At SIGGRAPH 2008, Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) announced Autodesk Maya 2009 3D animation and visual effects software, in celebration of the software’s 10-year anniversary. Maya 2009 includes a host of advancements in modeling, animation, rendering and effects that maximize productivity, optimize workflows, and provide new creative possibilities. Maya 2009 will be showcased at the Autodesk booth (#501) during SIGGRAPH 2008, at the Los Angeles Convention Center Aug. 12-14.

“We are celebrating the work done with Autodesk Maya over the past 10 years by many artists and creative visionaries in film, television production and games, as well as in industrial design and architecture.” said Marc Petit, Autodesk’s Media & Entertainment senior vice president. “We designed Maya 2009 as a tribute to creative innovation and production efficiency. The new release will allow artists to raise the bar and deliver even more ground breaking computer graphics work.”

Mike Romey, senior technical director at Zoic Studios was a beta tester for Maya 2009. “The future of Maya is shining brightly with the upcoming release,” said Romey. “Autodesk Maya 2009 will change the way artists think about dynamics, rendering, compositing and pipelines. With the solid mental ray multi-render pass workflow, production will be far more effective. This new workflow will optimize render times for multiple render layers and, in turn, elevate the quality of work. The creation of nParticles builds on the unified dynamics engine introduced in nCloth, allowing for greater integration of advanced effects.”

Key Highlights of Autodesk Maya 2009

Complexity Managed
While the complexity and size of scenes continue to rise, Maya 2009 provides new tools to make them more manageable. These tools include the new Maya Assets toolset, which enables users to encapsulate a set of nodes into a single container and publish a view of the data suited to the artist’s task. The release also offers a new Render Proxy feature in mental ray, and additional multi-threading work and algorithmic speedups that boost interactive draw, simulation and rendering performance for even the heaviest scenes.

Accelerated Modeling Workflow
Maya 2009 gives modelers and texture artists unprecedented control over polygon modeling and UV texturing through powerful selection management features, efficient modeling workflows and precision UV unfolding and layout options.

Collaborative, Iterative Projects and Pipelines
Tighter schedules and budgets demand that projects and pipelines take full advantage of available resources. Maya 2009 supports collaborative, iterative workflows and promotes data reuse. The software has a new animation layering paradigm that provides animators with increased non-destructive flexibility, as well as an updated Render Pass toolset that offers precise control over render output and optimizes integration with Autodesk Toxik procedural compositing software.

New Creative Tools
Maya 2009 offers an innovative Maya nParticles dynamic simulation module and an extensive Maya Muscle feature set. nParticles is part of the Maya Nucleus Unified Simulation Framework, a ground-breaking approach to creating complex physics simulations that interact directly with each other. Furthermore, to help studios capitalize on the growing popularity of stereoscopic 3D films, Maya 2009 offers a flexible new stereo camera rig, complete with in-viewport stereo viewing.

For a complete list of new features and enhancements in Maya 2009, visit www.autodesk.com/maya.

Pricing and Availability
Autodesk anticipates that Maya 2009 will be available in English in October 2008. Maya 2009 will be supported on the Windows and Linux operating systems (64-bit and 32-bit versions), as well as Mac OS X for Intel-based Macintosh and PowerPC computers (32-bit version only).

Autodesk suggested retail pricing is US$1,995* for Maya Complete 2009 (Standalone) and US$4,995* for Maya Unlimited 2009 (Standalone). The upgrade price from Maya Complete 2008 to Maya Complete 2009 is US$899*, and the upgrade price from Maya Unlimited 2008 to Maya Unlimited 2009 is US$1,249*.

Autodesk Subscription with Gold Support is available for purchase simultaneously with the product or upgrade purchase. The Autodesk suggested retail price for Subscription with Gold Support for Maya Unlimited is US$1,495* per year, and for Maya Complete is US$1,295*. Subscription with Gold Support customers qualify for access to the latest software updates, valuable product extensions, telephone and web support, a comprehensive knowledge base and e-Learning materials.

For information about Maya learning tools, visit www.autodesk.com/learning-tools