Autodesk Maya software offers a rich feature set for 3D modeling, including NURBS, Subdivision Surfaces, and an extensive Polygon toolset.

Autodesk Maya provides a production-proven and intuitive toolset for creating and editing polygon meshes, including:

• Bridge, poke, cut, wedge, bevel, extrude, chamfer vertex, extrude along a curve, mirror cut, edge loop, edge ring, slide edge, and pick-walk tools
• The ability to preview or render smoothly subdivided meshes while editing a lower-resolution proxy or cage; subdivision meshes support variable creasing
• True soft selection, preselection highlighting, and camera-based selection culling
• Polygon reduction, data cleanup, blind data tagging, and level-of-detail tools for scene optimization
• The ability to transfer UV, color-per-vertex, and vertex position information between polygon meshes of differing topologies

Maya offers two methods for creating mathematically smooth surfaces that can be shaped using relatively few control vertices: NURBS and hierarchical Subdivision Surfaces.

• Subdivision Surfaces can have different levels of detail in different regions, enabling you add complexity only where needed.
• NURBS Surfaces can be attached, detached, aligned, stitched together, extended, filleted, or rebuilt with a high degree of control over parameterization and continuity.
• NURBS and Subdivision Surfaces can be converted to polygon meshes, and vice versa.
• Precise spline-based curve and surface construction tools include lofting, birail, beveling, extrusion, trim, boundary, offset, Booleans, rounding, and square.

Beyond the position of vertices that define their shape, meshes can carry essential data for software, interactive, or in-game 3D rendering. To manage this, Maya offers:

• A streamlined workflow for creative texturing—including UV creation and editing, auto-projection, interactive relaxation, layout, lattice, and smudge tools
• Multiple UV sets that support separate texture coordinates for separate texture channels
• Per-instance UV sets that enable a single mesh to be used to represent multiple objects, reducing scene overhead
• Multiple sets of animatable color-per-vertex (CPV), prelighting, user-defined normals, and normal map generation suitable for game design

Sculpt highly detailed organic models with Autodesk® Mudbox™ 3D digital sculpting and texture painting software. The complementary toolset provides a more intuitive brush-based 3D modeling experience that features 2D and 3D layers to more easily manage sculpting and painting iterations on multiple meshes and maps.

• Iteratively round-trip data with Maya using a single-step workflow that supports topology modifications.
• Paint detailed textures directly onto the high-resolution 3D mesh.
• Use the modeling layers in Mudbox to create poses or facial expressions for blendshapes in Maya.
• Create vector displacement maps for complex details in Mudbox and render them on low-resolution geometry in Maya.

Maya delivers a broad range of specialized tools for keyframe, procedural, and scripted animation, including:

• A highly controllable, nondestructive animation layering system that works with any attribute
• Trax Nonlinear Animation Editor for nondestructive mixing, blending, and editing of poses and animation clips
• A comprehensive assortment of generalized constraints
• A powerful and intuitive Set Driven Key tool that enables you to keyframe complex relationships between animated parameters
• Graph and Dopesheet Editors that provide more powerful, precise function curves to control how animated attributes change over time
• A full set of deformers for static modeling or animation

Create, skin, rig, and pose believable characters with realistic deformations in less time. Maya 3D computer animation software includes:

• Built-in Spline IK, Spring IK, and single chain and lightweight 2-bone solvers.
• An IK system for natural articulation of biped and quadruped models.
• Nondestructive live retargeting workflow to reuse, correct, and enhance motion-capture and other animation data.
• Maya Muscle advanced deformation tools for realistic or highly stylized muscle and skin motion.
• Substitute Geometry tool to transfer skinning information between models.
• Nondestructive workflow that enables you to insert, move, delete, connect, and disconnect joints on a bound skeleton.

Add Autodesk® MotionBuilder® 3D character animation software to a Maya pipeline to help increase production efficiency and the quality of results for high-volume character animation projects.

• With its real-time 3D engine and dedicated toolsets for character rigging, nonlinear animation editing, motion-capture data manipulation, and interactive dynamics, MotionBuilder is an ideal, complementary toolset to Maya, forming a unified end-to-end animation solution.
• Quickly and easily transfer assets via Autodesk® FBX® data exchange technology to take advantage of collaborative, iterative, single-step cross-product workflows.

