Maya 7 has arrived. All images © Alias Systems Corp.

Earlier this week, Alias shipped the latest full version upgrade of their all-encompassing 3D package, Maya 7. This comprehensive release comes with a variety of new features as well as improvements to existing features. Alias has crammed in enhancements to just about all of the major areas, including modeling, texturing, animation, effects and rendering. These additions are generally welcome yet there still is room for improvements.

Tools
Poly Crease for Smooth Proxy is a new tool that allows modelers to control how much smoothing occurs between edges, similar to LightWave’s vertex weight smoothing. Creating smooth transitions between hard and soft edges is now easier and requires less geometry. This tool should be especially useful in modeling the intricate geometry of faces, but also for more industrial models, such as flowing aerodynamic vehicles.

Logo specialists, especially broadcast artists requiring frequent updates and logo additions to their clips, will benefit from the new Adobe Illustrator import tools. Users may now import Illustrator files, apply bevels and various other common logo effects. These alterations are saved and can be applied to other Illustrator files while maintaining a link to the Illustrator file itself. This means tweaks to the original Illustrator file are updated in Maya automatically. The same is now true of text created in Maya; text can be altered after beveling and other deformations have been applied, with no loss. Other apps have long had this functionality, so while it’s a welcome addition it is quite late in the product life cycle to be adding this now. Another welcome latecomer to the Maya toolset is the Universal Manipulator. This fairly common tool amongst modern 3D apps allows users to move, scale and rotate their geometry within one tool. The good news is these tools work flawlessly; better late (and solid) than never.

Poly Crease for Smooth Proxy is a new tool that allows modelers to control how much smoothing occurs between edges.

Modelers will likely be interested in the new arrow key vertex selection. Users simply select a vertex then use the arrow keys to select neighboring vertices. This function uses the current view to choose the intended next vertex and works well. That is until you get near the edge of an object or move to a portion of the mesh with fewer vertices than your original selection. Here the tool seems confused and doesn’t continue to work as expected, dropping selection or selecting randomly. Although this is easily remedied by simply rotating the object, I’d like to see Alias push this tool further and respect the entire object relative to the current view, not just the facing geometry.

Alias has thrown in several new polygon primitives to help speed up some common modeling tasks. Pyramids, soccer balls, helixes and more are now immediately accessible.

Edge loops and rings have been given some attention, although some more work on these tools is warranted. Edges loops and rings are easier to select and duplicate by using the Select Edge Loop, Ring or Border tool under the Edit menu. However, when using these tools, I experienced frequent crashes. Alias provided me with an early copy of Maya 7 so the final retail build may not contain this sort of crash bug. There are many other modeling additions in Maya 7, including improved alignment/snapping functionality, simplified symmetrical modeling and a new Polygon UVs menu that gathers all map editing tools into a unique menu, relocated from a sub selection in the Edit Polygons menu.