What's New in Maya LT 2016 Extension 2

Texture Baking updates

More of Turtle's functionality has been exposed, letting you enjoy a more complete baking workflow. New options in the Texture Baking Settings tabs, Point Cloud Bake Editor, IBL Light Rig Editor, and Texture Resampling Editor allow you to take advantage of some of Turtle's advanced features.

Auto-generate LOD meshes

Building on the LOD workflow improvements in the previous Extension, this release adds a new LOD tool to auto-generate lower resolution meshes based on your high resolution mesh. This lets you create LOD groups and generate lower resolution meshes for each level at the same time.

To access the new tool, select Edit > LOD (Level of Detail) > Generate LOD Meshes in the main menu bar. For more information, see:

• Generate LOD meshes
• Example workflow: Create and export LOD meshes to a game engine
• Generate LOD Meshes Options

In addition, a new Camera drop-down menu in the LOD group attributes lets you change which camera controls the LOD switching. (Select an LOD group node, then open the Attribute Editor to view these options.) For perspective cameras, you can now change the Threshold Type after creating the LOD group. See Level of Detail attributes and Edit LOD threshold values for updated information.

Import and export skin weights

You can now import and export smooth skin weights using the Skin > Export Weight Maps and Skin > Import Weight Maps options found in the Rigging menu set. Importing skin weights from one surface to another lets you reuse the same weighting for multiple, similar objects, or simply to reapply the original weights back to a single surface, for example after you experiment with painting new weights. Skin weight maps are exported based on the current UVs of the selected object.

• Import skin weights
• Export skin weights

Creative Market panel

A new icon in the Status line (toolbar) makes it even easier to access Creative Market while you're working in Maya LT. Click the icon to launch a Creative Market panel in the sidebar area, and browse or download 3D assets directly in Maya LT.

Support for subsurface scattering effects and refraction in Stingray physically-based shader

The Stingray physically-based shader now supports subsurface scattering effects and refraction. Refer to the following topics for new information:

• Create a subsurface scattering effect with your physically based shader
• Add refraction to your physically based shader

Game Exporter improvements

You'll find the following updates in this release of the Game Exporter:

• The Move To Origin option is now available in the Animation Clips tab as well as the Model tab, making it easy to zero out the transform coordinates as you export animation clips.
• The projected name for your exported files now displays below the Path settings as you set up your export.
• Settings on the Model tab are now organized more consistently with the Animation Clips tab.

New scene options

When selecting File > New Scene, you can now select the option box to open the New Scene Options, which let you determine how the scene is set each time you select File > New Scene.

• Create, open, or save a scene file
• New Scene Options

PhysX update

With the release of Stingray 1.1, the PhysX plug-in installer for Maya LT is updated with the latest version of the PhysX plug-in, version 3.3.10930.12522. This plug-in, which ships with Stingray, includes several improvements and bug fixes by Nvidia. For related information, see Enable Stingray and PhysX plug-ins in Maya LT.