Polygon Modeling Advancements
Unfortunately, there is a gaping hole here. Since as far back as I can remember (Maya 1 or 2), there have been really no poly tools created for Maya. It seems that perhaps Alias rested on its laurels with the fact that they have an amazing bevel/extrude tool and a very good cut tool… but some serious thought needs to go into this area. Almost every other 3D package has more sophisticated polygonal modeling tools. This is a shame, since Maya blows away most competitors when it comes to animation, dynamics, effects, etc. For $1,999 (Maya Complete) or $6,999 (Maya Unlimited), there should be a pretty amazing modeling set. Unless you find some plug-ins made by third party sources, there is no way to model using edgeloops, one of the most popular methods of modeling these days. Heck, you can go download Wings3d (www.wings3d.com), one of the best modeling packages out there, for FREE! Alias needs to catch up in this regard.

These are really all the new tools and features that have been released in Maya 6 (Unlimited) that relate to game development and a few extras that do not. In addition to these tools, Alias has made significant advances on some other complex systems. The new Hair in Maya Unlimited is, for lack of a better term, breathtaking. I have never before seen such an amazingly complex system look so good with little to no effort. In mere seconds (literally) you can generate long, flowing locks of hair that are fully dynamic and collidable. Using the optimized Interactive Playback function, you can watch your new, dynamic hair in motion in realtime. You will be amazed at the renders too. This quick technique results in renders that are just amazing. While Hair is not something that I will need in my realtime applications, this is the new feature that really knocked my socks off.

Hair Tools after just 15 seconds of tweaking.

Hair Tools
In addition to Hair, there have been advances made in Particle Deformers (the ability to use standard deforms on particle systems), Dynamic Curves (use of the Hair system to generate non-hair dynamic shapes), mental ray integration and Paint Effects (they are now available on polygonal objects.

Conclusion
Maya 6 is an extremely powerful tool in many ways and each rev makes it even stronger; however, I do think that this release is not much of an advancement in some key ways. My big hopes for the next release are that the interface gets revamped and reconsidered and the poly editing tools get seriously flushed out. However, for those looking for a generally flexible, high quality, dynamic 3D environment, Maya is still one of the best packages that money can buy.

Ryan Lesser teaches animation at his alma mater, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). His animation company (Mammoth Studios) has worked on projects for Phish, Sony, MTV, De La Soul, Madison Square Garden and others. Since 1999, Ryan has served as art director at Harmonix, a Playstation2 and Xbox videogame developer. Here he has helped produce award-winning games such as Frequency, Amplitude and the Karaoke Revolution series. Ryan also maintains a Providence, Rhode Island-only underground music site, lotsofnoise.com.