What's new in Maya 8.5 - Other Features

[h2o]

Modeling

Reflection feature for Rotate and Scale tools

Multisplit profile curve attribute added to Insert Edge Loop Tool

Fix Quads option for Insert Edge Loop Tool

New attributes for Offset Edge Loop Tool

Paintable deformer weights for Transfer Attributes

UV and Component sampling options for Transfer Attributes

New Vertex Normal option for Transfer Attributes

Relax sculpting

Display of user defined normals

New Quad split attribute

New tangent smoothing options

Improvements to Attach Curves

Color chooser editor improvements


UV Mapping

Move UV Shell Tool enhancements


Animation

Full Body Inverse Kinematics enhancements

Geometry caching enhancements

Geometry cache threading

Copy Skin Weights improved

Mirror Skin Weights improved

New Graph Editor toolbar icons


Rendering

Enhancements to Hypershade

Connection editor enhancements

New Open Render View icon

Transfer Map tool enhancements


mental ray for Maya rendering

Render Settings enhancements

Improved mental ray Render Option editor and mental ray Batch Render Option editor

Maximum number of render threads increased

Enhanced method of simulating sun and sky

New architectural material shader (e.g. BRDF)

New round corners shader

New tone mapping shader

Enhancements to Volume fur rendering method

Bake to HDR file format

New appendices added to mental ray for Maya documentation


Hardware rendering features

Enhancements to CgFX shader node

Maya now supports Cg version 1.5


Artisan and Paint Effects

New Paint Effects brushes

Paint Effects brush callbacks


Fur

Enhancements to Volume fur rendering method

Improved fur interpolation along UV border edges


Hair

Follicle control enhancements


nCloth
There is a new simulated cloth solution called Maya® nCloth? in Maya 8.5. nCloth is a fast and stable dynamic cloth solution that uses a network of linked particles to simulate a wide variety of dynamic polygon surfaces. For example, nCloth is flexible enough to simulate objects such as fabric clothing, inflating balloons, shattering surfaces, and deformable objects.

nCloth is built on the new dynamic simulation framework called Maya® Nucleus?. A Maya Nucleus system is composed of a series of nCloth objects, passive collision objects, dynamic constraints, and a Maya Nucleus solver. The Maya Nucleus solver calculates an nCloth’s simulation in an iterative manner, improving the simulation after each iteration, to produce accurate cloth behavior.

Directable cloth simulation

Component collisions and collision layering

Dynamic constraints

Inflation, deflation, and volume preservation

Tearing and shattering

Surface restitution