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Assets are a new feature based on the existing container functionality. With assets, you can encapsulate a set of nodes in a container node and publish attributes from these internal nodes to the container. You can flag containers as a certain type and then use those types to limit what assets a specific artist can see using Views. Assets promote encapsulation of data and black box design.
Once you have set up a container, you can save an XML template of its published attributes. Using these container templates, you can pre-plan all assets and their required attributes for your production. Within a template, you can define multiple views that set up the user interface for the container. Artists can then use an assigned view as they create assets and bind their published attributes to the template. |
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This feature provides a visual cue about the component that your mouse cursor is pointing to by highlighting the component in a different color.You can turn Preselection Highlight on and off by selecting Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences and then Preselection Highlight in the Selection section. |
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You can now copy or transfer commonly named attributes between two objects using the Transfer Attribute Values option. You can also use this feature to copy incoming connections and outgoing connections which is useful for copying animation from one object to another.
You can now readily access many of the frequently
used items that exist within the panel menus by using the panel
toolbar. The panel toolbar rests below the panel menu in each view
panel. You can toggle view the panel toolbar by pressing 
+ 
+ M.
Multi-component selection mode
You can now select faces, vertices and edges without having to change between selection modes. By selecting the new Multi selection mode, you can select components based on the mouse cursor’s proximity to them.
Camera based selection limits the components you can select to those which are unobstructed from the viewpoint of the current camera. This allows you to streamline selection so that you don’t accidentally choose components that are hidden from your view, especially when viewing a scene in shaded mode.
Drag select provides you with a new way to select groups components quickly and easily. Like the Paint Select Tool, it allows you to select components by moving mouse along a surface.
You can now reposition a marquee select without
redrawing the marquee by holding the 
key while
dragging the marquee with the left mouse button.
The Channels menu has now been divided into the Channels and Edit menus. In addition, new filtering options are now available in the Show menu to help you manage the attributes and objects that appear in the Channel Box. You can now filter by attribute types, or create your own filter types.
You can now condense multiple connections from one node to another in the Hypergraph into a single bolded connection between the two nodes. This can greatly simplify the display.
You can now archive your scene and all its dependencies into a single zip file with the Archive Scene command. This is useful to ensure scenes work correctly when transferred between artists.
When you start Maya 2009 for the first time, the Customer Involvement Program (CIP) dialog box appears. The CIP collects information to help Autodesk learn how you use Maya. Your participation in the CIP helps design new features and helps improve existing features. You can choose to participate or stop participating at any time by opening the Customer Involvement Program dialog box in the Help menu.
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