Autodesk Maya 2017 Update 2

What's new in this version:

CUSTOMIZABLE COLORS:
You can customize the color of the following items of the Modern Graph Editor in the Preferences Color Settings window:
- Translate X, Y, Z curve color
- Rotate X, Y, and Z curve color
- Scale X, Y, and Z color
- Default key color
- Buffer Curve color
- Breakdown Key color
- Key on Buffer curve color
- Time Marker

MISCELLANEOUS GRAPH EDITOR IMPROVEMENTS:
Improvements to the Modern Graph Editor include improving the position of the selected curve in Stacked view, adding offset and scaling factors for Time Editor clips, restoring Shift-click multiple key selection, and addressing undo and refresh issues, as well as:
- Nearest picked key tool now respects the "constrained y-axis drag" mode
- Custom curves interpolator support
- Improved quaternion curves and tangent manipulation
- Stacked view now restores correctly between sessions
- Fixed Text fields update with display of Time Editor clip
- Improved default colors for better visibility) and improved design for muted curves and muted keys

NEW IN SIMULATION AND EFFECTS:
Bifröst Foam:
- When generating a mesh from foam, the bifrostVelocity channel is now exported as a color set
- In addition, there are new attributes for controlling Bifröst foam

Micro Vortices:
- Creates fine structure in the foam when it is emitted by pushing the particles using vortices that are a few voxels in size

Emit Motion Streak:
- Randomizes the particle positions along the velocity vector when they are emitted. Higher values may help to reduce banding but also may result in a noisier appearance

Boundary Drag:
- Applies a drag force that is strongest where foam particles are not colliding with each other and weakest where they are. This can help to break up clumps of foam above the liquid surface because particles on the outside of the clump experience more drag than particles on the inside. For this attribute to be effective, set Preserve Volume to a non-zero value and make sure Point Radius is large enough for particles to collide

Air Turbulence:
- The magnitude of a turbulence field that is applied to the air velocity, and affects particles above the liquid surface. Note that this controls the speed of the air, while Air Drag and Boundary Drag control how strongly particles are affected by the air velocity based on their density

Air Turbulence Frequency:
- The granularity of the turbulence. Higher values produce smaller, denser vortices

Air Turbulence Speed:
- The rate at which the turbulence pattern evolves over time

Bifröst Kill Field improvements:
- You no longer need to use multiple Kill Fields to delete particles based on a combination of criteria. You can now activate any combination of Boundary, Lifespan, and Droplets modes on the same Kill Field
- You can also use any polygon mesh to define the Kill Field boundary, as an alternative to using one of the available implicit shapes. To do so, first select both the mesh and the main Bifröst container or shape, and then select Bifrost > (Add) Kill Field

Cache Bifröst meshes:
- You can cache the mesh output of a Bifröst simulation as per-frame BIF files. To do so, create a user cache for the simulation (see Create a Bifröst user cache) and make sure that Cache Elements: Mesh is enabled in the Bifrost Compute and Cache Options window

BOSS:
There is a new version of the Bifröst Ocean Simulation System. Among many other changes and fixes, please note in particular:
- You can use BOSS to generate maps representing foam on top of an ocean surface. See Generate BOSS foam maps
- For spectral solvers, the behavior of the Patch Size X (m) and Patch Size Z (m) attributes has changed. They still control the extent of ocean surface that is simulated, but now if the simulated patch is smaller than the mesh domain, it results in either undeformed or repeated regions depending on the Periodic attribute. If the simulated patch is larger than the mesh domain, then the deformation represents only a portion of the area that is simulated and optionally cached — you can transform the input mesh within the patch to reveal other regions if desired
- Previously, the patch was stretched or squashed to fit the domain. To recover the old behavior, you can use Space Scale to scale the patch to fit the domain
- When applying a BOSS cache as a displacement map, you no longer need to flip the image in Z by adjusting the Repeat UV in the place2dTexture node
- The Cache Continuously option continuously writes and overwrites cache files for solvers as you adjust settings and play back
- You can now use the tokens , , , , , and as tokens for defining cache folders and names. The csh-style ${token_name} format is still supported

NEW IN RENDERING:
New Render Setup features:
- You can now specify an override as a local render override so that it only applies to interactive rendering and not to batch rendering. For example, disable costly render settings such as motion blur, depth of field, or high sampling values for interactive fine-tuning without the need to re-enable your desired shot render settings for batch rendering
- You can now re-order render layers in the Render Setup editor by middle-mouse dragging and dropping
- You can also cut (Ctrl + X), copy (Ctrl + C) and paste (Ctrl + V) layers, collections and overrides
- Create an override on any value and connect a network to the override. For example, you can create a relative override on the color attribute and connect a texture to the override. In addition, both absolute and relative overrides can now be applied to connected attributes
- Upon batch rendering and sequence rendering, the folder created for each render layer that contains the rendered images no longer includes the rs_ prefix
- Use the syntax :: to recursively match nested namespaces when populating your collection using an expression. For example, foo::* now selects all nested namespaces that begin with foo
- When rendering a sequence of frames, messages now appear in the Script Editor, indicating the progress of your render
- When creating an override to transform objects, you can now select your collection members and transform them in the viewport to set the override values

Image based lighting support for the hardware renderer in the Hypershade Material Viewer:
- You can now select any of the available HDRI environments to add image based lighting to your render when using the hardware renderer in the Material Viewer.

