Autodesk Maya

Maya is named after the Sanskrit word माया māyā, maya , meaning "illusion." Maya existed in three versions:

• Maya Unlimited is the most complete and most expensive package. Contains extensions Hair, Fur, Maya Muscule, Fluid Effects, Cloth and others.
• Maya Complete is the basic version of the package, in which there is a full-fledged block of modeling and animation, but there are no physical simulation modules.
• Maya Personal Learning Edition is a free package for non-commercial use. There are functional limitations, a limitation on the size of the rendered image, and watermarking of the final images.

However, at SIGGRAPH 2009, Autodesk introduced a new version of its 3D Autodesk Maya 2010 system. Starting with this release, developers refused to split the program into Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited, now Maya is offered as single product. In particular, Maya 2010 contains all the functionality of Maya Unlimited 2009 and Maya Complete 2009, including Maya Nucleus Unified Simulation Framework, Maya nCloth, Maya nParticles, Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Hair , "Maya Fur." Starting from the same Maya 2010, Maya included the Maya Composite composition system based on the Autodesk Toxic program, which will no longer be available as a separate program. In addition, since Maya 2010, Maya has included the Autodesk MatchMover system, a manager for creating Autodesk Backburner network visualization tasks, and five visualization nodes for batch rendering using Mental Ray .

Maya was originally developed by Alias ​​Systems Corporation and released for Linux , IRIX , Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows . (On IRIX, version 6.5 was the latest due to the declining popularity of Irix in recent years.) In October 2005, Alias ​​joined Autodesk. In September 2007 - now Autodesk - released a new version called Maya 2008. Representatives of the company in various interviews confirmed that they will not merge Maya and 3ds Max into one product.

An important feature of Maya is its openness to third-party developers who can convert it to the version that is optimal for each studio, preferring to write code specific to their needs. Even with Maya’s inherent power and flexibility, this feature is sufficient to influence user choice.

Maya has a powerful, interpretable, platform-independent language built into it: Maya Embedded Language ( MEL ), very similar to Tcl and C. It is not just a scripting language, it is a tool and way to configure and refine Maya’s core functionality (most of Maya’s environment and related tools are written on MEL). In particular, the user can record their actions as a script on MEL, from which you can quickly make a convenient macro. So animators can complement Maya with the functionality they created without even knowing the MEL language, leaving this option if necessary. For writing external extensions in C ++, there is a well-documented C ++ API. (Actually external Maya extensions can be written in any compiled programming language, but C ++ is most convenient for this.) Also, developers now have the opportunity to write add-ons in Python . The MEL language is not tied to the platform, so the code written on it will be executed on any operating system that Maya runs on.

Project files, including all geometry and animation data, are saved as MEL sequences. These files can be saved in a text file (.ma - Maya ASCII), which can be edited in any text editor. This provides an unrivaled level of flexibility when working with external tools. (Related Autodesk 3ds Max products)

Maya was the result of combining three software products: Wavefront The Advanced Visualizer (California, USA), Thomson Digital Image (TDI) Explore (France) and Alias ​​Power Animator (Toronto, Canada). Wavefront bought TDI in 1993, then Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI) bought both Alias ​​and Wavefront in 1995. The merged company became known as Alias ​​| Wavefront. Alias ​​| Wavefront was later renamed Alias. In 2003, Alias ​​was sold by SGI to Accel-KKR, a private investment firm. In October 2005, Alias ​​was resold again, this time Alias ​​was bought by Autodesk. January 10, 2006 Autodesk completed the merger, and from then on, Alias ​​Maya is known as Autodesk Maya. The 8th version of the product was released under a new name.

At the very beginning of its development, Maya used the interpreted language Tcl. There was a lot of discussion on this subject, since at that time most of the visual effects studios used the Perl-Tcl bundle. However, already in the first version, it was replaced by the internal scripting language MEL ( Maya Embedded Language ), which became the link between the user and the core of the program, since MEL is, for example, a tool for programming the program interface, setting and linking many attributes of nodes (nodes) , a means of procedural animation and more. Maya 8.5 also included the Python scripting language. Maya 2008 includes Python 2.5.

Visualization in Maya is implemented by four built-in visualizers: Maya Software, Maya Hardware, Maya Vector Render and Arnold. There are also a number of third-party visualizers that include Maya support. The main ones are:

• Corona renderer
• V ray
• Arnold
• RenderMan (PhotoRealistic or PRMan from Pixar )
• finalRender
• 3Delight
• Gelato
• Turtle
• Maxwell render
• Frryrender
• Indigo renderer
• Brazil R / S
• mental ray
• Redshift
• Octane

From the earliest versions, Maya has established itself in the field of cinema and animated films, in particular, with its help, such film and animated characters as Stuart Little , The Invisible Man , Shrek , WALL-I , Gollum ( The Lord of the Rings ), Hulk , Davy Jones ( Pirates of the Caribbean ) ^[2] and others. The program was used to create the animated film " The Last Fantasy: Spirits Inside ", the animated films " South Park ", " Smeshariki ", " Fixies ", " Fixies: The Big Secret " and " Masha and the Bear ." Repeatedly, studios using Maya in the production of visual effects have been recognized by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . Among them, the Oscars for visual effects received films: The Matrix , the trilogy The Lord of the Rings , Spider-Man 2 , King Kong , Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest , Golden Compass . Oscar in the nomination " For the Best Animated Film ", established in 2001, received the cartoon " Shrek " ^[3] . The program was also used to create animations of characters from the cartoon Zeropolis , but it was supplemented.

• John Kundert-Gibbs, Mike Larkins, Darius Derakshani, Eric Kunzendorf. Mastering Maya 8.5 = Mastering Maya 8.5. - M .: "Dialectics" , 2007. - ISBN 978-0-470-12845-9 .
• Chris Maraffy Character Creation in Maya: Modeling and Animation = Maya Character Creation. - M .: "Williams" , 2004. - S. 448. - ISBN 0-7357-1344-8 .
• Sergey Tsyptsyn. Understanding Maya. - M .: Art House Media, 2007 .-- S. 1428. - ISBN 978-5-902976-03-5 .
• Ganeev R.M. 3D character modeling in Maya. - M .: Hot line - Telecom, 2012 .-- S. 284. - ISBN 978-5-9912-0244-2 .

• Examples of images created with Maya

• Official website of the manufacturer (English)