Some cool plugins for Maya you need to know

Autodesk Maya is one of the leading 3D software in the industry, used by many big studios and artists. This software is used in many comprehensive workflow, from character animation, lighting, VFX to motion graphics. However, to further expand its functionalities, we still have many supports from other tools. In this article, let’s explore some of the cool plugins for Maya you need to know.

Phoenix FD is famous for making fire and smoke, but as it’s a full fluid dynamics system it too can create liquids. It works on a very similar principle as when its making gaseous volumes, and is unusual in that it works with voxels rather than particles, generating the implicit surface at rendertime.

This app also has the ability to create bubbles, foam and splashes, and has morphing tools so you can actually shape the fluids to you liking. Phoenix FD for Maya can produce ship wakes on the ocean, dribbling chocolate or frothing beer, and when rendered with global illumination using V-Ray, the results can be quite spectacular.

Compatibility:

Maya 2019 or later

OS: Windows 7 or later, macOS 10.11.x or later, Red Hat ®  Enterprise Linux® 6.5 and 7.2 WS or later

Pricing:

65 euro/month or 350 euro/year

RealFlow is another fluid simulation plugin for Maya which features methods for creating small-scale flowing fluids, as well as large scale waves and oceans with water splashes, foam and spray. It uses a particle-based solver, providing realistic and detailed simulations.

RealFlow for Maya supports GPU-based simulations and multi-core/multi-processor systems.

Compatibility:

Maya 2017-2020 (64 bit only)

OS: Windows 7 (or higher) or macOS 10.9 (or higher), Linux

Pricing:

695 euro/license

If you want to create a crowd or battle scene, MiArmy is one of the plugin you can consider for Maya. It’s used for crowd simulations, creature physical simulation, AI and behavioral animation as well as rendering. You are able to create your own armies instead of individual separate models. It helps saving your time and achieving believable performance.

Pricing:

2550$ for professional license. But it has free non-commercial license.

Like MiArmy, Golaem Crowd is also a plugin to simulate crowd for Maya. It gives you the power to quickly populate your scenes with smart and directable digital characters such as humans, horse, birds, etc. in any shots.

Using Goleam Crowd, you are able to avoid repetitive animation tasks, generate and populate backgrounds and midgrounds quickly in minutes.

Compatibility:

Maya 2018-2023

OS: Windows 8 (or higher) or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, Centos 8, AlmaLinux 8, RockyLinux 8

Render engine: V-Ray, Arnold, Renderman, Redshift, Guerilla Render

Pricing:

7000 euro/floating license

Redshift is a biased, first fully GPU-accelerated renderer. With the fast development of GPU in the industry, now Redshift is also one of the most used render engines because of its fast-rendering speed and rich features.

Redshift for Maya is frequently used by many studios and artists, with a seamlessly pipeline. Along with Arnold, Redshift is one of the most popular render engines for Maya in iRender system.

Compatibility:

Maya 2016 or later

OS: Windows 7 (or higher) or Linux 7.6 or later, macOS Big Sur (11.3) or later

Pricing:

46.74 euro/month or 274.29 euro/year

While Phoenix FD and RealFlow provide smoke, fluids simulations, Maya has one more strong plugin Bifrost which can build custom effects, including smoke, fire, explosions, sand, snow, instances, and more. You can preview the results directly in the viewport, and render with Arnold for Maya.

Bifrost is a plugin which comes along with your Maya license. You can work with your simulations seamlessly without having to add license or buying extra license. It’s very convenient.

Compatibility:

Maya 2019 or later

OS: Windows 7 (or higher) or Linux 7.3 or 7.5, macOS 10.11.x or later

iRender provides you a high-performance and configurable server system for 3D rendering, AI Training, VR & AR, simulation, etc. We believe that design and creative activities are private and personal that only you artists will know what you want with your animation.

You can create a machine then install Maya with these tools on our remote machine (first time access only), add license, and render with any render engines, like Redshift, V-Ray, Arnold, etc. 

We suggest our multi RTX4090s or RTX3090s for Maya. Especially Redshift, V-Ray can utilize multiple GPUs system really good. Arnold latest version is also upgraded to be able to support multiple GPUs more.

Let’s see some tests on our servers for Maya with Redshift, V-Ray and Arnold:

iRender also provides you more services. We have a useful and free transferring tool named iRender drive for macOS or Linux users. For Windows users, we recommend using our all-in-one application iRender GPU to work, and you don’t need to come to our website. Our price is flexible with hourly rental which has a pay-as-you-go basis, daily/ weekly/ monthly subscription with discount from 10-20%. Plus, you have 24/7 support service via livechat with real humans who will support you whenever you encounter an issue.

Especially, if you use Maya with Redshift, now you can access our remote servers use our Redshift license for free. For Maya, kindly install and use your license.

Register an account today to experience our service and enjoy a very big promotion 100% bonus for new user. Or contact us via WhatsApp: (+84) 916806116 for advice and support.

Thank you & Happy Rendering!

Source: academyofanimatedart.com, miarmy.com, golaem.com, creativebloq.com, autodesk.com