Autodesk has announced Maya 2025.1 including many improvements across modelling, animation, rendering, and other areas.
In modelling, the Smart Extrude feature includes a new icon that appears above the manipulator in the viewport when Smart Extrude is active, distinguishing it from the Move tool. Additionally, Smart Extrude is now accessible from the poly modelling toolkit, and improvements have been made to manipulator and pivot inheritance from the Move, Rotate, and Scale tools. Performance, reliability, and stability have also been improved. Users can quickly activate Smart Extrude through the Poly Modelling shelf or the Modelling Toolkit.
Animation improvements include a cursor-centered zoom in the Graph Editor and Dope Sheet Editor, making navigation easier in scenes with dense keys. The default zoom behavior now centers on the cursor location, but users can revert to previous settings if preferred. Playblasted animations now support exposure and gamma adjustments via the color management buttons on the panel toolbar, although these settings are not yet supported for Stereo Cameras and the Camera Sequencer. Additionally, color-coded keys in the Time Slider no longer obscure frame numbers, enhancing visibility.
The Dope Sheet Editor has received multiple updates, including support for multiple audio tracks, cursor-centered zoom, and several selection improvements. Users can shift-select multiple keys, enter values to update them simultaneously, and work with dense keys more precisely. The move tool selection issue has been resolved, allowing individual attribute selection. A new Time Snap option enables or disables snapping keys to the nearest integer time unit. A Bake Channel option allows for baking keys in a user-defined range, and channel sets can now be imported and exported as JSON files. The Evaluation Manager now supports key manipulation, accelerating key adjustments.
The Universal Scene Description for Maya 0.28 plug-in introduces layer locking, allowing artists to prevent accidental edits in the wrong layers. Administrators can enforce system-level locks via scripts, providing further control.
Bifrost 2.10.0.0 introduces a Node Library for easier node management, new nodes for rigging workflows, and updated SDKs for integration and geometry manipulation. This version also includes new nodes and sample graphs.
LookdevX for Maya 1.4.0 now features a node library, the ability to hide input nodes, a material assignment menu in the Outliner and Viewport, and support for volume shaders. Arnold materials can now be displayed in the viewport, improving the visual workflow.
The Arnold for Maya 5.4.1.2 update includes improved denoising with Intel Open Image Denoise, improved snapshot workflows in the Arnold Render View, and new MaterialX node definitions for better usability. Additional improvements include updated denoising performance, improved support for USD cameras, and more intuitive tooltips.
Lastly, Substance 3.0.0 introduces an open-source Substance 3D Connector technology, allowing for seamless shader transfers from Substance 3D Sampler to Maya. This update also includes stability fixes.
For more information, visit the Maya documentation.
Source: https://cgpress.org/archives/maya-2025-1-released.html