Maya 2027 itself brings a number of updates in modeling, skinning, animation and simulation.
Probably the most interesting update is the new Smart Bevel feature, it enhances traditional bevel operations getting rid of geometric defects, especially after Boolean operations or when working with intersecting geometries, and you can adjust the bevel level visually,
ngSkinTools this well-known skinning add-on now comes integrated in Maya, it is a non-destructive, layer-based approach to character skinning, it allows artists to refine and experiment with skin weights using a visual, non-destructive, layer-based approach.
MotionMaker adds a new equine template, alongside the human and dog templates introduced in previous version, you can create quickly and easily animations of horses trotting and galloping, jumping over a fence seems not supported though, at least didn’t worked for me when testing it.
A number of improvements have been added to the Sequencer, you can trim or time scale a shot simply by dragging the edge of its entry in the Sequencer pane, besides there are new ways to organize shots and a new playblast menú with several options to customize its behaviour.
In the simulation field Bifrost now computes asynchronously, allowing to continue working in the Bifrost editor meanwhile, it adds new surface tension settings for adjusting small scale droplets and splashes,and a new set of basic constraints like hinges and sliders are available for rigid body simulations.
Finally Arnold render updates to version 5.5.0 with several minor enhancements and bug fixes.
Summer Day Studios expains many of Maya 2027 new features in this nice video:
We are thrilled to announce Pulldownit plug-in for Mayagets a non-destructive workflow, allowing to sculpt fractures over the model freely, visually chipping the areas you want and computing dynamics immediately, or modifying the original model transform or shape and its associated fracture body will update accordingly, you can undo latest changes or revert to original shattering at any moment.
Maya mesh modifiers are supported, there are only a few known limitations with some modifiers that you can review in the Maya Script Editor Pane.
In addition now is possible to increase or reduce fracture clusters size, alongside the Edge Fracturefeature introduced in v 6.0 makes very easy to adjust perfectly detaching or exploding areas.
There are also several useful UI improvements you can review below and you can check the whole list of fixes in the Pulldownit version logs page:
Licensed users can already access Pulldownit 6.5 from his account and there is a demo version for Maya 2026 in the Thinkinetic web site.
Shatter New Features
New Non-Destructive shatter workflow, reshatter areas, change the original model transform or shape and recompute dynamics immediately, Maya Mesh modifiers are supported.
Shatter it supports Xref Objects, Xref objects can be shattered seamlessly and are supported by non-destructive shatter workflow(with the inherent limitations of using Xref objects in a Maya scene).
New Reshatter option “Set Current as Base Breakage”, this new option allows to set current shattering as base breakage, you can revert shattering to base breakage at any moment.
Dynamics New Features
New ability to resize fracture clusters, now you can reduce or increase fracture cluster size just by clicking in the intended buttons and compute simulation immediately.
UI Enhancements
New Shatter it window layout, making it more intuitive by showing only parameters affecting the selected shatter style.
New Shatter it SwatchDisplayPort, this new visual widget displays an icon of the selected shatter group cut material, you can access cut material properties just by clicking over it.
New Shatter it “Show/Hide source node” button, after clicking on it you can transform source node or modify its mesh freely.
New Shatter it “Refresh Breakage from Source” button, by clicking on it shattering is refreshed from the current source node transform and shape.
New Shatter it “Revert to Base Shape” button, by clicking on it source node shape is reverted to original state.
New Reshatter option “Update Base Shape”, by clicking on it source node base shape is updated to current state.
This new version of the plugin is focused on fast and easy fractures refinement to get polished destruction effects of your model quickly.
We are thrilled to announce Pulldownit plug-in gets a non-destructive workflow in 3ds Max, allowing to sculpt fractures over the model freely, visually shattering it in the areas you want and computing dynamics right away, or changing the original model position, orientation, scale or shape and all existing fractures will update accordingly, 3ds Max modifiers are supported.
In the same line we introduce a new Edge Fracture Tool to easily chipping inner borders of selected fragments, the tool works in an interactive way, simply selecting fragments in viewport to shatter its edges and play the result, you can recover the original breakage at any moment to start again.
Replace cut material can now be done at any stage of the destruction scene, even after baking simulation keys and it supports jaggy fragments, in addition a different base color is set for the new material created to easily check the fragments affected.
PDI Alembic exporter has been revamped, now it is able to export thousands of objects as a single Alembic mesh in seconds. In addition, PDI auto-loads the Alembic file in the 3ds Max scene after export , you can check it, apply original shaders to it, and if needed recover original geometry nodes just by deleting the Alembic mesh.
