Alias brought out the next version of its award-winning 3D animation and special effects software Maya 6, featuring hundreds of new features and enhancements requested by Maya users from both large and small organizations working in film, broadcast, game development, digital publishing and visualization markets.

The architecture of Trax non-linear animation has been redone in Maya 6. Motion retargeting and motion redirection capabilities have been added allowing animators a powerful new means to quickly re-purpose animation clips from a motion library on to any character of their choice.

The new Maya Hair toolset features a dynamic curve simulation engine designed to enable long hair to be added to characters. The ability to braid, curl and style hair is integrated with the Maya dynamics engine, allowing for strikingly realistic hair movement with accurate collisions. The Maya Hair dynamic curves represent a major new entity that can be used anywhere NURBS curves are currently used; as well as lending themselves to other hair-like objects such as ropes, chains and wires. This allows such advanced animation effects as dynamic character rigs and surfaces – for example, providing dangling tail joint chains, or undulating underwater creatures.

Fluidity is offered in Motion. Courtesy of Apple.

Apple introduced Motion, a new application intended to redefine motion graphics by giving artists the creative freedom and power to deliver stunning results faster and more intuitively at a price of $299. Motion features interactive animation of text, graphics and video, with instant previewing of multiple filters and particle effects, and introduces "Behaviors" that allow artists to add natural looking movement to type and graphics, such as gravity and wind, without the use of complex keyframes.

Motion's Behaviors use procedural animation techniques to create natural simulations, such as gravity and wind, or sophisticated interaction between multiple objects, such as attraction and repulsion. Behaviors provide users with the ability to automatically generate simple or sophisticated fluid motion effects with minimal effort and make modifications spontaneously, all without the complexity or overhead of dealing with keyframes. Users familiar with keyframes can use Motion's Keyframe Editor to plot precise parameter values at specific frames.

Motion also includes an advanced particle engine that enables artists to quickly and easily apply realistic particle presets such as smoke, sparkles and fire to any animation. Using Motion, virtually any graphic element on the screen can be turned into a particle and then modified to create unlimited, customized vfx.

Shake 3.5 offers advancements in morphing and warping. Courtesy of Apple.

Meanwhile, Apple’s new Shake 3.5, features new shape-based morphing and warping tools for advanced compositing and new “shape shifting” special effects, fine-tuned to take advantage of the performance and architecture of the Power Mac G5 and Mac OS X version 10.3 “Panther.”

The new shape-based morphing and warping features in Shake 3.5 use industry standard spline tools, making it more intuitive to create and modify effects than with traditional mesh-based warping tools. Morphing and warping further enhance Shake’s visual effects tools, including layering, tracking, rotoscoping, painting and color correction.