Maya 2025.2 released

Autodesk has announced the release of Maya 2025.2.

The headline news is a ML Deformer  plugin that employs machine learning to approximate complex deformations. This tool speeds up the animation process by learning from an animation sequence that provides various motions of the target geometry, which can include motion capture data, keyframed animations, and randomization via the Pose Generator. After training, the ML Deformer can be toggled with the original deformer for use during animation, while the original deformer is used during rendering. This feature is particularly useful for background characters and crowd scenes where precision is less critical. However, some limitations include potential artifacts when using the Delta Mode to Surface and incorrect associations in large control sets.

The updated Universal Scene Description plug-in for Maya 0.29 now supports the import of USD blend shapes, preserving all attributes. Improvements also include upgraded transform manipulator with edit routing support, the ability to copy and paste prims in the outliner, and enhanced export capabilities, such as excluding empty transforms and exporting materials separately from geometry. The Attribute Editor now displays material attributes more consistently.

LookdevX for Maya 1.5.0 introduces a Ramp node for creating gradients and a typeless node workflow that allows different node types to be connected seamlessly. Additionally, viewport support for Arnold materials has been expanded to include Shuffle, Bump2d, and Range nodes.

Arnold for Maya 5.4.2.1 includes new features such as toon tone-mapping, improved volume denoising, and better support for light linking in global light sampling. Enhancements also cover improved Standard Hair on GPU rendering, more physically-based volume albedo values, and the ability to bake geometry to USD, ASS, or OBJ formats. Further, the Arnold RenderView snapshot workflow has been refined, and OpenVDB has been updated to version 11.0.

For more details, visit the Autodesk website.