Autodesk® Maya® Complete software is a comprehensive suite of 3D tools for modeling, animation, and rendering within a single, production-proven workflow. Maya Complete—the choice of award-winning digital artists and animators—has an intuitive design that makes it a favorite among digital content creation artists and enthusiasts of all experience levels who develop artwork for film, broadcast, game development, multimedia (print and web) or design visualization.

Maya Complete 2008 includes toolsets for:

• Modeling
• Animation
• Visual Effects
• Rendering
• Paint Tools
• Toon Shading

PLUS:

• Maya API/SDK, Python® and MEL Scripting 
• Tutorials and Documentation

The ultimate version of Maya® software—Autodesk Maya Unlimited—is the choice of digital artists who are looking to make their 3D projects stand out. Maya Unlimited includes all the functionality found in Autodesk Maya Complete and provides professional artists and animators with additional industry-leading innovations such as Maya Fluid Effects, Maya nCloth, Maya Hair, Maya Fur, and Maya Live for the creation of superior digital content.

Autodesk Maya Unlimited contains everything in Autodesk Maya Complete, plus:

Maya Fluid Effects
Simulate and render a huge variety of atmospheric, pyrotechnic, viscous liquid, and open ocean effects. Maya Fluid Effects overcomes one of the greatest barriers in computer animation.

Maya Fur
Easily create realistic fur, short hair, wool and grass on NURBS, subdivision surfaces, or polygonal models. Incredibly realistic styling and rendering of short hair and fur, with Maya Artisan Brush Interface for painting fur attributes.

Maya nCloth
As the first Maya module built on the Autodesk new Nucleus technology, Maya nCloth functionality lets you quickly direct and control cloth and other material simulations in entirely new ways. Maya nCloth objects can be as stiff, viscous, or flowing, and as tightly or loosely woven as you desire. Rapidly create cloth-on-cloth simulations—such as a shirt over pants—with believable influences and collisions. Bend, stretch, shear, dent, or even tear your Maya nCloth fabrics with ease. Beyond cloth, Maya nCloth lets you create deformable plastic and metal simulations, inflatable objects, as well as rigid-body and fluidic-type effects.

Maya Live
Combine 2D live-action with 3D elements. Maya Live provides greater flexibility, a fast-integrated 2D Tracker, and an interactive Root Frame Solver. Maya Live also allows you to reconstruct live-action elements as 3D geometry as well as output to external applications.

Maya Hair
Create, style, and render fully dynamic long hair on NURBS or polygon objects. Make any NURBS curve dynamic for use in advanced character rigging and effects. Maya Hair can also be used to create a wide range of nonhair effects.

Maya Personal Learning Edition (PLE) is a special version of Autodesk® Maya® software, which provides free access to Maya for non-commercial use. It gives 3D graphics and animation students, industry professionals, and those interested in breaking into the world of computer graphics an opportunity to explore most aspects of the award-winning Autodesk® Maya® Complete software in a non-commercial capacity. The Maya Personal Learning Edition software is available for 32-bit Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional and Apple® Mac OS® X (for Macintosh Power PC or Intel-based Macintosh computers) operating systems.

Autodesk Maya PLE is based on Autodesk Maya 8.5.  (Download a PLE edition here.)

Autodesk does not provide technical support for users of Maya Personal Learning Edition. To learn more about Maya Personal Learning Edition, refer to the Questions & Answers, Documentation, and Demonstration content. To trade content, share techniques, download sample files, or find solutions to problems, visit the AREA, our community site, and browse discussion groups.