Maya 2020: New Features & Updates for Animators, Renderers & More

Maya 2020 has arrived, bringing a host of exciting new features and improvements! This release is packed with advancements in animation, rendering, effects, modeling, and rigging. Let’s dive in and explore what’s new.

Building on the strong animation foundation of Maya 2019, Maya 2020 introduces over 60 new updates that animators will appreciate in their daily workflow. The release also includes Arnold 6, enabling production rendering on both CPU and GPU, along with significant performance enhancements and new simulation features in Bifrost, Maya’s visual programming environment.

Here’s a glimpse at the key highlights of the Maya 2020 release:

Over 60 animation features and updates to the graph editor and time slider.
Cached Playback: Experience faster animation playback and more predictable results with new preview modes, layered dynamics caching, and more efficient caching of image planes.
Animation Bookmarks: Mark, organize, and navigate through specific events in time and frame playback ranges.
Arnold GPU: Access Arnold 6 for production rendering on both CPU and GPU.
Bifrost for Maya: Significant performance improvements, Cached Playback support, and new MPM cloth constraints bring even more power to its visual programming environment.
Viewport improvements: Interact with and select dense geometry or a large number of smaller meshes faster in the viewport and UV editors.
Modeling enhancements: Spend more time modeling and less time cleaning up your models, with new Remesh and Retopologize features.
Rigging improvements: Simplify rig and character TD work with matrix-driven workflows, nodes for precisely tracking positions on deforming geometry, and a new GPU-accelerated wrap deformer.