Alias|Wavefront Announces Maya 3 with Nonlinear Animation Editing Capabilities

 

 

 

 

New Version Will Offer Game Developers Flexible Non-Destructive Editing of Animation Clips

TORONTO, (February 25, 2000) -- Alias|Wavefront, an SGI (NYSE: SGI) company, announced Maya 3, the upcoming fifth major release of its award winning 3D animation and visual effects software for film, broadcast, video and game development. With this release, Alias|Wavefront will introduce Trax, an advanced nonlinear animation tool especially beneficial to games artists who often need to edit large amounts of motion capture data or mix together multiple animation sequences of the same character in a non-destructive, hierarchical and time-independent manner. Maya 3 software is slated to ship this summer.

The new Trax feature in Maya 3 is particularly significant for the games industry since developers need to manipulate extensive amounts of animation and blend them in a way that can be reproduced in the final game play. The ability to make subtle changes to motion capture data while leaving the original data intact will enable animators to adjust the moves of motion captured actors to more precisely fit their environments.

"The benefits of Maya 3 software with nonlinear animation are equally relevant to both film and video and games users," said Chris Ford, Maya Product Manager for Alias|Wavefront. "It will greatly simplify the production of complex animation sequences in the broader community of digital content creators," he added.

Along with Trax, Maya 3 includes a large number of additional features. Maya's subdivision surface modeling tools with unique hierarchical editing capability will be fully integrated within Maya's animation and rendering pipeline. Maya 3 also introduces a completely new polygonal architecture that is highly efficient in terms of speed and memory, and capable of supporting a much wider variety of polygonal topologies.

Multiple UV per-vertex support plus new UV auto-projection and relaxation tools provide greater flexibility in applying multiple textures. A new Bezier surface editor provides full access to an essential curved surface representation much desired for use in next generation games. Finally, major performance and usability improvements are consolidated by Alias|Wavefront's long-standing focus on feature synergy, which by degree is unique to Maya software and allows unparalleled flexibility in one integrated environment.

"Maya's games related features allow our artists and programmers to work cooperatively and flexibly within one unified architecture to create and deliver the cinematic quality required for today's content rich game titles," said Adrian Smith, Operations Director for Core Design. "With this release, Maya has achieved best of class status as the tool for next generation game development -- we consider it the most powerful solution for digital content creation on the market," he continued.

Maya 3 Trax features include:

  • 1. New and highly intuitive Trax editing window.
  • 2. Reusable time independent motion clips containing hierarchical animation for characters.
  • 3. Blending and transitions between clips for smoother motion.
  • 4. Expansion and compression of animation clips, (e.g. to easily change timing). 5. Clip and pose browser interface with full drag and drop workflow throughout.
  • 6. Blending of hand animation (motion warping) with motion capture data.
  • 7. Data filtering and processing of motion curves.
  • 8. User extensible plug-in filters that allow game developers to match the same blends in Maya software as they use in their games.

Pricing and Availability Information

Maya Complete 3 will be available this summer for Windows NT and Silicon Graphics IRIX. Maya Complete has a SRP of $7,500 and includes modeling, rendering, animation, dynamics, Maya Artisan, MEL (an embedded scripting language) and a well-documented API that provides an open interface for programming in Maya.

Maya Unlimited 3, available this summer for Windows NT and Silicon Graphics IRIX, has a SRP of $16,000 and includes Maya Complete, Maya Live, Maya Fur, Maya Cloth, Advanced Modeling and additional batch rendering capability.

Maya Builder(TM) 3 for game programmers and level designers will be available on Windows NT and Silicon Graphics IRIX this summer, and includes Trax, Artisan Paint Textures, and all benefits of the new polygon architecture. Maya Builder has a SRP of $ 2,995. SRPs are domestic US prices and will vary outside of the US. Prices are subject to change without notice.

About Alias|Wavefront

Alias|Wavefront provides artists with open workflow solutions for creative advantage. As the world's leading innovator of 2D and 3D graphics technology, Alias|Wavefront develops software for the film and video, games, interactive media, industrial design, and visualization markets.

Alias|Wavefront's film and video customers include Blue Sky, Cinesite, CNN, Digital Anvil, Digital Domain, Dream Quest Images, Industrial Light & Magic, Pacific Data Images (PDI), Pixar, Santa Barbara Studios, Sony Pictures Imageworks, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Feature Animation.

Games customers consist of CAPCOM, Electronic Arts, Iguana Entertainment, Interplay, Kronos Digital Entertainment, NAMCO, Naughty Dog, Nintendo, Rare, SEGA, Sony, 989 Studios, Square, Virtual Worlds Entertainment and Williams/Bally Midway.

Alias|Wavefront design customers are AT&T, BMW, Boeing, DaimlerChrysler, Fiat, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, General Motors, Italdesign, Kodak, Mattel, Renault, Rollerblade, Teague and Timex.

Alias|Wavefront is a wholly owned, independent software company of SGI(R) with headquarters in Toronto and technical centers in Seattle and Santa Barbara. Please visit the Alias|Wavefront web site at www.aliaswavefront.com or call 800-447-2542 in North America. Readers in Europe can call 800-4125-4125 or 800-791-174 in Italy for the nearest sales office or authorized reseller in their area.

SOURCE Alias|Wavefront

CO: Alias|Wavefront; Silicon Graphics, Inc.