Engineered with the input of leading research scientists, Autodesk Maya 3D computer animation software offers innovative dynamic simulation features to help you create stunning visual effects.

Enjoy an intuitive, efficient workflow for simulating a wide range of complex 3D visual effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust with Maya nParticles.

• Create pouring liquids and sloshing liquids in containers.
• Self-collision enables nParticles to accumulate within volumes.
• Map shading attributes, such as radius, color, opacity, and incandescence over time (or over age, radius, speed).
• Flexible nConstraints provide an extra degree of control without the need to write complex expressions.
• Use geometry instancing to replace particles with objects.
• Bidirectional interaction with Maya nCloth enables particles to affect cloth, and cloth to affect particles simultaneously.

Simulate and render more realistic atmospheric, explosive, viscous liquid and open water effects using Maya Fluid Effects.

• Select from presets for clouds, smoke, snow, steam, fog, nuclear explosions, flames, lava, mercury, mud, ocean swells, calm oceans, rough seas, rippling ponds, white caps, and foam.
• Use 2D fluids to create distinctive animated textures.
• Integrated with other parts of Maya: for example, a simulating fluid can act as a force on particles; objects can affect a fluid as they move through it, such as a character walking through thick smoke; and boats can create wakes on oceans.

Create realistic fur and hair with natural-looking movement, using integrated Maya Hair and Maya Fur toolsets that feature:

• Presets for Hair styles and Fur types such as pigtail, bun, dreadlocks, grass, sheep, and wet Labrador
• Constraints enabling the simulation of effects, such as ponytails and hair clips
• Paintable attributes for localized effects and fur “combing”
• Dynamic and keyframable controls for motion and collisions
• The ability to use Hair to make a NURBS curve dynamic, for a wide range of effects such as ropes, chains, and dynamic lofted surfaces, as well to create advanced character rigs

Create convincing simulations of multiple rigid and flexible objects.

• Connect rigid-body objects with constraints: Nail, Hinge, Barrier, Pin, and Spring.
• Keyframe the active/passive states of rigid-bodies.
• Use soft-body objects to create secondary motion effects, such as muscle jiggle and floppy hats, with paintable goal-weights.
• Simulate the motion of natural forces with dynamic fields: Air, Drag, Gravity, Newton, Radial, Turbulence, Uniform, Vortex, Volume Axis, and Volume Curve.
• Control attributes such as Friction, Bounciness, Damping, Mass, Velocity, Spin, and Torque.
• Use Shatter to break an object into multiple rigid or soft-body pieces.

Achieve breathtaking 3D in Maya with an extensive range of 3D rendering and imaging tools.

In addition to the native Maya software renderer, Maya provides:

• Integrated mental ray® for Maya, with advanced photorealistic features: global illumination, final gathering, caustics, ambient occlusion, blurry reflections and refractions, motion-blurred particles, and image-based lighting
• Five licenses of mental ray® for Maya Batch* and 8 licenses of mental ray® for Maya Satellite
• A vector renderer, to turn 3D content into 2D content for the web or print, with output to Macromedia® Flash® and Adobe® Illustrator® software
• A hardware renderer, to generate high-quality images faster
• The ability to override the viewport with a third-party or proprietary renderer

Among a wealth of rendering, shading, and camera features, Maya offers:

• A flexible stereo camera rig that features in-viewport stereo viewing.
• A 3D editorial toolset featuring a Camera Sequencer for accelerated previsualization and virtual moviemaking.
• A multi-threaded Interactive Photorealistic Renderer (IPR) that quickly updates final-rendered-quality imagery as edits are made to the scene
• HyperShade and Visor tools for designing and editing shading networks, with bins for sorting and organizing rendering nodes.
• The Transfer Map feature that enables you to transfer normal, displacement, diffuse, shaded, ambient occlusion, and custom mental ray® shader information between models of differing topologies.

Maya® Composite is a fully featured, high-performance, high dynamic range (HDR)-capable compositor that provides Maya users with a highly efficient, collaborative compositing environment.

