Autodesk Maya - Overview

Overview

Maya is an application used to generate 3D assets for use in film, television, game development and architecture. The software was initially released for the IRIX operating system. However, this support was discontinued in August 2006 after the release of version 6.5. Maya was available in both "Complete" and "Unlimited" editions until August 2008, when it was turned into a single suite.

Users define a virtual workspace (scene) to implement and edit media of a particular project. Scenes can be saved in a variety of formats, the default being .mb (Maya Binary). Maya exposes a node graph architecture. Scene elements are node-based, each node having its own attributes and customization. As a result, the visual representation of a scene is based entirely on a network of interconnecting nodes, depending on each other's information. For the convenience of viewing these networks, there is a dependency and a directed acyclic graph.

Users who are students, teachers (or veterans or unemployed in USA markets) can download a full educational version from the Autodesk Education community. The version available at the community are without restrictions (once activated with the product license), except for the watermarks on output renders. It comes with a full 36 months license. Once it expires, users can log in to the community to request for a new 36 months license.

Additionally, a perpetual student license can be purchased for Maya. This license does not expire and the student version can be upgraded to the commercial version at a significant discount. It can be used even after the student graduates, the only restriction being non commercial use. No watermarks are created during output, making the student version of Maya suitable for portfolio creation. However, files saved with this version are recognized by all versions of Maya as files created by a student version.