Autodesk has announced the release of Bifrost 2.1 for Maya. New features make it possible to build compounds using rapid point-cloud lookups, nearest-neighbor searches, and raycasting. These can be combined with a new scope for visualising geometric queries to allow new types of compound to be created including collision deformers and attribute transfer.
Other features include making graphs more readable with new icons to identify auto-looped ports, value nodes that display the number they represent, and the ability to toggle display all node types, rather than just node names. File input and output have been improved too with the ability to read and write multiple meshes with a single file while keeping UV and painted attributes intact and Bifrost strands can now be serialized as Alembic curves and Bifrost points can be serialized as Alembic points.
The aero and particles graphs have both been simplified and improved to address workflow and readability. A number of smaller features have been added including properties that flag particles that have collided with an object and meshing of density volumes. The MPM sand, snow, and fluid nodes have also been updated with new ports and shortcuts, making it easier to add custom properties. It’s also now possible to render aero sims that exceed 4GB in size.
Finally, there are three new samples to demonstrate the release’s capabilities: fast aero, missile hit, and vehicle exhaust.
Find out more on Autodesk’s Maya blog and see the release notes for a detailed list of changes.
