With Extension 1, Maya 2016 now supports powerful connectivity with the new Autodesk Stingray game engine, letting you streamline your 3D asset creation pipeline. Several key workflows let you iterate on your designs and make it easy to see how assets appear in the context of a game.
Send assets, connect viewports
When you install the DCC link plug-in (found in your Stingray install directory), the following features are available in Maya:
- The File > Send to Stingray export options, which let you export models and animations directly to a Stingray project folder.
- The Stingray menu, which lets you synchronize cameras between Maya and Stingray so that you can verify how models, animations, and materials appear in Stingray immediately as you work in Maya.
See Enable Stingray and PhysX plug-ins for Maya, Send assets to Stingray, Send materials to Stingray and Connect Maya and Stingray viewports.
Visual parity
Even without installing the DCC link plug-in, any materials created with the Stingray physically-based nodes in ShaderFX are preserved whether loaded in Maya or Stingray. This means you only need to create materials one time, and your materials created in one tool look the same in the other. If you do send objects from Maya to Stingray using the plug-in, your materials are also exported by default.
The Stingray Tonemap, part of the Color Management system in Maya, further ensures the visual parity of 3D assets between Maya and Stingray. See Choose the default View Transform and Preview color-managed scenes for more information.
Support for PhysX plug-in
Also available with your Stingray install is the NVIDIA PhysX plug-in for Maya, which adds tools for creating PhysX ragdolls, rigid bodies, and constraints. For information on installing the plug-in for PhysX, see Enable Stingray and PhysX plug-ins for Maya.