There are several other performance and usability improvements you can review below and you can check the whole list of fixes in the Pulldownit version logs page:
Licensed users can already access Pulldownit 6.0 from his account and there is a demo version for 3ds Max 2026 in the Thinkinetic web site.
Shatter New Features
New Non-Destructive shatter workflow, shatter pattern can be modified in any way and recompute dynamics right away, change the original model position, orientation, scale and 3ds Max modifiers are supported.
New Edge Fracture Tool, this new tool allows to visually chipping on inner borders of selected fragments, it works in an interactive way , you can reshatter fragments and play the simulation right away, undo last operation or recover the original breakage at any moment.
Improved path based shatter quality, path based shatter now generates rounded shards across the path, producing more realistic results in dynamics for stone-like materials.
Auto replace cut material supports jaggy fragments, replace cut material can now be done at any stage of the destruction scene, it affects the selected shatter group only, jaggy fragments and baked fracture objects are supported, in addition it sets a different base color for the new material making the checking of fragments affected much easier.
Dynamics New Features
Improved Clusterize pattern, clusterize parameter now generates nonaligned clusters getting more realistic fracture results, besides falling Fracture Bodies are now forced to break in the area of collision with static surfaces without the need of further adjustment.
Fracture Body “Relative to Mass” now adjust to “hardness”, getting easily more debris in impact areas just by making the model more brittle.
New cluster option “Excluded from Cracks Propagation”, this new parameter forces the cluster to break upon direct collision only, preventing it to be detached in advance because of cracks propagation or force fields affecting the whole fracture body.
New cluster option “Relative to Mass”, enabling this option clusters involving small and large fragments prefers to break in the chipping areas first, this option is now the default for clusters creation.
Alembic exporter 20x faster, export fracture simulation to Alembic now takes just a few seconds even for thousands of objects involved
UI Enhancements
Cut Material color auto change after Make New, replacing a shatter group material now sets a different color for the new material created so you can easily differentiate it from the old one.
Added “Bake All” option to PDI Simulation tab, this new option allows you to bake all PDI bodies in scene at once, removing all PDI data and letting only animation keys in the scene.
Maya 2026 itself brings a number of updates in modeling, animation, simulation and shading.
In modeling there is a new volume mode for Booleans, it works by converting polygons to volumes before doing the Boolean operation then converting it back to polygons, that’s ensure perfect results but you miss the original shape of the object in the process, according to Autodesk this mode is intended to quicky block out organic-like models.
A number of improvements have been made to the ML Deformer, you can now use Apply Mesh Compare to visualize the difference between two meshes using a heat map and other fixes to the tool.
Maya Bifrost now includes the ability to simulate liquids directly in the graph, basically integrating the legacy Bifrost Fluids plug-in into the new node based VFX workflow.
In order to converge with Adobe tools in the shading pipeline, OpenPBR is now the default surface shader in Maya, learn more about OpenPBR by visiting the Academy Software Foundation.
Golaem, a crowd simulation plug-in for Maya can be licensed as part of Autodesk’s Media and Entertainment Collection, important to note Golaem plug-in is not included in the Maya distribution despite it appears mentioned in the release notes for Maya 2026.
USD plugin update to version 0.31 with support for light linking.
LookdevX 1.7.0 for Maya introduces improved publishing workflows, relative paths support, and a new generative textures API.
Finally Arnold render updates to version 5.5.0 with several minor enhancements.
Just Maya Stuff shows many of Maya 2026 new features in this nice video:
Pulldownit 6 for Maya brings new destruction features and important updates in performance and usability. This new version of the plugin is focused on fast tweaking and repeatability, and easy fractures refinement to get polished destruction effects of your model quickly.
For this we introduce a new Edge Fracture Tool to easily chipping on inner borders of selected fragments, the tool works in an interactive way, allowing to reshatter selected fragments and play the simulation right away, and it is non-destructive so you can undo last operation or recover the original breakage at any moment to start again. In addition, you can watch the amount of fragments generated to prevent running over your polygon budget, specially convenient for real time effects.
In the same line replace cut material can now be done at any stage of the destruction scene, even after baking simulation keys and it now supports jaggy fragments, in addition a different base color is set for the new material created, so you can check the fragments affected immediately.
Dynamic long cracks have been improved producing more realistic results for stone-like materials and thousands of instanced shapes in dynamics computes up to 30% faster.
Fracture clusters counts with new parameters to fine control when and how an object breaks.
There are also several useful UI improvements you can review below and you can check the whole list of fixes in the Pulldownit version logs page:
Licensed users can already access Pulldownit 6.0 from his account and there is a demo version for Maya 2025 in the Thinkinetic web site.
