Autodesk has announced Maya 2025.1, bringing numerous improvements to modeling, animation, rendering, and other areas.
Modeling Enhancements
The Smart Extrude feature now boasts a new icon above the viewport manipulator when active, clearly differentiating it from the Move tool. It’s also now accessible from the poly modeling toolkit, and manipulator and pivot inheritance from the Move, Rotate, and Scale tools has been enhanced. Performance, reliability, and stability have all received improvements. Users can quickly activate Smart Extrude via the Poly Modeling shelf or the Modeling Toolkit.
Animation Improvements
Animation workflows are smoother with a cursor-centered zoom in the Graph Editor and Dope Sheet Editor, simplifying navigation in complex scenes. The default zoom now centers on the cursor, though users can revert to previous settings. Playblasted animations now support exposure and gamma adjustments using the color management buttons in the panel toolbar (though this is not yet supported for Stereo Cameras and the Camera Sequencer). Color-coded keys in the Time Slider no longer obscure frame numbers.
Dope Sheet Editor Updates
The Dope Sheet Editor has undergone significant updates, including support for multiple audio tracks, cursor-centered zoom, and improved selection capabilities. Users can now shift-select multiple keys, simultaneously update values, and work more efficiently with dense keys. The move tool selection issue has been resolved, enabling individual attribute selection. A new Time Snap option allows for snapping keys to the nearest integer time unit. A Bake Channel option facilitates baking keys within a user-defined range, and channel sets can now be imported and exported as JSON files. The Evaluation Manager now supports key manipulation, streamlining key adjustments.
Universal Scene Description (USD) Updates
The Universal Scene Description for Maya 0.28 plug-in introduces layer locking, preventing accidental modifications to incorrect layers. Administrators can enforce system-level locks through scripts, offering enhanced control.
Bifrost Updates
Bifrost 2.10.0.0 introduces a Node Library for improved node management, new nodes for rigging workflows, and updated SDKs for better integration and geometry manipulation. This release also includes new nodes and sample graphs.
LookdevX for Maya Updates
LookdevX for Maya 1.4.0 now features a node library, the ability to hide input nodes, a material assignment menu in the Outliner and Viewport, and support for volume shaders. Arnold materials can now be displayed in the viewport, improving the visual workflow.
Arnold for Maya Updates
Arnold for Maya 5.4.1.2 boasts improved denoising with Intel Open Image Denoise, enhanced snapshot workflows in the Arnold Render View, and new MaterialX node definitions for easier use. Further improvements include updated denoising performance, improved USD camera support, and more intuitive tooltips.
Substance Updates
Substance 3.0.0 introduces open-source Substance 3D Connector technology, enabling seamless shader transfers from Substance 3D Sampler to Maya. This update also includes stability fixes.
For more information, please refer to the Maya documentation.
Source: cgpress.org