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Alias|Wavefront Announces Maya 5 


Latest version of award-winning software delivers unique image creation
possibilities, increases productivity and builds on existing innovation


Las Vegas, NV - NAB - April 6, 2003 - Alias|Wavefront(tm), an SGI (NYSE: SGI)
company, announced today Maya® 5 - the latest version of its Oscar®
award-winning 3D software. With the eighth release of its flagship software,
Alias|Wavefront delivers a host of innovative new ways to create digital
content along with numerous customer suggested productivity enhancements.
Improvements added to both Maya Complete(tm) and Maya Unlimited(tm) software
will energize artist and programmer workflows in such creative industries as
game development, broadcast graphics, web content creation, design
visualization and film production.   

"Our team has beta tested the new features in Maya, including the new fur
clumping capabilities and the new wakes and ponds features in Maya Fluid
Effects," said Jami Levesque at Meteor Studios. "Maya 5 is definitely going
to be integrated into our current pipeline and will be used extensively in
our future projects. The ease of use improvements in this release will
simplify our artists' workflow and the unified rendering options will allow
us to choose which renderer is best for the effects we're looking to
achieve." 

"We took feedback from our extensive community and built a new version of
Maya that simplifies workflow, boosts productivity and puts more creative
possibilities into their hands," said Bob Bennett, General Manager, Product
Development, Alias|Wavefront. "We've also 'future-proofed' Maya by working
closely with leading Hardware companies and expanded Maya's ability to work
with other applications such as Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Flash and
programs that read or write AutoCAD DWG files." 

Unique Image Creation Possibilities

Maya 5 now boasts four distinctive options for rendering - the Maya software
renderer, mental ray® for Maya(tm), a new Vector Renderer and a breakthrough
Hardware Renderer - allowing users to choose the image creation method
according to the task at hand: whether it be a photo- realistic design
visualization or a toon-shaded Macromedia® Flash® Vector graphic for the web.
As of Maya 5, all rendering options are unified through a consistent
rendering user interface and workflow.  

With Maya 5 Hardware rendering, customers can produce broadcast quality
images up to 20 times faster than ever before possible. The new Vector
Renderer allows Maya artists to create content in popular graphics formats
such as Macromedia Flash (SWF), Encapsulated PostScript® (EPS), Adobe®
Illustrator® (AI) and Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG(tm)).  As a result, Maya
is suddenly more applicable to 2D artists, web developers and even technical
illustrators. Furthermore, mental ray is now a standard part of Maya, and
Maya 5 brings the 3D industry its first introduction to the mental ray
renderer, version 3.2. 

Maya 5 Pumps Up Productivity 

The Maya software's industry-leading modeling, animation and effects features
have been fine-tuned using customer input to make production workflows more
efficient. For example, extensive enhancements to animation constraints, one
of the most widely used tools in everyday character animation, will save
valuable time while providing improved flexibility when working with
characters. Maya 5 introduces a highly visual form of FK/IK blending, plus
new ghosting and channel muting options that speed up animation tasks.  

In the realm of modeling, an expanded range of tools includes an innovative
new polygon reduction facility, new UV editing and extrusion tools, including
a graph-based profile curve for taper control. In Maya 5, artists can now use
the Maya Artisan(tm) brush feature to paint Face Vertices for more precise
placement of and even paint weighting values for polygon reduction, to
intuitively keep detail in a chosen area.

Performance in Maya 5 has also been improved in the area of dynamics
computation while speed on the Windows® operating system has been improved by
up to 90%.  

Programmers and Technical Directors will see numerous enhancements to the
Maya API, including a node/attribute callback mechanism, more detailed
exposure of light data and high-level polygon operations. There is also a new
Maya Embedded Language(tm) (MEL) "renderer" command that simplifies the
hook-up of third party renderers.

Building on Existing Innovation

Enhancements to the Maya software's, artist-friendly, brush-based toolsets
amount to a new paradigm in organic modeling. As of Maya 5, Maya Paint
Effects(tm) can now be drawn as, or converted to, polygons. This latest
advance enables Maya Paint Effects to be edited with regular polygon tools
and output to other renderers, including mental ray. In addition, a new Thin
Line brush mode in Maya Paint Effects brings multi-streaked realistic hair
within reach. Well over a hundred new preset brushes lend further artistic
possibilities to the user and demonstrate the new mesh based features;
everything from buildings, to crystals to infinitely detailed flowers and
trees, are included.

Maya Unlimited delivers exciting new features in Maya Fluid Effects(tm),
which have been enhanced so that previously unobtainable effects, including
true dynamic computation of wakes and the accurate simulation of ponds and
lakes, are now easily achieved.  A new, Make Motion Field feature, lets users
more accurately simulate the effect of objects moving through a fluid, such
as a character emerging from a smoke cloud or a helicopter hovering above
rippling water. Among the enhancements to Maya Fur(tm) is the addition of a
new fur clumping feature that supports a range of hairy looks such as wet,
matted or dirty fur.  This new feature together with support for animated
file textures enables artists to achieve time-based effects such as fur
spreading out over a surface.  

