Autodesk has launched Bifrost for Maya, scheduled for release on July 31st with Maya 2019.2. This new addition provides a node-based environment for visual programming, enabling the creation of diverse VFX such as smoke, fire, and simulations requiring high-performance particle systems. Key features include:
- Pre-built Graphs – Accelerate your workflow with readily available presets for creating effects.
- Unified Graphs – Combine various nodes, ranging from mathematical operations to complex simulations, within a single visual programming graph.
- Realistic Previews – Get a precise view of how your effects will render, incorporating lighting, directly within Maya’s Arnold Viewport.
- Sophisticated Smoke, Fire, and Explosions – New, physically-based solvers designed for aerodynamics and combustion make it straightforward to generate natural-looking fire effects.
- The Material Point Method – Leverage the new MPM solver to tackle realistic simulations involving granular materials, cloth, and fibers.
- High-Performance Particle System – A newly crafted particle system, built entirely on visual programming, boosts the power and scalability of particle workflows in Maya.
- Artistic Effects with Volumes – Bifrost comes equipped with nodes that assist artists in converting between meshes, points, and volumes, enabling creative artistic effects.
- Flexible Instancing – High-performance, render-optimized instancing allows users to incorporate immense complexity into their scenes.
- Detailed Hair, Fur, and Fuzz – Model elements composed of multiple fibers (or strands) procedurally.
Bifrost for Maya will be available for download on July 31, 2019, and will work seamlessly with any version of Maya 2018 or later. It will also be integrated into the installer for Maya 2019.2 and subsequent versions. Given the technology’s presence in Max Fluids, it’s possible that elements of this may be integrated into 3DS Max in the future.
