Maya 2018.3 Available

Autodesk has revealed Maya 2018.3.

Autodesk has revealed Maya 2018.3. The ability to auto-frame both axes in the graph editor, a number of improvements to MASH nodes, and more. Let’s take a look at the new version.

Art by Jacob Claussen

Graph Editor Auto Frame

Two new options, Auto frame both axes in the Graph Editor section of the Animation (Settings) Preferences and Auto Frame Time in the Graph Editor View menu let you set theGraph Editor to automatically center the Graph View in both the x (value) and y (time) axes. Otherwise, the Graph Editor Graph View is framed only in the x-axis.

These options are only available if the Auto frame option is active.

Motion Graphics

MASH node enhancements

Instancer: A new Display Percentage attribute has been added, which can reduce the number of points drawn in the Viewport (though all of them will always be rendered).
Offset: You can now reorder points based on the XYZ axes, by proximity to a point or mesh, or randomly. You can also turn objects off when using Closest Point on Mesh if their ray misses the mesh (useful for hiding points that fall off the mesh when using World mode).
Placer: A new Stick to Mesh mode allows you to anchor points to a mesh when manipulating them. You can also now preview IDs and drag existing points around with the new Nudge brush.
Repro: Performance has been enhanced when adding objects.

Smart Presets

Smart presets are one-click presets designed to display commonly used Motion Graphics effects or perform other useful actions. To use one, drag and drop a preset from the Smart Presets folder in the Content Browser onto your scene, then drag an appropriate node into the option window.

Smart presets include:

FX:

Explode this Mesh: Allows you to use a falloff area to break a mesh apart.
Instant Forest: Creates a forest of trees on the selected model (either using default trees or your own customized ones)

Motion Graphics:

Fix Intersections: Fixes intersecting objects in a MASH network by making them collide with dynamics.
Pile of Stuff: Creates a dynamic pile of objects.

Type:

Copy Type Style: Copies the settings of one Type node to another.
Decode: Animates scrambled characters becoming your Type node.
Drop: Animates the characters of your Type node dropping into place.
Float Up: Animates the characters of your Type node floating up into place.
Jump Forward: Animates the characters of your Type node hopping forward.
Rotate in X: Animates the characters of your Type node spinning on their X axis.
Rotate in Y: Animates the characters of your Type node spinning on their Y axis.
Scale in: Animates the characters of your Type node growing into place.
Slide in: Animates the characters of your Type node sliding into place horizontally.

Render Setup

A new preference has been added that allows you to control whether lights are automatically included in each render layer by default.

A new preference has been added that allows you to control whether new objects created while in an active render layer should be saved to an untitled collection.

You can now customize the color of your render setup layers, collections and overrides for better visibility and organization. This color setting is included in your .json file when you export your render setup.

A new preference has also been added that allows you to display Render Setup nodes in editors such as the Outliner and the Node Editor.

New Profiler view options

Show Critical path

Lets you view the sequence of evaluation tasks that determine the minimum time needed to compute a frame.

Collapse Selected events/Collapse Selected events repetition

Lets you collapse all child events (started on the same thread and contained within the time interval of the parent events, that is, higher on the event stack) into the selected event(s). Select Collapse Selected events repetition to collapse not only selected events, but also their repetition in any other frames. So if you collapse them, they are also hidden in other frames.

Expand Selected events/Expand Selected events repetition

Lets you restore all child events which were collapsed into the selected event(s). Select Expand Selected events repetition to expand not only selected events, but also their repetition in any other frames. So if a selected event is expanded, they also show in other frames.

Wire Deformer

Wire deformer GPU support

Maya’s Wire deformer is now supported by GPU as part of the project to update Maya deformers for GPU support. (See GPU-supported deformers for the complete list.) GPU support increases playback speed of dense meshes by offloading their processing to your graphics card. GPU support is available in Viewport 2.0 only. These changes have had an added benefit of improving CPU support as well.

GPU Override is active by default in Maya. However to disable or activate it, use the GPU Override option in the Animation (Settings) preferences.

New Wire Deformer option

A new option, Bind to Original Geometry, has been added to the Wire deformer, which lets you specify a specific mesh on which the wire deformer bases its deformation. This is useful when you want to use a wire deformer on a mesh that has already been deformed, for example, a blendShape then a wire, or multiple wires on a single mesh.

UV Editor changes

A few small changes have been made to the UV Editor to streamline workflows. These include:

The Unpack option in the Unfold UVs Options has been renamed Layout UVs to more accurately reflect what it does.
The Shell Pre-Scaling method in the Layout UVs Options now defaults to Preserve 3D Ratios. This will result in UV shells that better maintain the relative sizes of the geometry they belong to.

You can find the full breakdown of the latest version here.