Another first is the inclusion of a free Maya Learning Tool(tm) DVD in every
box of Maya software.
 
Enhanced Data Exchange 

Maya 5 also offers enhanced and new data exchanges with leading technology
applications which allows customers to interface with their choice of today's
most popular data formats including; Macromedia Flash, DWG, DXF, Adobe
Illustrator, Encapsulated PostScript, Scalable Vector Graphics, IGES,
OpenFlight®, StudioTools® and OBJ. 

"The new version of Maya 5 is going to open up your mind and more," commented
Dave Taylor, Creative Director at Taylor Imaging.  "There's an entirely new
level of possibilities added. From an architect's standpoint, we now have a
DWG import and export on the Mac and for the industrial designer - IGES
import and export to machineable parts. Now, take those two things and
combine them with mental ray built in on the Mac for unsurpassed realism
using HDRI textures. Now that's a screaming package! Users will be more than
simply satisfied with this upgrade."
Pricing and Availability 

Maya Complete for the Windows, IRIX®, Linux® and Mac OS X operating systems,
is priced at $1,999* and includes modeling, rendering, animation, dynamics,
Maya Artisan, Maya Paint Effects, mental ray for Maya and Maya Embedded
Language (MEL), an open interface for programming and scripting. Maya
Unlimited for the Windows, IRIX and Linux operating systems, is priced at
$6,999* and includes all features in Maya Complete along with Maya Fluid
Effects, Maya Fur, Maya Cloth(tm) and Maya Live(tm). Maya will be available
to purchase in May 2003 through the Alias|Wavefront network of authorized
resellers or online at: <http://www.aliaswavefront.com>. 

Version upgrades for Maya Complete are priced at $899* and for Maya Unlimited
at $1,249*.

* Prices are list prices for node-locked licenses; floating licenses for Maya
Complete and Maya Unlimited are available at an additional fee. All prices
quoted are in U.S. dollars. International pricing may vary.

About Alias|Wavefront

As the world's leading innovator of 3D graphics technology, Alias|Wavefront
develops software for the film and video, games, web, interactive media,
industrial design, and visualization markets. On March 1 2003, the company
was awarded an Oscar for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences for its development of Maya software, its
professional 3D animation and effects package. Entertainment and games
customers include: Acclaim Entertainment, Inc., CNN, Core Design Limited,
Digital Domain, Disney, Electronic Arts, Industrial Light & Magic, Factor 5
LLC, Midway Games, Nintendo, Pacific Data Images (PDI), Pixar, Sega, Sony
Pictures Imageworks, Square Co., Ltd., Warner Feature Animation and Weta Ltd.

Alias|Wavefront is a wholly owned, independent software company of SGI® with
headquarters in Toronto and custom development center in Santa Barbara.
Please visit the Alias|Wavefront web site at http://www.aliaswavefront.com or
call 1-800-447-2542 in North America.  International contact numbers include:
Northern Europe, Middle East and Africa, +44 (0) 1494 441273; Germany, East &

Southeast Europe, 0049 89 31 70 20; France, Spain and Portugal, +33 1 44 92
81 60; Japan and other parts of Asia Pacific, 81 3 5797 3500 and Latin
America, 770 393 1881.
###

The Alias|Wavefront logo and StudioTools are registered trademarks and
Alias|Wavefront is a trademark of Alias|Wavefront, a division of Silicon
Graphics Limited in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Maya
is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc., exclusively used by
Alias|Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited, and the Maya logo,
Maya Complete, Maya Unlimited, Maya Paint Effects, Maya Artisan, Maya Fur,
Maya Cloth, Maya Live, Maya Fluid Effects, mental ray for Maya, Maya Learning
Tools, and Maya Embedded Language are trademarks of Alias|Wavefront, a
division of Silicon Graphics Limited in the United States and/or other
countries worldwide. SGI and IRIX are registered trademarks of Silicon
Graphics, Inc. in the United State and/or other countries worldwide. mental
ray is a registered trademark of mental images GmbH & Co. KG in the United
States and/or other countries. Macromedia and Flash are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Macromedia Inc in the United States and/or other
countries. Oscar is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences. Adobe, Illustrator and PostScript are either registered
trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States
and/or other countries. SVG is a registered or unregistered trademark of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. IRIX and SGI are registered trademarks
of Silicon Graphics, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries
worldwide. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Windows is
either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation, in the
United States and/or other countries. Mac is a trademark of Apple Computer,
Inc. registered in the US and other countries. OpenFlight is a registered
trademark of MultiGen-Paradigm Inc.  All other products or companies
mentioned are trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.
Alias|Wavefront, 210 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5A 1J7,
Tel: 416-362-9181, FAX: 416-369-6140.
Copyright © 2003 Alias|Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited.
All Rights Reserved.

 

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