Skydome light provides image based lighting in Viewport 2.0:
- The aiSkyDomeLight can now behave as an IBL light and illuminate your scene in Viewport 2.0.

New Shaderfx Game Hair shader:
- The Shaderfx Game Hair shader allows you to view realistic game hair shading for models directly in the viewport. You can create this shader via the Create tab in the Hypershade.
- Create polygon strips to model the hair and apply the Shaderfx Game Hair shader to these polygon strips, then connect an opacity map to the shader to define the hair strands per strip, and a breakup map to provide controlled noise to make hair appear more realistic. You can then preview your hair shading in the viewport.

FIXED ISSUES:
Animation:
- MAYA-73609: Time Editor : Clip matching cannot match translation only (without rotation)
- MAYA-73459: Time Editor : Animation is incorrect after splitting clips
- MAYA-73775: Time Editor : Insert keyframe button and "s" hotkey on additive layer causes crash and corruption
- MAYA-72836: Time Editor : "Clip Edge Edit" cursor not appearing when hovering mouse over edge of clip
- MAYA-72839: Time Editor: ime ruler and time marker scrubbing icons are not appearing
- MAYA-73757: Time Editor: Duplicating tab results in a broken panel
- MAYA-73113: Graph Editor : Region/Lattice tool not drawn correctly after undo
- MAYA-73489: Graph Editor : Selection : Shift+Click for additive selection in Graph Editor not working
- MAYA-73549: Graph Editor : No audio while scrubbing Graph Editor's Timeline
- MAYA-73305: Graph Editor : Crash when selecting controllers if Graph Editor is opened
- MAYA-73595: Graph Editor : Region/Lattice tools don't always show the correct bounding box
- MAYA-73606: Graph Editor : Beta : Visual design for locked tangent weight (tangent length)
- MAYA-73501: Graph Editor: Hotkey "i" is no longer working for insert
- MAYA-73548: Zero-keying on override layers should capture clip values
- MAYA-60622: Hang in Parallel evaluation when merging animation layers.
- MAYA-72840: Cannot bake animation on curves with no keys
- MAYA-73001: Crash when merging animation layers
- MAYA-73569: Character sets don't capture correct keyframe value
- MAYA-72849: Cannot find procedure "buidMuscleMenu".
- MAYA-72838: The -areCurvesSelected flag is not recognized in the animCurveEditor command

Character Setup:
- MAYA-73379: HIK : Missing Custom Rig UI
- MAYA-73754: HIK : Deleting a target object also deletes the constrained object
- MAYA-73180: Skinning : Setting vertices on skins programmatically is broken

General:
- MAYA-47780: Unlocked nodes not saving
- MAYA-57803: Saving references performance Improvements
- MAYA-58568: Hotkey Editor: Press & Release: Setting a hotkey for "Release" without having the same key set for "Press" resets the hotkey to Press upon save
- MAYA-73541: Intermittent Crash on OSX when Starting Maya
- MAYA-72187: Saving packed multi-multi attribute to mayaBinary can corrupt data
- MAYA-71902: Undo Performance Enhancements
- MAYA-72812: Mac 10.11.x: Boss: Intel MKL FATAL ERROR's (and in some cases a crash)

UI:
- MAYA-72460: Fixed an issue where the layout of nodes in an asset container is lost in the legacy Hypershade
- MAYA-72981: Mac (retina): Shelf buttons with extra menu items have no gray triangle drawn overtop icon (bottom right corner)
- MAYA-69307: Qt5: Mac: When Maya is in Two Button mode (prefs > Interface > Devices > Mouse Tracking > Two Button), drag and drop doesn't work correctly
- MAYA-72375: "panel -q -tearOff" always return 0 even if the panel is torn off
- MAYA-71128: Using M3dView during a timer callback will make Maya menu items display improperly (can also break the fonts)
- MAYA-72432: Problem with docking and resizing of C# controls
- MAYA-50910: Attribute color and attribute background color do not display as expected in both main channel box and custom channel box
- MAYA-73054: Content Browser: Crash after drag and dropping fbx file into Time Editor track
- MAYA-60498: Outliner: The color of constrains, locators and joints are easier to be differentiated
- MAYA-70693: Qt5: Mac/Linux: Remove multiple output messages about "QLayout: Attempting to add Layout" from the terminal when opening various editors
- MAYA-72373: Render View window cannot be closed using command "control -e -visible 0 renderViewWindow"
- MAYA-73129: NodeEditor: Missing "Other" plug at the bottom of the pop-up list
- MAYA-68808: When hiding the Shelf tabs, the Shelf doesn't get any shorter

