Autodesk has today released Bifrost for Maya. Bifrost makes it possible for 3D artists and technical directors to create serious effects in Maya quickly and easily using a new visual programming environment.
"Bifrost for Maya represents a major development milestone for Autodesk, giving artists powerful tools for building feature-quality VFX quickly," said Chris Vienneau, Sr. Director, Maya and Media & Entertainment Collection. "With visual programming at its core, Bifrost makes it possible for TDs to build custom effects that are reusable across shows. We're also rolling out an array of ready-to-use graphs to make it easy for artists to get 90% of the way to a finished effect fast. We can't wait to see what graphs our amazing community will build and share. Ultimately, we hope Bifrost empowers Maya artists to streamline the creation of anything from smoke, fire, and fuzz to high-performance particle systems."
Bifrost for Maya Features
Ready-to-Use Graphs
Artists can quickly create state-of-the-art effects that meet today's quality demands.
One Graph
In a single visual programming graph, users can combine nodes ranging from math operations to simulations.
Realistic Previews
Artists can see exactly how effects will look after lighting and rendering right in the Arnold Viewport in Maya.
Detailed Smoke, Fire and Explosions
New physically-based solvers for aerodynamics and combustion make it easy to create natural-looking fire effects.
The Material Point Method
The new MPM solver helps artists tackle realistic granular, cloth and fiber simulations.
High-Performance Particle System
A new particle system crafted entirely using visual programming adds power and scalability to particle workflows in Maya.
Artistic Effects with Volumes
Bifrost comes loaded with nodes that help artists convert between meshes, points and volumes to create artistic effects.
Flexible Instancing
High-performance, rendering-friendly instancing empowers users to create enormous complexity in their scenes.
Detailed Hair, Fur and Fuzz
Artists can now model things consisting of multiple fibers (or strands) procedurally.
Image: Courtesy of Autodesk