What's New in General

Scene Assembly is a system that lets you build complex Maya scenes without the burden of typical memory overhead. Constructing the scene with Scene Assembly improves viewport interactivity and accelerates file loading, helping to solve common issues when working with large data sets.

Scene Assembly consists of two interdependent nodes (assemblyDefinition and assemblyReference) and a system for loading alternative forms of your production assets called representations. The system lets you define these alternate representations and build a complex hierarchy of assets, such as detailed models of entire cities, one object at a time.

You can then use representations to manage the scene's complexity at the object level by switching between different versions of each scene object, letting you choose between detailed display and performance as your task requires.

• Scene Assembly
• Build a scene with Scene Assembly

A new option in the Modify > Convert menu lets you convert selected geometry to bounding boxes.

Converting geometry to bounding boxes is useful for quickly reducing the level of detail in your scene. You can also convert complex production assets to bound boxes and use them as simple, low resolution representations in Scene Assembly workflows.

• Modify > Convert > Geometry to Bounding Box
• Use a bounding box as a representation

You can now manage file paths in your Maya scene using the new File Path Editor (Window > General Editors > File Path Editor). The File Path Editor browser lists path information for files, including texture and referenced files, and displays resolution status icons that let you identify file path issues quickly. Unresolved paths are easily resolved using the editor's Repath window. Your repath choices can be reviewed using the Actions Preview window, which shows the results of the repathing operation before it occurs.

• File Path Editor
• Manage file paths