Autodesk Releases Maya LT For Indie Game Developers
Autodesk introduces Maya LT, an affordably priced but powerful 3D animation tool for indie game developers.
Autodesk has introduced Maya LT, a new 3D animation product based on their award-winning Maya software. This new product also brings with it a subscription pricing model that they hope will make it more affordable to indie developers.
“We see indie game developers as a key part of the industry, driving innovative new production techniques and gameplay,” said Chris Bradshaw, senior vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “The market is fiercely competitive, and Maya LT can provide indie developers and small studios with a powerful, yet simplified workflow for designing and animating remarkable 3D characters, environments and props – at a price that fits within even the most modest budget. It’s a practical solution that closely matches the needs of the mobile game development production cycle and helps developers rise above the noise and really shine.”
Indie developers, whether working for mobile, PC, or web-based games, need a professional 3D animation software that can be used to create 3D and 2D assets to be used in game engines. Autodesk has developed Maya LT as a new product whose focus is on the needs of indie game developers. It brings the established toolset of Maya, with its extensive modeling and animation capability, into the affordability range of indie game developers, and also allows them to import assets that were created in Maya proper (as well as OBJ and FBX), giving them access to thousands of available models from sites like Turbosquid. Through support for FBX export, Maya LT also can be used for game engines like Unity Engine and Unreal Engine. One other possible use for Maya LT is as a development tool for people creating mesh content for Second Life, since its limitations fit well within the restrictions used by artists developing that content, and Autodesk's free FBX Converter can be used to convert the FBX exports from Maya LT into Collada DAE format for import into Second Life.
Smaller studios like Phyken Media, creators of the mobile game Wizard Ops Tactics, saw both the economic and workflow benefits of the new product.
“I jumped at the chance to try Maya LT, as the cost flexibility means we could grow the studio much more comfortably,” said Phyken Media President Kunal Patel. “With an option like Maya LT, our small team can accept bigger challenges and take on various new types of projects that may require more artists without having to worry much about any large upfront expenses. We even found operating expenses are much easier to determine.”
Features and Limitations:
- Full support for all of Maya's 3D modeling tools including NURBS and subdivision surfaces
- Includes Maya's Hypershade surface editor
- Includes ShaderFX for the creation of HLSL and CGFX shaders
- Export to FBX format of up to 25,000 polygons per scene (but the .mlt format allows denser meshes within Maya LT)
- Supports import of .ma, .mb (Maya ASCII and binary formats), .mlt (Maya LT format), OBJ and FBX 3D formats
- Supports import of AI and EPS structures drawings as objects
- Supports import of BMP, PNG, DDS, EXR, TGA, and TIFF as textures
- Supports use of (and export of) normal maps
- Skeleton generator
- Autodesk HumanIK inverse kinematics
- DX11 viewport previews with DX11 shading
- Full lighting and global illumination
- Texture baking based off of Autodesk Turtle
- Rendering of 2D image sprites
- Does not support external renderers; cannot render 'scenes' or animations
- No MEL support, and currently no plugin support or SDK.
Learn More About Game Development with Autodesk Maya LT
For more information, and to download a free trial of Maya LT, visit: www.autodesk.com/mayalt. Connect with the Maya LT development community at: http://area.autodesk.com/mayalt.
Pricing and Availability
Maya LT is available immediately for both OSX and Windows at a price of $795 for a perpetual license. Term licenses are available as part of a monthly, quarterly or annual rental plan in the near future, starting at $50, $125 and $400, respectively.




Replied to the story when it went live again, in response to several of the seven other replies that show-up-but-then-dispappear.
This seems like a huge con. A lot of 3D engines have plug-ins for Maya. Off the top of my head if you are using Away3D for flash you need an AWD2 plug-in that is based on python. A lot of other plug-ins use MEL.
well it's not this version of Maya is intended to lower the cost on indies that intend to create a one tool pipeline of Maya.
Blender is a complete tool you can use it for anything but it also has its ups and downs same as all 3D packages.
well it's not this version of Maya is intended to lower the cost on indies that intend to create a one tool pipeline of Maya.
Blender is a complete tool you can use it for anything but it also has its ups and downs same as all 3D packages.
well it's not this version of Maya is intended to lower the cost on indies that intend to create a one tool pipeline of Maya.
Blender is a complete tool you can use it for anything but it also has its ups and downs same as all 3D packages.
well it's not this version of Maya is intended to lower the cost on indies that intend to create a one tool pipeline of Maya.
Blender is a complete tool you can use it for anything but it also has its ups and downs same as all 3D packages.
well it's not this version of Maya is intended to lower the cost on indies that intend to create a one tool pipeline of Maya.
Blender is a complete tool you can use it for anything but it also has its ups and downs same as all 3D packages.
Maya is garbage, its trash piled on top of more trash. The application itself is limited by its legacy and exporting with it usually has a lot of baggage. Getting things to look the same between Maya and your Game Engine is more difficult. The pipeline from Maya to the Game Engine is cumbersome. A lot of extra effort is needed by an artist or technical artist to setup assets and animations for games.
Blender has a better render, assets match almost exactly from Blender to the game engine, there is almost no garbage given when exporting data to fbx, and its scripting language has been Python since the beginning instead of some Python/MEL conflicting nightmare. Blender also forces an artist to use faster modeling techniques since it is hotkey driven. On top of all this you can sculpt and paint in Blender, and you can preplan your model and write notes directly onto your view area with the grease pen.
I have no idea why people still prefer other modeling applications when Blender does it better for free.
No, really, they don't. For broadcast graphics and television visual effects, the closest they get to 'coding' is usually writing mathematical expression, and even then they either use macro guide for creating the expressions, or the expressions are written by a TD and merely used by the animators. Broadcast graphics guys usually do even less.