Mainframe UK clearly championed motion graphics and procedural animation in Maya through the development of MASH. Without MASH, a lot of the modern motion graphics style animation would be tedium, if not impossible to create within Maya.
After 3 versions and many, many updates and features added to MASH over the years, Mainframe North have announced that MASH will be moving under the Autodesk banner.
The Maya team have done a great job integrating NEX modeling tools into what is now the Maya Modeling Toolkit, and hopefully we will enjoy the same kind of attention to MASH.
The announcement from Mainframe North is posted below.
We are proud to announce we are now working with Autodesk to add MASH to their product portfolio. They like what we do as much as you do so we’re really excited about the future and the fact that so many more people will get to experience the power of MASH.
Autodesk are putting a lot of love into Maya right now and having done a great job integrating Digital Raster’s NEX toolset we’re confident that MASH has found a good home and a great R&D team to continue expanding its capabilities. We are really looking forward to see MASH grow with the additional resources Autodesk can provide.
There will be a short transition period as we move our technology over to Autodesk but this news does mean MASH will no longer be available from our website. But…if you do need new licenses please drop an email to welovemash@autodesk.com.
While we transition, if you do need any help, ideas or inspiration, the door to our support site will stay open as always. We will also continue to be able to help with any licensing issues so please drop us a line if you need help with that. We’ll be keeping our license server up and running so you can still move your licenses around as usual. However, we won’t be developing any further features, improvements or bug fixes from this point onwards. Autodesk will take over all future development of MASH.
We want to say a huge thanks to all of you who’ve supported us over the years. We’re really proud of what we achieved with MASH so far and couldn’t have done it without you. A big looping, procedural pat on the back all round!
Chris
Shut up! I don’t know what to think about this. Part of me is extremely encouraged because Maya 2016 seems to have been such a huge leap forward, and with the integration of Nex and the new update for the text tool and the EPS import, it looks like AD has really stepped up their game with Maya…. Mash is a great tool, just hope it is integrated well.
lbiernat
The news is… Yay, guys you did so well and now again another great tools will propably die because of “Mash is a great tool, just hope it is integrated well.” – you now maybe, in maya 2020 it will work well again? Nex? Really it took them… 3 realeses to fix it? Its just sad and a shame that autodesk can’t do anything good. Every great feature in maya has been developed by an industry veteran or pixar/disney/ILM… Another sad thing is that they ALWAYS need so long to actually make it usuable.
Steve
Agree.
I hope this ace plugin gets integrated well.
Also, I just purchased the plugin, so am a little peeved that it’s gonna be free within Maya.
The only other thing is that it’s a shame another smaller developer has been swallowed up by the big ‘A’.