Excitingly, MASH has grown into a commercial product with motion graphics powerhouse Mainframe releasing MASH 2.0 for Autodesk Maya. MASH 2 is now completely overhauled in C++ making it up to 100 times faster and much more stable than the previous versions.

The new release has also received instancer integration with Maya’s instancer alleviating the need to cache networks before render. This also means that MASH is no longer reliant on the SoUP plugins, reliant on it’s instancer for some features of MASH to work.

Whether you’re a motion graphics artist missing the functionality of other 3d apps or someone looking to create complex but flexible systems MASH will have something for you

MASH 2.0 now hosts a suite of 21 Nodes in total, adding 3 new nodes with the release which introduces Multi-Curve, Math and Initial State Nodes. MASH 2 also has done some housecleaning, providing a much cleaner and simplified initial set up. MASH 2 also adds some new utilities for working with MASH nodes and Maya’s nParticles, and also adds a new MASH menu in Maya which replaces the MASH shelf that was characteristic of previous versions.

MASH 2.0 receives some new improvements with general polish, bug fixes and compatibility working with Maya 2010 all the way up to Maya 2014. Mainframe are offering a free to download and try trial for MASH 2, and the release version priced at £89.99, or roughly $$115.00. One of the benefits of growing to a commercial product, not only is the ability to receive timely support, but also continued development and advancements of the product, which is something to look forward to.

To learn more about the new release of MASH 2.0 the procedural animation toolkit for Maya, check out MASH at its now home here, where you will find plenty of examples, help getting started, and downloads.

MASH 2.0 Features:

MASH is between 30x and 100x faster.

New Multi-Curve node:
Three modes:
Dot to Dot: Draw curves between your points.
Tracer: Trace the paths of your points.
Point to Point: Draw curves from each point to a specific location (supports curve dynamics in Maya 2014+).

New Deformer node:
Use a MASH network to deform a mesh.
Add it to objects using the new utility script.

New Maths node:
Python expressions can be used to manipulate your objects.
Example expressions are provided.

New Initial State node:
This replaces the button on the Waiter and now also includes scale and rotation information.

Easier set up:
Much easier and cleaner set-up (no need to use SOuP to connect to the Maya Instancer).
New menu (under ‘Create’) replaces the shelf.
New helper scripts to set up MASH with nParticles.
No need to bake MASH animations to render then.

Mute node improvements:
Time based enveloping, with staggering and age effects.
Enveloping based on texture sampling.
String based enveloping (to ignore or only include specific objects).
Array merging; this allows you to have complex ‘sub’ networks.
New attributes for working with particle/ curve age.

Curve node:
Simple U translation mode.
New outAgePP attribute.

Delay Node:
Self delay (the object uses it’s own position as a basis for the delay).
Button to automatically create a target.

Falloff node:
A new ramp attribute for custom falloffs.

Orient node:
Up Vector attribute.
Button to automatically create a target.

Echo node:
New inOffsetPP attribute lets you stamp one MASH network onto another.

Offset node:
New point rotation mode for rotating all the points around any given point.
New overwrite mode which allows you to explicitly declare values.

Misc. Bug fixes and general polish.