Bookmark it !

Owen

The Maya 2012 network license and sub-feature components: mental ray and fluid simulation

Please note that this issue is resolved. If you requested a Maya 2012 network license after 25th April and you have a valid Subscription contract, your license will include all the necessary activation codes to run Maya 2012, 2011 and 2010.You will not have to resort to copy/pasting parts of your Maya 2011 license to activate the fluid simulation and mental ray render nodes in Maya 2011.

Your Maya 2012 no longer requires the fluid simulation and mental ray features (including render nodes) to be activated in separate codes. All features of Maya 2012 can be activated from a single activation code. However, a correct license file - issued after the 25th April - will also include PACKAGE and INCREMENT lines explicitely for those features in Maya 2011 and Maya 2010 that require separate activation codes. 

If, after you start using your Maya 2012 network license you find that you can no longer render using mental ray or use fluid simulations in previous versions of the application, plesae read the rest of this blog post..

FBX 2011.3.1 is available for download

You can now download the FBX 2011.3.1 plug-in for Maya and 3ds Max here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775855

Thanks,

Owen