Chris Zurbrigg has taken his Blue Pencil Sketchpad tool for Maya off beta and into release. Blue Pencil is now available for Maya 2011 SP1, Maya 2012 and Maya 2013 on Windows and Mac OS X. A Linux version is currently in beta testing and nearing release.
Taking the name from the classic photographically non-reproducing color of editing pencils from days gone by, Blue Pencil is a tool for Maya that will initially allow you to draw in the Maya viewport, however it is so much more than that.
So much so that it is labeled as a sketchpad for Maya. Blue Pencil is the pinnacle of drawing, sketch edit, grease pencil tool for Maya and if you animate this is an absolute necessity for notations, arcs and so on. I can’t really stress enough that there are a great many grease pencil style tools and scripts for Maya, AND none are as elegant, robust, and clear as the up-coming Blue Pencil Sketchpad.
Blue Pencil is a plugin for Maya that brings 2D drawing to the 3D viewport and it is built to be a multi-purpose tool that can be used to Grease Pencil, planning, annotation and illustration, create animation thumbnails, rough blocking and arc tracking, Model layout and topology planning, Shot review tool and also Tutorials and screen-casting.
Blue Pencil looks really great as well with an intuitive and familiar interface that looks like a tiny photoshop pallet right inside of Maya and includes pressure sensitivity and brush control setting panels as well.
John Gunning
Great find, This is going to be a must have for any animator.