The most powerful Maya yet enables you to work more efficiently and collaboratively than ever before

What are the most significant among the many updates of Maya 2022? These are the ones that caught our attention:

Seamlessly Integrated USD

• With USD seamlessly integrated in Maya 2022 you can not only load and edit massive data sets at lightning speed.
• Import and export USD data seamlessly. A new round-trip import and export workflow lets you take USD data and import it as native Maya data. This allows you to rely on USD as a simple, high speed format for transferring data between Maya scenes or other applications that support USD.
• A new USD Hierarchy View Window gives you a lightweight preview of the USD scene structure. This can be used to see the contents of a USD file, as well as to set the state of the scene, including variants, before import. 
• Support for in-memory USD stages. The new mayaUsdProxyShape node enables native Maya workflows directly on USD stages. This means you can now work directly with USD data in common Maya editors, enabling native support for the Viewport, Outliner, Attribute Editor, Manipulators, Snapping, and more
  
• You can now see USD natively alongside Maya data in the Viewport. A new Selection by Kind setting provides you with granular control over Viewport-based selection of USD hierarchies.
  
• There are several new features in the Outliner intended to complement USD workflows. With these improvements, you can quickly and easily identify and manipulate USD data in the Outliner alongside standard Maya objects.
  
• The new USD Layer Editorallows you to intuitively create, view, and manage a USD Stage’s complex LayerStack.
  
• The Maya USD plugin is available as an open source project for studios to customize as needed.
  

Python 3

Python 3 is now the default for Maya on all platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac OS). On Windows and Linux, you still have the option to start Maya in Python 2 mode by setting an environment variable or with a command line flag.

Powerful animation tools

• The new Ghosting Editor lets you create images that echo your animations, so you can visualize movement and manage how and what parts of your characters you would like to see in the Viewport.
  
• Maya also improves the speed and performance of simulation and dynamics caching, enabling you to stay in flow and iterate your work in real-time at final frame quality.
  
• The Time Editor also fully supports Cached Playback allowing you to work and hit play without needing to playblast. 
  
• You can now set clips to be additive, allowing you to mix two clips together seamlessly.
  
• Maya also adds several improvements to the Graph Editor, bringing you a smoother animating experience. A new Peak Removal filter enables you to clean up unwanted spikes and peaks in your animation curves and a new Smooth (Gaussian) filter gives you more control over the range and width of blur effects.
  
• New options for Auto Tangents in the Graph Editor offer an improved algorithm, giving you better control and more predictable results.
  

Modern Rigging Workflows

• Component Tags allow geometry to store named sets of components directly on a shape node. These sets can then be passed to and used by other nodes. Component Tags simplify the deformer graph by significantly reducing the number of nodes and connections required for deformation.
• You can take advantage of Deformer Falloffs with many of the most commonly used deformers, including Skin Cluster, Cluster, BlendShape, Proximity Wrap, Tension, Lattice, Wire, Delta Mush, and all nonlinear deformers. Unlike traditional deformer weighting, once defined, falloffs can be shared and reused in a topologically independent way. 
  
•  A new evalFalloff nodecan be used to expand the falloff system to support legacy deformers. You can use this node to evaluate falloffs on geometry to drive traditional weighting on deformers such as BlendShape targets.
  
• The new Solidify deformer enables you to create areas of geometry that appear more solid when deformed.
  
• With the new Morph deformer, you can seamlessly blend from one shape to another. With the new Morph deformer, you can seamlessly blend from one shape to another.
  
• When the new Always Draw on Top attribute is enabled on a Curve shape node, the curve will be visible in the Viewport even when occluded by other objects in the scene. Curves that are used as rig control objects can now be displayed in the Viewport on top of other objects, improving visibility of the rig.
  
• You can now use the Proximity Wrap deformer instead of the classic Skin Cluster node when binding a mesh to a skeleton. 
  

Community-Inspired Modeling Updates

• Sweep Mesh is a new, one-click, procedural tool for generating polygon geometry from NURBS and Bezier curves. Using Sweep Mesh, you can procedurally control profile shape, size, tapering, twisting, alignment, subdivisions, and UV creation. 
• A new Game Vertex Count plugin creates a game-centric alternative to Maya’s standard Poly Count Heads Up Display (HUD). Using the plugin, you can more accurately estimate how assets in Maya impact in-game vertex count budgets before exporting them to game engines.
  
• A new Game Vertex Count plugin creates a game-centric alternative to Maya’s standard Poly Count Heads Up Display (HUD). Using the plugin, you can more accurately estimate how assets in Maya impact in-game vertex count budgets before exporting them to game engines.
  

Fast and flexible rendering with Arnold 6.2

Maya now includes Arnold 6.2, bringing even more speed and flexibility to workflows with new post-processing nodes for better control of lighting effects and tools for automatic denoising after each render. This update also continues to build Arnold’s GPU toolset with a number of enhancements to help artists render more efficiently as well as improved USD support.

Connect with our Autodesk expert scott@novedge.com or call 866 362 8970 ext.705  if you have questions about Maya 2022 or if you want to take advantage of Autodesk 0% financing.