Shatter New Features
New Edge Fracture Tool, this new tool allows to visually chipping on inner borders of selected fragments, it works in an interactive way and is non-destructive so you can reshatter fragments and play the simulation right away, undo last operation or recover the original breakage at any moment.
Improved path based shatter quality, path based shatter now generates rounded shards across the path, producing more realistic results in dynamics for stone-like materials.
Auto replace cut material supports jaggy fragments, replace cut material can now be done at any stage of the destruction scene, it affects the selected shatter group only, jaggy fragments and baked fracture objects are supported, in addition it sets a different base color for the new material making the checking of fragments affected much easier.
Dynamics New Features
Instanced rigid bodies faster performance, Instanced shapes in dynamics computes up to 30% faster speed, that means thousands of shapes simulated in a few minutes.
Fracture Body “Relative to Mass” now adjust to “hardness”, getting easily more debris in impact areas just by making the model more brittle.
Improved Clusterize pattern, clusterize parameter now generates nonaligned clusters getting rid of the blocky look when fracturing an object with auto clusters, besides falling Fracture Bodies are now forced to break in the area of collision with static surfaces without the need of further adjustment.
New cluster option “Excluded from Cracks Propagation”, this new parameter forces the cluster to break upon direct collision only, preventing it to be detached in advance because of cracks propagation or force fields affecting the whole fracture body.
New cluster option “Relative to Mass”, enabling this option clusters involving small and large fragments prefers to break in the chipping areas first, this option is now the default for clusters creation.
UI Enhancements
New option to set “current frame” for any fracture event, just by dragging the Maya time-slider you can set the current frame for any fracture event by clicking in the event “ST” side button.
New option to set “current frame” for any rigid body event, just by dragging the Maya time-slider you can set the current frame for any rigid body event by clicking in the event “ST” side button.
New option to set “current frame” for any cracker event, just by dragging the Maya time-slider you can set the current frame for any cracker event by clicking in the event “ST” side button.
New option to change seed for rigid body initial velocity/spin, by clicking the new “NS” button next to random velocities’ parameters you will play the simulation with a different initial velocity/spin for all the rigid bodies selected.
New option to add random velocity/spin to fracture bodies.
New option to change seed for fracture body initial velocity/spin, by clicking the new “NS” button next to random velocities’ parameters you will play the simulation with a different initial velocity/spin for all the fracture bodies selected.
Pulldownit 6 is coming soon, among other useful improvements we are glad to announce a new Edge Fracture Tool which creates debris on borders of selected fragments, this new tool works in an interactive way and is non-destructive so you can apply it at any stage of the destruction scene before baking animation keys. In addition, you can easily watch the amount of fragments generated to prevent running over your polygon budget specially for real time VFX. Look at Edge Fracture feature in action in this demo video:
Pulldownit 6 will be released in the following weeks and licensed users will count with free upgrade from v5.x.
In this quick tip Esteban Cuesta shows us how to easily delay the start of a crack of modify its strength progressively using latest Pulldownit plugin in Maya. As you can see it is just matter of setting animation keys for the cracker multiplier parameter and you can undo it or modify the crack strength at your ease, simply by setting new animation keys.
Andres de Mingo made this nice shot, an animated character breaking some skulls and then 5K skulls falling over it, done in 3d Max using Pulldownit plugin for all dynamics effects.
Breaking the skulls on the cave floor
All skulls are set as static convex bodies to be activated at first hit, the hammer is set also as a kinematic convex body to speed up computation, the floor of the cave isn’t flat so I had to set it as a static mesh body to can use its real shape in collisions, also I made a couple of large boxes on both sides as barriers to prevent skulks rolling out of the camera view, those barriers where hidden in render, some skulls breaks when being hit, they were shattered in around 120 fragments each one combining both uniform and local styles, and I set them as static “first hit” fracture bodies, after playing the simulation with PDI the skulls reacted to the hammer impact and got broken nicely at a very fast computation rate.
Making The skulls stack
Starting with a single skull I created 5000 instances using the make array tool in 3ds Max, then I set all of them as PDI dynamic convex bodies, however the stack was completely uniform, like a box of objects, to get a more natural look of the skulls falling I set random initial velocities for them using PDI and compute a few frames before the skulls where visible in camera, so when reaching the stage they were nicely disordered.
Destroying the Skeleton
I set the animated skeleton as a kinematic body and create 3 additional falling skulls hitting it in the head and shoulders at specific time according to character animation, but the most tricky part of the shot was destroying the skeleton, for this I created a frozen copy it, I set it as a PDI convex body and hide the duplicated skeleton, then when the stack of skulls reached it I replaced the animated skeleton for the dynamic one and this made the trick, the skeleton parts were falling while being hit and covered by the skulls.
