Exploring MASH & BOOL for Maya 2018

MASH is a plugin that has been with Maya for a while now. Developed by Mainframe - MASH adds a host of tools for speedy development of Motion Graphics similar to Cinema 4D - check out this video to get a flavour of what it can do >> link  There is plenty of useful tutorials provided by them too.

Finally had a few days free to play catch up with MASH and an additional plugin BOOL ( also developed by Mainframe ) , since they added Dynamics in the MAYA 2018 edition.
Here's a few examples of what it can do :

In the above example - this is made using the Audio and Trails Nodes to create a Plexus like network. The 360 render is achieved by using the new VR mode ( or spherical if your using 2017 ) in the Arnold options of your camera properties.

This example uses the Flight Node - which mimics swarming, flocking and schooling of a group of objects. A Signal Noise Node was added to make it look like the paperplanes were being buffeted by the wind. The background clouds was made adding a epirectangluar image of clouds to the Arnold Skydome Light.

This final example combines MASH dynamics and the BOOL tool - to create the animated holes in the platform, this is using a MASH rendermesh intersecting the platform. A 2nd MASH network drives the dynamic cubes which are colliding with the BOOL operation.

Now I need to sit down and think of some proper applications of these new plugins - but I'm already seeing its potential for projection mapping scenarios.

Here's a youtube playlist that includes more experiments - link