Workspaces:
- MAYA-72900: Workspaces: Attribute Editor and Channel Box does not remember its resized state
- MAYA-68268: Workspaces: Undocked Status Line cannot be re-docked
- MAYA-71496: Workspaces: Switching between Workspaces can cause the Help Line to grow taller

Viewport:
- MAYA-66093: Selection behaviour using drawing overrides of shapes nodes, causing Maya to stall
- MAYA-73956 / MAYA-73182: Viewport1: MPxGLBuffer - GL error
- MAYA-72857: Slow Viewport2 tumble: gpuCache nodes are still updating when hidden
- MAYA-73359: .TX File Textures will not update

Shading/Rendering:
- MAYA-73821: DX11Shader set technique crashes on "Send To" from Max to Maya
- MAYA-73390: Render Setup and Light Editor windows don't save/restore expand/collapse state of trees
- MAYA-72862: Render Setup window lags on every operation if one collection has a long static node list
- MAYA-70783: Objects created by interactive creation do not always get added correctly to Untitled creation in Render Setup
- MAYA-67935: Per-face shading is overwritten in masterLayer when doing referencing + duplicating geo + material overrides
- MAYA-67073: Interactive Batch Render fails on Layers with Image Name Prefix overrides in Render Setup (but command line batch works fine)
- MAYA-73590: Outliner find filters for Render Setup can’t select all lights
- MAYA-73535: Light editor breaks if LE groups were created and LE window is left open after file > new or file > open
- MAYA-46083: Cannot change OCIO context environment variables and see the scene color management updated.
- MAYA-66816: Maya slow to open when rendering on multiple machines. Maya attempts to get a write lock on /prefs/synColorConfig.xml in the user's home directory.
- MAYA-72548: Color Management : Crash on headless machines using SynColor
- MAYA-72823: Color Management : Maya Batch hangs at startup
- MAYA-72855: Color Management : "Parameter is less than lower bound" error when using OCIO file

Modeling:
- MAYA-72067: Bevel distorted result
- MAYA-73009: Bevel double faces: nGons Subdivisions
- MAYA-73013: When user creates a MMeshIsectAccelParams in Python and is using it for intersection, Maya will crash
- MAYA-72532: Quad Draw Performance improvements - specific mesh
- MAYA-73617: Sculpt tools don't render properly with backface culling
- MAYA-72606: Modelers should be able to use non-joint transforms for transform space blend shape targets
- MAYA-73007: Tangent and transform space targets don't work correctly with non-uniformly scaled objects
- MAYA-73008: Pose Interpolator with many poses is slow for parallel EM mode
- MAYA-73010: OGS UV Editor - Toggle isolate select mode feature does not work
- MAYA-73063: Memory leak while hovering over UVs in UV Editor
- MAYA-56115: Toggle isolate select mode feature does not work in UV Editor
- MAYA-73061: Show Last Hidden' failed after undo 'Show Last Hidden'
- MAYA-72663: Mesh error doesn't include object name
- MAYA-71349: Target with visibility OFF will become visible when merged with another target
- MAYA-70556 : Normals are wrong after undoing Mask stroke (on top of clone)
- MAYA-72604: Improve feedback on the invisible targets who turn visible after switching to a new tool
- MAYA-72527: Target with visibility OFF will become visible when merged with another target
- MAYA-72526: Modeling Toolkit goes away permanently
- MAYA-72241: Target Shape changed after playback
- MAYA-72091: Modelers should be able to use non-joint transforms for transform space blend shape targets
- MAYA-72030: angent and transform space targets don't work correctly with non-uniformly scaled objects
- MAYA-71952: mb file poly mesh from Maya 2016 sp6 opens severely corrupted in Maya 2016 EXT2
- MAYA-69466: Invert doesn't affect Mask Target tool's Flood option
- MAYA-73012: Target shape changed after playback
- MAYA-71273: Target visibility problem after deleting a Target modified with the Clone tool.
- MAYA-73155: Maya crashes with File -> New after using the Clone tool
- MAYA-72528: Target visibility problem after deleting a Target modified with the Clone tool.
- MAYA-73154: Bevel problem with high valence corners
- MAYA-72180: Pose Interpolator with many poses is slow for parallel EM mode
- MAYA-73153: Mesh shape artifacts after Undo erase target and erase target again
- MAYA-73387: Modelers need Per Vertex data (normals, creasing, etc.) to be preserved when transferring or reordering vertex order.
- MAYA-73391: Mesh is inverted and back faces are ignored when reordering specific mesh
- MAYA-73392: Reordering verts with per-face shader assignments on object results in green shading (no shader)
- MAYA-73779: Toggle enable button will change the weight value of Edit Pose
- MAYA-72423: The keyable state of a mesh's visibility attribute is not saved

XGen:
- MAYA-42690: Wireframe mode: XGen guides alias/fade out in VP2 OpenGL render when you zoom out