Conclusions
You can find the skulls, skeleton and other cool models by Andres de Mingo in
Pulldownit 5.8, is already available for Maya 2025, this version includes instanced shapes supported in the core solver allowing to create hundreds of instanced rigid bodies almost instantly and a 20% faster simulation with instances, along with several fixes you can review in the version logs page.
Maya 2025 itself brings a number of updates in animation, modeling and rendering. Originally introduced in 3ds Max , Smart Extrude is now available in Maya, this powerful mesh modifier lets to interactively extrude faces in the viewport and eliminates the need to manually repair geometry, you can cut faces partially or even make holes in the model in one run.
Maya 2025 brings several useful updates in animation, a new deformation widget has been added to the Attribute Editor which lets quick review deformers and topology modifiers that affect an object, Bake Deformer now allows to set a custom range of motion for Poses/keys aside other various customer requests included.There is a new Motion Trail Editor with an icon shelf for faster access, this new feature gather all Motion Trail-related utilities in a single spot, also the Dope Sheet has been reworked for a quick, intuitive way to understand, manipulate, and adjust animation timing.
USD plugin update to version 0.27 with the ability to bulk load and unload multiple prims, and the LookdevX editor introduces support for the MaterialX data format alongside USD shaders.
In the simulation field Bifrost now integrates the classic Maya Ocean Simulation System but with several improved features, as new nodes for simulating ocean waves with foam.
Finally Arnold render updates to version 5.4.0 with faster GPU rendering and MaterialX support.
OnMars3D review and test many of Maya 2025 new features in this nice video:
NOTE: Users of Puldownit 5.x cloud floating licenses must install this update to can connect to the licenses server.
Pulldownit 5.7 is here! this new version introduces a new Fast Stacking & Deactivation solver which computes up to 4 times faster in massive destruction scenes, in addition instanced shapes are supported for dynamics and shattering so you can compute thousands of hi-poly objects in dynamics seamlessly and with much less memory overhead.
Animated characters now computes faster when colliding and fracturing other objects, and a new Anim Speed Multiplier parameter allows to fine tune the strength of the impact between animated objects and dynamic ones, besides cracker multiplier can be animated allowing to decrease or disable the crack effect at any frame.
Regarding shattering, PDI Jagginess gets a new “Asymmetric tessellation” mode which generates nearly 50% fewer polygons with a similar look of rough faces than when using Uniform Tessellation.
There are also useful improvements to the UI, a new option to create several fractures at once and you can add jagginess to all PDI fragments in scene with one click. Hierarchies of rigid bodies can be auto created just by selecting its parent group, and there is a new option to set all dynamic values to default for selected rigid bodies.
Last but not least we have fixed quite a few annoying issues from previous version,you can review below all performance and usability improvements and you can check the whole list of fixes in the Pulldownit version logs page:
Licensed users can already access Pulldownit 5.7 from his account and there is a demo version for Maya 2024 in the Thinkinetic web site.
Shatter New Features
Shatter it support instanced shapes, instanced shapes are supported and can be shattered and reshattered seamlessly.
New Jagginess mode “Asymmetric tessellation”, this new tessellation mode generates nearly 50% fewer polygons than the Uniform one with a similar appearance of rough faces.
Dynamics New Features
New Fast Stacking & Deactivation solver, scenes involving hundreds or thousands of fragments in dynamics now computes up to 4 times faster, besides this new solver highly reduces drift motion of fragments resting in the ground.
Instanced shapes supported as rigid bodies, PDI solver now supports instanced shapes in dynamics, allowing to compute massive simulation of thousands of objects with less memory overhead.
Improved performance in fracture against animated bodies, animated or deforming objects now computes faster when colliding and breaking other objects, besides user can easily control the strength of the impact with the new anim speed multiplier parameter.
UI Enhancements
New parameter Anim Speed Multiplier, allowing to easily control the strength of the impact between animated objects and dynamic ones.
New ability to animate cracker multiplier, user can now modify the strength of the crack effect during the simulation or disable it completely at desired frame.
New Fracture setup option “One per Shatter Group”, allowing to create several fracture bodies at once from the current selection of objects.
New option “Add Jagginess to All fragments”, allowing to add jagginess to all PDI fragments in scene with one click.
New “Fast Stacking” simulation option, user can revert to classic, more accurate, but slower stacking solver by disabling this option.
New ability to auto assign unique names to duplicated nodes, when selecting nodes to create rigid bodies from them PDI will rename any duplicated node automatically if authorized by user.
Animatable fracture parameters are auto displayed for current selected object.
New ability to create hierarchies of rigid bodies just selecting its parent group.
New UI option “set all dynamic values to default” for rigid bodies.
KineticThoughts 