Maya 2013

Hey! Check out what we can expect in Maya 2013!
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/cory/announcing_maya_2013

Most interesting changes for animators:

Improved import and export with ATOM file format: You can now share and reuse animation more efficiently using Maya's ATOM (Animation Transfer Object Model). The .atom file type and its associated import/export options let you save specific poses or animation sequences, then easily reload them onto other objects. ATOM options let you set precisely which animation to reuse and how you want to import and export it. After exporting, you can import animation based on the character hierarchy, name matching, or using a template file as a filter.

Retime animation: In the Graph Editor, the Retime Tool lets you directly adjust the timing of key movements in your animations. This tool provides a new type of timing manipulator in the graph view, letting you shift key moments in time, or warp entire sequences to make them occur faster or slower. For animators working in a pipeline with multiple Autodesk applications, similar animation retiming tools are available.

Stepped Tangent preview mode: The new Stepped Tangent preview playback mode lets you temporarily set all keys to display with Stepped tangents, switching easily from Spline to Stepped and back. Play your animation in this mode to get a quick view of object positions as they hit each keyframe.

Playblast updated: Maya now supports H.264 Quicktime output on Windows 64-bit. In addition, audio and multi-track audio are supported.

Awesome!