Bifrost is a visual programming environment inside of Autodesk Maya for creating stunning procedural effects for film, TV, and games.
Create realistic simulations and effects—from explosions to cloth.
Scatter objects procedurally to build detailed environments.
Create and edit Universal Scene Description (USD) scenes with an open-source USD integration.
Bifrost overview video (5:16 min.)
Environment made with Bifrost’s scatter node by Henry Yamin
Tenside’s Shadow to Shine music video made by Phil Radford
Cosmic vortex made by Bruce Lee (video: 11 sec.)
Aero particles simulation
Before and after of Eggs of Space made by Edouard Sisternas
Produce stunning simulations and effects like combustion, snow, and particles with professional tools.
Seamlessly create and render effects without having to leave Maya.
Output more, faster with procedural generation and visual programming.
Mystical blue whale made by Amid Rajabi
From colorful explosions to densely forested worlds, Bifrost empowers aspiring and skilled technical artists to create physically accurate content in the Bifrost Graph, a node-based visual programming environment.
Bifrost graph and simulation in Maya that produces a colorful powder explosion rendered with Arnold
Create custom graphs in the Bifrost Graph Editor and package them up for artists at your studio to use easily across different shows, scenes, and shots.
Boiling pot made by Pipe Studio with Bifrost (video: 9 sec.)
Available as an open-source project, the integration of USD in Bifrost for Maya fosters better collaboration on complex effects and empowers you to customize your pipeline.
– Thomas Kutschera, Head of Groom CFX, Pixomondo
– Axel Lelaquet, Rubika Graduate
– Sean Willis, Senior Technical Artist and Pipeline TD, Crafty Apes
Simulations and effects
Deliver natural-looking effects like combustion, snow, particles, or waves with Aero, MPM, Particles, and BOSS systems. (video: 5 sec.)
Scattering and instancing
Create large-scale complexity for world building or set dressing with expressive scattering and instancing tools.
Ready-to-use templates
Access a variety of pre-built compounds and graphs to use as a starting point for creating your own effects.
Geometry nodes
Work at the lowest level of mesh creation, organize with component tags, and create geometry inside the Bifrost Graph.
Procedural USD
Assemble, organize, and edit USD assets non-destructively with the flexibility of the Bifrost Graph.
Discover how Bifrost was used to create the Fantastic Forest sequence in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.
Explore practical production applications for harnessing Bifrost’s procedural capabilities on shows like Star Trek: Discovery.
Learn how Bifrost was used to enhance a Sapporo Beer spot with rippling zen garden sand patterns.
TUTORIALS
Improve your Bifrost knowledge and skillset with videos by industry professionals.
COMMUNITY
Ask questions, browse popular topics, and share knowledge with a growing community of users.
Bifrost is included in the Maya installer. To download the most recent Bifrost installers, as well as older versions, see Download and Installation.
Bifrost is a visual programming environment in Maya used for procedurally building effects, like explosions, combustion, sand, snow, and more. With powerful scattering and instancing tools, Bifrost is also used to craft detailed environments and objects.
Bifrost is used by 3D artists and technical directors at animation, visual effects, and game development studios.
Yes, you can run Bifrost at no additional cost with an active Maya subscription.
Maya can run on Microsoft® Windows®, Apple® macOS®, and Linux®. See Maya system requirements (US Site) for details.
Your Maya subscription gives you access to install and use the three previous versions. Available downloads are listed in your Autodesk Account after subscribing. See also previous releases available for subscribers.
With a subscription to Maya software, you can install it on up to three computers or other devices. However, only the named user can sign in and use that software on a single computer at any given time. Please refer to the Software License Agreement (US Site) for more information.
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