What's New in Maya 2024 (2024)

This release of Maya also includes the following changes and improvements.

Standard Surface replacing Lambert as default material

The initial shading group now assigns a Standard Surface (standardSurface1) to all newly created objects by default. Viewport lighting levels have been adjusted to accommodate the change in material. The default lighting can be changed in the Hardware Renderer 2.0 Settings.

Note: For backward compatibility, scene files saved from versions preceding Maya 2024 will continue to use lambert1 as the default material. XGen, PaintFX strokes, and meshes generated by converting PaintFX to polygons will also use old materials (Lambert, Phong, Blinn, and Ramp Shaders). The old materials may look too bright due to viewport lighting being adjusted for the Standard Surface material. Consider adjusting the lighting and or materials to produce the desired look.

New FBX Import option

A new FBX import option, Smoothing Groups, has been created to address problems where exported FBX polygon objects with smooth edge normals would reimport with incorrect normal information.

Now, to preserve shading, activate the Smoothing Groups FBX Export option, and on import, activate the new Smoothing Groups import option.

GPU Support for SoftMod deformer subsets You can now use the SoftMod deformer on geometry subsets when the Soft Modification options Falloff Mode is set to Volume and still benefit from GPU support.
GraphViz for macOS update

Graphviz, an opensource graph visualization software, is no longer bundled with Maya on macOS. You can install locally from the Graphviz website.

Support for 119.88 frame rate

Maya now lists 119.88 among supported frame rates in the Settings Preferences. This frame rate is useful for exporting motion capture data from Vicon or MotionBuilder to Maya.

New Preference for Time Editor Audio

Previously, problems occurred where playblasted audio from the Time Editor changed pitch or become cut off. Now, you can prevent this from happening by selecting your audio file frequency in the new Input Audio Rate menu in the Time Editor area of the Animation (Settings) Preferences.

New option for Orthographic camera clip planes

A new Auto-adjust orthographic camera clip planes checkbox has been added to the Cameras preferences. When on, orthographic cameras automatically adjust their position and clipping plane when framing objects.

Support for Bullet v3.24

The version of Bullet has updated from 3.0.0.0282 to 3.24. See Bullet 3.0.

Drag and drop text field population

You can now drag a file from the file browser and drop it into a text field to update the file path with the file name. To do this, drag a file from the File Browser to the Attribute Editor Image Name or Notes fields, or the Window Text and Scroll fields.

See Change attribute values in the Attribute Editor

Customize Node Traversal depth

A new Traversal Depth option has been added to the Node Editor Preferences to let you specify a depth value for moving through the graph. This is particularly helpful when working with complex structures like rigs.

The default is Unlimited. See Traversal Depth in Node Editor Preferences.

Blue Pencil improvements

This update contains updates to the Blue Pencil tool to enhance your drawing experience:

  • Added Falloff curve settings so you can create custom stroke profiles.
  • Improved the open and save time of scenes containing BP frames.
  • Added a Blue Pencil option to the Show panel menu, so you can turn drawings off or on.
  • You can delete camera layers by right-clicking the camera name in the Layer Manager.
  • Addressed multiple inconsistencies with stroke size and appearance.
  • New Profiler support for performance tracking.
New Preference for Time Editor Audio

Previously, problems occurred where playblasted audio from the Time Editor would change pitch or become cut off. Now, you can prevent this from happening by selecting your audio file frequency in the new Input Audio Rate menu in the Time Editor area of the Animation (Settings) Preferences.

See also Add Audio to the Time Editor and Audio pitch changes when Playblasting in the Troubleshoot the Time Editor topic

Color Management

Maya now uses OpenColorIO version 2.1.1 for color management. In addition, the default Format for Floating Point Render Target is now R16G16B16A16_Float on macOS systems.

Panel Menu: Show

The Show menu in the viewport has been updated for visual clarity. Show menu items are now grouped into categories, and the items your wish to show/hide can be saved into presets.

What's New in Maya 2024 (2024)

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Duane Harber

Last Updated:

Views: 5790

Rating: 4 / 5 (51 voted)

Reviews: 82% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Duane Harber

Birthday: 1999-10-17

Address: Apt. 404 9899 Magnolia Roads, Port Royceville, ID 78186

Phone: +186911129794335

Job: Human Hospitality Planner

Hobby: Listening to music, Orienteering, Knapping, Dance, Mountain biking, Fishing, Pottery

Introduction: My name is Duane Harber, I am a modern, clever, handsome, fair, agreeable, inexpensive, beautiful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.