Celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Maya, Maya 2009 will be available in October. Notable new features includes:

• nParticles (Maya Unlimited)
• Animation Layers
• Updated Render Passes
• Maya Assets
• Improved IPR mental ray rendering
• mental ray 3.7
• Stereoscopic rendering
• Improved multi-threading
• Autodesk Shader SDK

It also brings with it all the tools from Maya 2008 Extension 1 and 2 that has previously only been available to subscription customers, including:

• Maya Muscle
• Soft selection
• Tweak mode
• Symmetrical modeling
• Improved UV tools

Find out more at Autodesk.com