Key features of Maya Creative

Maya Creative software includes powerful modeling, animation, and rendering tools to push your creative limits in film, TV, or game production.

Knights gathered around a table with swords raised, made with Maya Creative

Modeling

Create 3D props, environments, and characters with powerful polygon and NURBS modeling tools.

Rigging and animation

Bring characters to life with features like keyframe, nonlinear, and motion capture animation.

Look development

Build procedural materials across multiple tools with LookdevX, a material authoring plug-in.

Rendering

View real-time scene changes, including lighting and materials, with the Arnold renderer integration.

OpenUSD workflows

Improve collaboration with integrated open standards like OpenUSD (Universal Scene Description).

Pipeline

Supercharge your tools with scripting and plug-ins. 

More features of Maya Creative

Modeling

Smart Extrude

Extrude faces on a mesh in a flexible and predictable way, minimizing manual cleanup of resulting geometry.


Polygonal modeling

Create 3D models using geometry based on vertices, edges, and faces.


NURBS modeling

Construct 3D models from geometric primitives and drawn curves.


UV editing and toolkit

View and edit the UV texture coordinates for polygon, NURBS, and subdivision surfaces in a 2D view.


Sculpting toolset

Sculpt and shape models more artistically and intuitively.


Rigging and animation

Skeletons

Pose and animate models with hierarchical, articulated structures known as skeletons.


Skinning

Bind a modeled surface to a skeleton with smooth, rigid, and indirect skinning.


Retargeting

Easily retarget animation between characters of differing size, proportions, and skeletal hierarchy with HumanIK.


Keyframe animation

Animate objects or skeletons by setting markers (keys) to indicate timing and position.


Time Editor

Create and edit animation sequences with any keyframeable object or attribute in Maya Creative.


Nonlinear animation

Assemble animation in sequences that you can rearrange and edit, like film clips in a nonlinear editor.


Graph Editor

See a graphical representation of interpolation between animation keys that you can modify.


Deformers

Add deformation effects to your characters and objects to tweak their appearance and enhance their animation.


Motion capture animation

Create animation in Maya Creative using motion capture (or “mocap”) systems.


Cached playback

See changes made to your animation without needing to create a playblast.


Look development

LookdevX

Build materials that work across multiple renderers with LookdevX, Autodesk’s agnostic material authoring plug-in for Maya Creative, supported by OpenUSD.


LookdevX Graph Editor

View, author, and edit materials on Maya Creative geometry in a single node-based visual programming environment.


Native USD and MaterialX material authoring

Use native USD and MaterialX shading graphs simultaneously within the same Maya Creative session.


MaterialX data structures

Automatic MaterialX Stack and Document data structures ensure you can use MaterialX comfortably in your daily tasks.


Color management

Trust color accuracy with color management data precisely embedded in USD files, controlled by Maya Creative's Color Management Preferences.


Arnold integration

Dive into more advanced graphing using the integrated Arnold shading graphs.


Rendering

Integrated Arnold renderer

Use Arnold Render View to view scene changes in real-time, including lighting, materials, and cameras.


GPU and CPU rendering

Use Arnold for production rendering on both the GPU and CPU.


Shaders

Create and apply a wide range of materials with Arnold shaders in Maya Creative like the standard_surface or distance.


Cameras

Simulate the effect of exposure, focus distance, aperture size, and more with cameras including the cylindrical and fisheye camera.


Lights

Pick from multiple light settings to simulate illumination in a scene with efficient techniques like global light sampling.


Denoising

Quickly reduce noise while preserving details in rendered images with denoising options like the OptiX Denoiser.


Color management

See accurate previews of final colors in the viewport and Render View with OpenColorIO v2.


Arnold USD

Leverage Arnold within USD-based workflows in production scenarios for efficient flow of 3D data.


OpenUSD workflows

Lightning speed

Load and edit massive data sets in a matter of seconds using OpenUSD in Maya Creative.


Seamless import and export

Import USD data as native Maya Creative data and export native Maya Creative data as USD data.


Lightweight previews

See quick previews of USD scene structure using the Hierarchy View window.


Native OpenUSD support

Work with USD data directly in common Maya Creative editors, such as the Outliner, Attribute Editor, and Channel Box.


OpenUSD in the viewport

See USD natively alongside Maya Creative data in the viewport.


Open source and fully customizable

The Maya USD plug-in is available as an open-source project for studios to customize as needed.


Pipeline

Scripting

Create Maya Creative scripts and write plug-ins using Python 3.


Scene assembly

Create large, complex worlds without slowing down your workflow.


Customization

Customize the interface, hotkeys, search, and more to tailor Maya Creative to your preferences and workflow.


Plug-In Manager

Easily identify and manage which plug-ins are loaded into Maya Creative.


Flow Production Tracking integration

Access production management tools directly in Maya Creative with a Flow Production Tracking (formerly ShotGrid) subscription.