Archive notice: This article was originally published on 11 December 2019. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Alongside Flame and Mudbox, Autodesk today also released the new Maya 2020 release together with Arnold 6, including the GPU version. Based on OptiX (NVIDIA), Arnold now also uses NVIDIA RTX RT cores for ray tracing and Tensor cores for AI denoising.
Maya 2020: Feature Overview
Alongside integration of the new Arnold renderer, Maya 2020 also contains improvements and additions in modelling, rigging, animation and FX:
- Animation – more than 60 additions, including a new ghosting preview, animation bookmarks for organising the timeline, improved cached playback, layered dynamics caching, new audio features, colour themes, hotkeys and more.
- Modelling workflow with improved remesh and retopology tools for faster, automated quad topology. More here.
- Rigging contains new matrix transform and operation nodes, UV Pin nodes and a GPU-accelerated Wrap deformer
- Bifrost with better performance using cached playback, MPM cloth constraints and expanded Arnold support
- Rendering: Arnold 6 with new CPU and GPU rendering features
Arnold 6: Feature Highlights
Arnold GPU already arrived as a beta in March of this year with support for shading networks, hair, SSS, atmospheres, instances and procedurals. With optimisation for RTX hardware and many new features, the GPU variant is now officially out of beta. These include a faster “time to first pixel” (up to 20%), multi-GPU rendering without NVLink and much more:
- New GPU features including OSL, OpenVDB volumes, on-demand texture loading, LPEs, lights, support for most shaders and all cameras.
- Unified Renderer, allowing seamless switching between CPU and GPU with the same settings.
- USD components, including a Hydra render delegate, Arnold USD procedurals and USD schemas for Arnold nodes and properties (Github)
- GPU noise is now equivalent to CPU noise with adaptive sampling
- Performance improvements with faster creased subdivisions, Physical Sky shaders and “dielectric microfacet multiple scattering”.
You can find a complete list of the GPU variant’s remaining limitations here.
Availability
Maya 2020 is still available only as a subscription (monthly, annually or for three years) here. An announcement for Germany of the Indie variant launched in some countries has not yet materialised. Arnold 6, including Arnold GPU, is available as a stand-alone subscription or as part of the Autodesk Media & Entertainment Collection. The renderer is available through plug-ins for Maya, 3ds Max, Houdini, Cinema 4D and Katana. You can find out more here in the online store.
Further information: The Maya 2020 and Arnold 6 release notes
