General

Effects Assets

Maya now includes a number of preset effects called Effects Assets. Building on the Maya Asset framework and simulation toolsets, Effects Assets present the most relevant attributes for an effect, making them easy to customize for your scenes. Effects Assets are available in the Visor window.

Effects Assets

ICE Interoperability for Maya

Maya now includes a one-click interoperability workflow that lets you transfer data between Maya and Softimage. Using Send to commands, you can export a scene to Softimage, add a Softimage ICE particle or deformation effect, then send the scene back to Maya.

ICE interoperability for Maya lets you take advantage of the ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) to create effects for your Maya scenes.

ICE interoperability for Maya is a feature of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites.

New Nucleus node attributes

Maya 2012 includes the following new Nucleus node attributes:

Transform Attributes

The Nucleus node now includes Transform Attributes and other Maya transform node properties. You can now create parent-child relationships with other objects in your scene. When you parent the transform node to another object, the simulation takes place in the local space of the Nucleus node, rather than in worldspace. A Use Transform attribute enables the transform properties.

When Use Transform is on, you can set the Transform Attributes attributes to specify the scene location of the Nucleus gravity and wind. The bounding box at the location defined by the Translate X, Y, and Z values determine the area affected by the Nucleus forces.

Visibility

When on, arrows appear in the scene to display the location and direction of Nucleus Gravity and Wind. Visibility also displays the location of the Nucleus plane when the Use Plane attribute is on.

Visibility

PhysX for Maya plug-in

Maya now includes the NVIDIA^® PhysX^® for Maya plug-in which lets you take advantage of using GPU-accelerated physics simulations in your Maya scenes. The plug-in lets you create dynamic, kinematic, and static rigid bodies from meshes created in Maya. You can then join the rigid body objects with PhysX constraints.

The PhysX plug-in also includes kinematic ragdoll simulations and APEX Clothing.

PhysX for Maya is available for Windows systems only. For more information on PhysX, see http://www.nvidia.com.

For documentation on the PhysX for Maya plug-in, browse to the Documentation folder located in the PhysX installation directory.

PhysX for Maya plug-in

Digital Molecular Matter plug-in for Maya

The DMM™ (Digital Molecular Matter) plug-in for Maya from Pixelux Entertainment™ is now included with Maya 2012. The plug-in helps you create highly realistic shatter, destruction, and deformation simulations that can include multiple interacting materials. The DMM plug-in available with Maya will solve up to 1500 tetrahedrals.

The DMM plug-in is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems. For more information about using the DMM plug-in see http://www.pixelux.com.

Digital Molecular Matter plug-in for Maya