Maya 8 Release!

[MMighe]

Nothing about the new Maya Cloth Solver? FBIK fixes or enhancements?

[alexx]

only very few new features for that (again) big leap in version numbering.

i am mostly interested if they managed to fix all dynamic caching problems, and the problems when trying to render with MR satellite.

at least now you can have per render layer shader assignement on a per face basis - that was a huge problem in 7.0 (was a limitation and not a bug though - thanx for that one.

i really shivered, when i saw the “new” primitive creation mothods a la max… scary!

cheers

alex

[jbradley]

i really shivered, when i saw the “new” primitive creation mothods a la max… scary!

I actually laughed when I saw that in the feature release.

Strata 3d (now Strata CX 5) has had that primitive creation method for over 10 years.

Lol.

[KidderD]

T

Honestly, I don’t know what people were really expecting. The development cycles of Maya and Max are going to be slowing down, a la Shake, as they develop their next-gen application. This happened with Wavefront, TDI, and PowerAnimator when they developed Maya, and it’ll happen again, as they merge Max and Maya.

Well, I guess to know what people were expecting, one could look at the www.digication website, and find out how many top level features would be eliminated. I used to think that one or two would be, and several smaller ones would be as well, and then we’d need a new list.
But, really, now, we could just scratch off the 64 bit, and keep the existing list. Just thinking positve!
Granted, and to their credit, it sounds like they did do a tonne of work on the 64 bit port, although, from their tech preview last yr. much of this seemed already possible. Personally, and this is just my opinion, Maya development was stifled this past year, and that is where my dissapointment lies. Others will pick it up though, and time will still tell the tale.

Oh, and one more in the interest of keeping a positive outlook. At least the plugin developers aren’t going to be to affected, save having to recompile, at least none of thier softwares has become obsolete.
Oh, and on this vien of thought, doesn’t big daddy money pockets just buy us a plugin a few days later after a lackluster release, history has shown this to be the case the last few years, some potential candidates could be blastcode, or glu3d seems like a good choice as it works in both its apps. Spose they already did with the camera match tho. Oh, well, back to kicking a rock.

[CIM]

Not that I can find, no! And I looked around a lot. The cool reflection blur options (fast interpolation, low res reflection detail etc) in Max 9 also look very useful and I don’t see that in Maya.

I wonder if Autodesk are deciding to split the features up to give each product advantages? Or perhaps the Max devs just wrote some cool features themselves.

Maybe they’ll have to be unlocked like (some) past new mr features in Maya.

[ciff]

Hey people,
Have a nice shiny new download of Maya 8 (will have to do with 32 bit for the mo) downloaded the web key and run it but i keep getting this error message “No license
found in the Input License file, Please refer to the Licensing section of your installation Gide.” arrrrg. Contacted support but there takin aaaaages to get back to me. Anyone know whats going pear shaped, anyone had similar problem?
Cheers,
Have fun all u Maya 8 people.
Chris.

[underearth]

anything about skinning , rigging ,animation…

[Bonedaddy]

Look at the overall picture Bonedaddy, compared with all the other improvements, the dynamics module has little to be excited about. You of most people here would notice that.

No, this is totally true. But the core dynamics module – particles and rigid body sims – haven’t really progressed much at all in the past god knows how many versions. It’s still basically the Dynamation stuff stapled onto Maya. The code base is something like 10 years old, and has been getting progressively less stable every version. So, no, the dynamics isn’t going to be exciting, but I didn’t expect it would be. They’d need a complete rewrite to do that. And this meager update, to me at least, indicates they’re starting a rewrite.

I guess what I’m saying is, yes, it’s a crappy release. But I sort of expected it, since the Autodesk merger. And I try to always look on the bright side of life.

[martinw]

Well, I guess to know what people were expecting, one could look at the www.digication website, and find out how many top level features would be eliminated. I used to think that one or two would be, and several smaller ones would be as well, and then we’d need a new list.

Hmm, do you think the digication list is really representative of what people want? I think it’s been spammed by some people trying to get their favourite features to the top. I mean look at the current list:

http://maya.digication.com/list_features_visitor.php?sort=mostpopular

CV hardness and rail revolve are both in the top 10, and are both higher than the GUI redesign. And the crowd simulator is now the number one feature request. Well maybe I’m just out of touch and those really are the current user priorities, but I have my doubts that the ranking is really that valuable as a guide to what users really want.

[KidderD]

yes, it’s been spammed to utter death, still I expect them to be able to pick out the spammers. I’m sure they wouldn’t blindly go by the numbers.

Things like not splitting the hw/sw particles. Muscle system, crowd sim, zbrush tools for sculpt, sounds like they partially used this one.

[Exo7]

I think it’ll still be good. I don’t think you can actually multithread-ify MEL, you can only do that to parts of the API. As more parts of the API become multithreaded, all the MEL tools that use those parts of the API should speed up.

Yes, It’ll still be good.
But that comes from I heard distributed compilation was possible, so I told me “If one can distribute code amongst networked PCs, why not distribute MEL commands amongst CPUs ?”

I own a bi-Xeon HT (32bit) and I don’t even activate HT because then it’ll show 25% CPU activity at his max when Maya is freezing for some computation, that’s VEEERY frustrating !

If that was to be possible anyhow, I (we?) will really love to see that some day :hmm:

Anyway, industries goes their way… Cool thread btw :bounce:

Tell us, then, Ô Jozvex, is the envSky somehow improved with MR ?

[steveblake]

…sorry for the obvious question, but is it possible to buy a downloadable v8 direct from autodesk?

[poly-phobic]

rendering normal map is great and easier this time around apparently.

good upgrade to the UV toolsets.

this is an ok realease.7.5 or 8, whatever they call it

improvements are always welcomed.

[lollygag]

…sorry for the obvious question, but is it possible to buy a downloadable v8 direct from autodesk?

Yes… I think if you buy from Autodesk themselves… you will get a link to DL before you get
your mailed package… at least i did but i also got the annual maintenance… that my be why

[cbernardo]

Hi,

Someone find any bug in this new version?

[]s
carlos

[Omita]

It will be interesting to see how Mac support is now that Autodesk has the reigns.

-Hays

[Spacelord]

Not that I can find, no! And I looked around a lot. The cool reflection blur options (fast interpolation, low res reflection detail etc) in Max 9 also look very useful and I don’t see that in Maya.

I wonder if Autodesk are deciding to split the features up to give each product advantages? Or perhaps the Max devs just wrote some cool features themselves.

Either way its silly, its Mental ray, both apps should have the same functions.

I’m really surprised Maya doesn’t have those features,
theres more and more people using Maya for ARCH VIS these days.
I guess XSI won’t get those features, but I will wait to see what XSI have to say first.
Its probably something (ctrl_studios or Tek2shoot ) would be able to access for us,
functions in Mental Ray Standalone 3.5.

Thanks for checking,

[Kabab]

I am willing to bet most of the max 9 and maya 8 development was done independant of each other…

[randomsheep]

Hey people,
Have a nice shiny new download of Maya 8 (will have to do with 32 bit for the mo) downloaded the web key and run it but i keep getting this error message “No license
found in the Input License file, Please refer to the Licensing section of your installation Gide.” arrrrg. Contacted support but there takin aaaaages to get back to me. Anyone know whats going pear shaped, anyone had similar problem?
Cheers,
Have fun all u Maya 8 people.
Chris.

:D… would still like to hear an answer for this question if anyone has an answer…

[Jozvex]

I’m getting that error too. I checked out the Platinum ‘Ask Autodesk’ support forum and they suggest taking out a support case.