Visualize interactively in Viewport 2.0

On systems with sufficient memory and graphic cards, Viewport 2.0 provides large scene performance optimization and higher quality lighting and shaders. It allows for high interactivity: you can tumble complex scenes with many objects as well as large objects with heavy geometry.

To switch to Viewport 2.0, select Renderer > Viewport 2.0 from the Panel Menus.

Note

For the best performance and scalability, switch to Viewport 2.0 without enabling texturing or shading in any of the other workspace modes. You should work with only one workspace panel displayed in Viewport 2.0 and avoid switching between workspace modes.

Features supported

Viewport 2.0 supports the following features:

Viewport interaction

polygon tools
NURBS and NURBS curve tools
manipulators
Limitations:
- dynamic manipulators
- stippling (in the solid area of the manipulator that is being rendered inside an object)
cameras
Limitations:
- stereoscopic cameras
soft select
- includes support for global falloff
soft modification
interactive binding for skinning
lasso tool
support for tool feedback
locators
heads up display
render layers
Simple, Object Sorting, and Weighted Average transparency modes are supported. See Renderer > Viewport 2.0 for more information.
Playblast
xray mode
- joint xray draw mode is supported
- Limitation: active component
object based Isolate Select
stipple draw mode

Viewport interaction limitations

component numbering
polygon sorting
ViewCube
NoteIt is recommended that the ViewCube be disabled for Viewport 2.0. You can disable the ViewCube by selecting Window > Settings > Preferences > ViewCube and disabling Show the ViewCube.
image planes
offline Playblast
File texture image sequences
display layer display type: Template and Reference
component Isolate Select

Shapes

Meshes:
- vertices: selection and pre-selection highlighting
- edges: selection and pre-selection highlighting
  Limitations:
  - hard/soft edges
- support for triangular faces (Display > Polygons > Face Triangles)
- faces
  Limitations:
  - non-planar faces
- display of: tangents, binormals, normals, user normals, face normals
- multiple UV sets
- color set support
- false color on shaded, wireframe and vertex mode
- Smooth Mesh Preview
- no support for the following:
  - vertex/face mode
  - crease edges
  - crease vertices
  - holes
  - backface culling per polygon shape
  - invisible faces
  - UV topology
  - user defined vertex color
  - vertex index labeling
NURBS:
- control vertices
- edit points
- control points
- hulls
- normals
- patch centers
- surface origins
- surface UV's
- only Display > NURBS > Rough, Display > NURBS > Medium and Display > NURBS > Fine smoothness levels are supported. (This is equivalent to using the 1, 2, 3 keys.)
  NoteOnly the surface precision attribute controls the level of detail of the mesh. No advanced tessellation settings are supported.
- Tessellation > Display Render Tessellation attribute (under the shape node) is supported.
- same tessellation levels displayed for wireframe and shaded modes
Subdivision surfaces
- wireframe and shaded modes
- control vertices
Limitations:
- The base polygon mode is currently not supported.
- Bump mapping is not supported.
locators
joints and IK handles

Shaders and textures

wireframe, shaded, and default material shading modes
adjusting material attributes in the Attribute Editor and interactively visualizing the results
bump mapping in all three modes: Bump, Tangent Space Normals and Object Space Normals
multiple CPV sets for surface shaders
- support for undefined color areas, where no color has been applied
- support for CPV modes such as Multiply, Add, Subtract
- support for different material channels
spherical and cubical environment mapping
NoteWhen using the envCube node with the default quality or high quality viewport, you must divide your cube texture data into individual sides of the cube. The envCube node has separate attributes for all of the faces of the cube: Right, Left, Top and so forth, which get combined into one cube map. Beginning Maya 2012, you can avoid doing this in Viewport 2.0. You can connect your single file texture that includes all six sides of a cube to the Right attribute of the envCube node, and Maya will load the cube map texture properly as a single cube map.
render nodes as follows:
- Blinn
- Lambert
- Phong
- Phong E
- Surface Shader
- File texture
- Ptex textures
- non-layered PSD File textures
- Checker texture
- Layered texture
- all other Maya 2D shading nodes, including Noise, are supported as baked textures
- all 3D shading nodes are supported as baked textures
- CgFX shaders
- substance textures
- approximated mental ray shader support:
  - mia_material, mia_material_x and mia_material_x_passes (approximated as Blinn)
  - misss_fast_shader, misss_fast_shader_x, misss_fast_shader_x_passes (approximated as Lambert)
  - mi_metallic_paint, mi_metallic_paint_x, mi_metallic_paint_x_passes (approximated as Blinn)
  - mi_car_paint_phen, mi_car_paint_phen_x, mi_car_paint_phen_x_passes (approximated as Blinn)
- supported Utilities nodes:
  - Multiply Divide
  - Rgb To Hsv
  - Hsv To Rgb
  - Reverse
  - Blend Colors
  - Luminance
Note
If an object does not have a shader assigned, or is assigned a shader that is not currently supported, the object appears shaded in the scene view with a bright pink color. If a shading network error occurs, the object appears shaded in the scene view with a red color.

Note
All other shaders not listed above are currently not supported.

Lighting

directional, spot, point, and ambient lights
For ambient lights, only a single non-directional ambient light is supported.
NoteAmbient lights in Viewport 2.0 do not respect the Ambient Shade attribute.
lighting modes: Use Default Lighting, Use All Lights, Use No Lights
shadows are supported for directional and spot lights
Limitation
- point lights

Lighting limitations

area lights
image based lighting

API support

plug-in shapes
plug-in hardware shaders
plug-in locators
plug-in renderer

Viewport effects

screen-space ambient occlusion
motion blur
multisample anti-aliasing
gamma correction
depth of field

NoteYou can enable depth of field by selecting, from the panel menus, View > Camera Attribute Editor > Depth Of Field.

Tip To select a Focus Distance for Depth of Field, select Display > Heads up Display > Object Details, then select the object you wish to remain in focus. The Distance From Camera heads up display should indicate the distance of the object from the camera. Use this as your Focal Distance.

Performance

consolidate world
vertex animation cache
thread dependency graph evaluation

Animation and rigging

lattice deformer
non-linear deformer feedback
motion trails
- drawing of tangent beads and handles
- breakdown keys are displayed in a different color
Joints
- support for standard bones
- support for joint rendering modes
- joint xray draw mode
- support for joint labels
Limitations:
- no support for child box mode
HumanIK
- IK Effectors and the different draw styles
- pinning labels and release pinning
- links between IK Effectors and aux rotate pivots
- support for new HumanIK draw modes

Other limitations of Viewport 2.0

Effects

paint effects
artisan
Dynamics:
Particles, fluids, and dynamics rendering, as well as dynamic workflows, are not fully supported.

Rendering

The Maya Hardware 2.0 renderer supports command line and batch rendering from Viewport 2.0. You can select the Maya Hardware 2.0 renderer using the following methods:

See Maya Hardware 2.0 renderer for more information regarding the Hardware 2.0 renderer.