maya 8.5, a preview of max?

[studioDIM]

maya 8.5 has been announced yesterday.
What's notable (Instinct suggested it to me first, i have to admit ) for max users are three things: The new mR physical sky and sun, the new unified simulation core (particles/soft/rigid/fluids/cloth, only implemented for cloth as of now) Nucleus -which sounds and feel a LOT like houdini's way of doing sims-, and the spanky new addition of python over Mel for scripting.
All of these could be ported soon-ish to max, as it only makes sense for them to unify what's possible under a similar workflow.
A couple of links here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...112&id=7635167
for the press release, and
http://www.autodesk.com/us/maya/docs...tml/wwhelp.htm
for the online help (!) with some videos.
Video links are blue, not red, and are mainly in the "what's new" category.
Peek into rendering if you're interested in sun and sky.

Lele

[Dynedain]

The MR Physical Sky and Sun is already in Max. In fact, it's an implementation of the same procedures and and calculations as VRay's Sun + Sky. Maxwell is built on the same method as well.

[instinct]

Nucleus was already announced to come to max too if i recall right...and am sure looking forward to that one....Joe Stam rocks :P

Thorsten

[jonnybefree]

i wonder why there isn't the possibility in mr and vr for giving him the time, and coordinates like in maxwelresdklync... or fry. i know i can link it to sky system, but would be nice if its implemented. to choose between free sun, or coordinates for example

[Neilg]

Does maya have a node based material editor?

[unknown]

it sure does. makes it very powerful, but from my experience with it, its a nightmare when you want to have lots of complicated materials.

im sure there are good ways to organise maya, i just find its a little to free for my liking someitmes, like units, and splines etc, makes for hard work!

the unified simulation core looks really nice. Jos Stam i beleive, was an article in 3dworld on it.

[studioDIM]

The MR Physical Sky and Sun is already in Max. In fact, it's an implementation of the same procedures and and calculations as VRay's Sun + Sky. Maxwell is built on the same method as well.

Not sure about this...
I can't see any preetham sky in max 9, and much less so i can find the mr physical sky shader.
Any directions about it?

Lele

[instinct]

either switch to mr, or switch on incompatible. The texture is called mr_physical_sky if i recall right.

Thorsten