Sorry that it took so long for me to write up some more impressions, I’ve been quite busy lately.


What’s New in Performance:

Poly reduce caching is new for Maya 2008 and makes poly reduce faster. See Poly Reduce Caching in this section:

Poly Reduce Caching
There have been significant performance improvements in Poly Reduce (Mesh > Reduce). Caching of intermediate polygonal reduction states means a significant increase in performance, at the cost of using more memory.

To disable caching for Mesh > Reduce

Select Mesh > Reduce > .
Turn off Cache reduction (for speed) in the Reduce Options.

I’ve used the reduce thing once, in 8.5, and it went really slow on my computer. I haven’t tested it out in 2008, but I trust that it’s faster.

Poly smooth is faster:

You can see how much faster it is in my first post.

Improved startup time on Mac OS X, particularly on PowerPC machines:

Again, you can see how much faster, in my first post.

There’s a lot more performance enhancements, but that’s just a couple.


What’s New in Artisan and Paint Effects:

Hotkey toggles for Artisan brushes:

I’ve seen someone use this (in the Maya 2008 demonstration videos), and it looks pretty awesome.


What’s New in Modeling:

Smooth Mesh Preview for polygons:

This is a pretty fun feature. :p

User-defined vertex and UV display sizes:

I’ve never had the need to do this, but who doesn’t like customization?

Slide Edge Tool:

I use the Split Edge Tool a lot, and this is sort of like it’s cousin.

Keep Faces Together option:

Why do I see myself messing around with this every time I extrude? :p