• Enhance rendered passes from Maya and incorporate them into live-action footage.
• Work interactively with visual media regardless of bit-depth or image size.
• Take advantage of advanced tools for keying, color correction, camera mapping, spline-based warping, motion blur, and depth of field.
• Perform complex rotoscoping workflows with both raster and vector paint and integrated tracking.
• Work in a full 3D compositing environment that incorporates tools to support stereoscopic productions.

With Maya Paint Effects and 3D Paint tools, you can more easily create realistic natural detail and painterly effects as 3D scene geometry or as 2D textures.

• Select, edit, and blend between 500 editable, pressure-sensitive, preset brushes, including trees, grass, flowers, crystals, feathers, barbed wire, lightning, rain, star fields, fireworks, fire, sparks, airbrushes, oil paint, chalk, pastels, pencils, watercolors, wet brushes, and markers.
• Built-in animation simulates effects like plants growing, unfurling, or swaying in the wind.
• Strokes can be drawn fully rendered during interactive painting, providing immediate feedback.
• Paint color, bump, displacement, transparency, and other textures directly on surfaces.

Transform 3D scenes into compelling cartoon animations rendered with non-photorealistic styles, such as hand-drawn, traditional cartoon, comic book, and Japanese manga/anime.

• Work in 3D to create more complex transitions and camera moves, or incorporate simulated effects that would be extremely difficult in 2D.
• Use Maya Paint Effects brushes to create outlines with an extensive range of painterly effects and precise control over line style, placement, and width.
• View interactive previews in near real time.
• Render the results in mental ray® for Maya or the Maya software or hardware renderers.

Extract accurate 3D camera and motion data from live action video and film sequences and insert CG elements seamlessly into a scene using Autodesk® MatchMover™ software.

• Push-Button Matchmoving provides advanced automatic 3D tracking; this easy-to-use feature can be used with supervised tracking to handle complex shots.
• Precision manual controls enable you to create a unique 3D reference system for your camera and 3D content.
• Advanced workflows can be based on filtering and fine tuning of tracking parameters, tracking from multiple footage and stills, tracking of moving objects, and 3D tracking constrained by motion-control data.

Maya is an open, highly extensible application. You can create scripts and write plug-ins to increase efficiency, customize features, and create competitive differentiation.

• Choose from the artist-friendly Maya Embedded Language (MEL) or the highly-extensible Python® scripting language.
• Write Maya plug-ins and stand-alone applications that run from the Maya command line in C++ or Python.
• Develop new types of Maya objects, including file translators, hardware shaders, surface shapes, manipulators and locators, and scriptable commands.

Learn more in the Developer Center.

Getting Started with Programming in Maya White Paper (pdf - 157Kb)

Maya offers streamlined workflows for working with industry-leading 2D paint, vector, editorial, and certain compositing applications.

• Use Render Layers to manage multiple passes within a single scene and export to your compositor of choice, or as Adobe® Photoshop® (PSD) or Adobe® Flash® (SWFT) software output.
• Generate and update a compositing tree from within Maya based on the render layers in the scene.
• Import an EDL in Apple® Final Cut Pro® application program, XML, or AAF formats, change shot timings in the Camera Sequencer, and re-export.
• Create and edit bevels on Adobe® Illustrator® software files, while maintaining the ability to update the original.

The Autodesk® Maya® Entertainment Creation Suites 2012 deliver the power of a world leader in 3D modeling and animation technology in a choice of software suites at a cost saving of up to 42%*.

• The Standard suite includes Maya with Autodesk® MotionBuilder® 2012 real-time character animation software and Autodesk® Mudbox™ 2012 digital sculpting and 3D painting software.
• With the Premium option, get additional access to the innovative creative toolsets in Autodesk® Softimage® 2012 software.
• Single-step interoperability workflows and more consistent user interfaces enable you to more easily switch between applications.

Learn more.

*International pricing may vary. Savings based upon U.S. MSRP.

Maya provides tools and workflows to efficiently manage large data sets.

• View and edit node relationships with the powerful dependency graph architecture.
• Segment scenes using assets and file referencing to manage collaborative, iterative workflows, and to improve performance by offloading scene elements until needed.
• Group nodes into containers and create custom and user-specific views.
• Extensively modify modeled data without rebuilding, using editable and animatable construction history.
• Replace scene elements with a simple, low-resolution mesh, and load pre-translated data only when required for rendering using the mental ray® Render Proxy.