Find out whether the improvements and enhancements in the latest annual update to Maya 2012 justify an upgrade
This Maya 2012 render tests the capabilities of Hardware 2.0, utilising depth of field and the normal maps, with maximum anti-aliasing settings
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Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux
Developer:
Autodesk
Main features:
Reading Autodesk’s press release, Maya 2012’s new features struck us initially as underwhelming.
Later, however, more details emerged and the prospect seemed rosier.
With the new release now available, it isn’t immediately clear where Maya 2012 sits on the scale ranging from ‘must-have upgrade’ to ‘maybe wait for the next release’.
Maya 2011 brought substantial improvements to the existing toolset, including a fantastic overhaul of the skinning system; new features like the Camera Sequencer and Viewport 2.0; and, of course, a new look with the versatile Qt interface.
Over the following year, a lot of initial bugs and glitches were ironed out of 2011: the last update was extremely solid.
It’s been reported that there’s an effort within Autodesk to improve communication and co-operation between the separate development teams working on its 3D and compositing applications.
It’s not surprising that this has resulted in all the 2012 releases benefiting from greater interoperability, as well as (for the first time) their simultaneous release….
Posted on Sunday, June 3rd, 2012 at 12:37 pm under Applications, Reviews. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: Maya 2012, Maya 2012 new features
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