Autodesk has launched Maya 2019, the latest version of its popular 3D animation, modeling, simulation and rendering software, featuring significant updates to help artists achieve their creative vision within a faster, more interactive and visually engaging working environment. Maya 2019 addresses the key challenges artists face throughout production, providing faster animation playback to reduce the need for playblasts, higher quality 3D previews with Autodesk Arnold updates in viewport 2.0, improved pipeline integration with more flexible development environment support, and performance improvements that most Maya artists will notice in their daily work.
“The more you can make the technology behave and get out of the artists’ way, the more they can keep their thought process fluid. With Cached Playback, animators can iterate more, and they totally love that,” said Christopher Moore, technical program manager, Blue Sky Studios
“We’re not looking to make it so our artists get more shots per week off their plate. We’re doing this so we can set the bar even higher for the quality of art we can produce,” said Hank Driskill, CTO, Blue Sky Studios
“The new features in Maya 2019 give artists a more responsive working environment so they feel more creatively engaged and can iterate faster to produce better quality. Cached Playback is going to reduce the need for playblasts by animators, and Arnold updates take the guesswork out of the equation, by making viewport previews closer to the final Arnold render,” said Chris Vienneau, sr. director, Media & Entertainment Products, Autodesk.
Key new Maya 2019 features include:
- Faster Animation: New cached playback increases animation playback speeds in viewport 2.0, giving animators a more interactive and responsive animating environment to produce better quality animations. It helps reduce the need to produce time-consuming playblasts to evaluate animation work, so animators can work faster.
- Higher Quality Previews Closer to Final Renders: Arnold upgrades improve real-time previews in viewport 2.0, allowing artists to preview higher quality results that are closer to the final Arnold render for better creativity and less wasted time.
- Faster Maya: New performance and stability upgrades help improve daily productivity in a range of areas that most artists will notice in their daily work.
- Refining Animation Data: New filters within the graph editor make it easier to work with motion capture data, including the Butterworth filter and the key reducer to help refine animation curves.
- Rigging Improvements: New updates help make the work of riggers and character TDs easier, including the ability to hide sets from the outliner to streamline scenes, improvements to the bake deformer tool and new methods for saving deformer weights to more easily script rig creation.
- Pipeline Integration Improvements: Development environment updates make it easier for pipeline and tool developers to create, customize and integrate into production pipelines.
- Help for Animators in Training: Sample rigged and animated characters, as well as motion capture samples, make it easier for students to learn and quickly get started animating.
Maya 2019 is available as a standalone subscription or with a collection of end-to-end creative tools within the Autodesk Media & Entertainment Collection.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More