ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.01 - APRIL 2000

Technology

Alias|Wavefront Announces Maya 3. Alias|Wavefront unveiled a new upgrade to its powerful 3D animation system Maya, an upgrade which will add a major new feature to the software, particularly useful to games developers. Trax is a new non-linear animation editing solution which will allow games developers to manipulate extensive amounts of animation and blend it together in a way that can be reproduced in the final game play. Trax features include reusable time independent motion clips, blending of hand animation, data filtering and processing of motion curves, and user-extensible plug-in filters that allow game developers to match the same blends in Maya software that they use in their games. This very game-oriented announcement for Maya 3 is interesting. Alias|Wavefront also announced that Maya had been used in all three of this year’s best visual effects Academy Award nominees -- with this major upgrade announcement coming out at the same time one would think Alias|Wavefront would have chosen to make a more visual effects-oriented Maya 3 announcement. Perhaps Alias|Wavefront feel that they have conquered the visual effects industry and now they're moving on to games makers? Or perhaps they simply feel that the games industry is in a massive stage of growth right now (Dreamcast, Playstation 2, etc.), and they want a piece of the action. What we do know is that Maya 3 will provide animators with more advanced and dynamic tools for an ever-more demanding industry. That, we've come to expect from Alias|Wavefront.

REALVIZ Announces ImageModeler. France-based company REALVIZ announced the release of its new ImageModeler photo-modeling software. This release comes after the release of several other photo-modeling systems designed to turn objects in 2D photographs into 3D models. Unlike other solutions on the market, however, ImageModeler is a high-end application aimed at professionals, and this is reflected not only in the programs toolset, but in the quality of the models it produces. The creation of a 3D model in ImageModeler is simple -- take a few photos of your object from various angles, import them into the software and select corresponding points on each of the images. ImageModeler then creates a model and textures it using the original photographic reference provided. Of course, the model can be tweaked and exported in a variety of file formats. While ImageModeler may seem like "yet another" photo-modeling program, the fact that it comes from a company that has produced such high-end tools as MatchMover cannot be ignored. Unlike its competitors, ImageModeler is not designed as a toy, but as a tool for serious digital content creators.

SOFTIMAGE Releases SOFTIMAGE|3D 3.9. SOFTIMAGE has announced that the latest upgrade to their flagship SOFTIMAGE|3D animation system was available for download from their Web site. This upgrade represents a milestone for SOFTIMAGE, as it is the first upgrade the company has chosen to distribute on-line (rather than wait 6-8 weeks for reproduction, duplication and distribution). The new version 3.9 adds numerous new features and enhancements to the software, including: new tools for selecting polygons and editing polygonal meshes; an update to SOFTIMAGE's .xsi file format; enhanced output for Sony PlayStation format; improvements to editing envelope weights; and new texturing tools. The upgrade also delivers a refined user interface which should increase functionality and improve workflow. This upgrade comes shortly before the release of SOFTIMAGE's next-generation animation software, Sumatra, is due to be released. Scheduled for an April release (the software will most likely be released during the NAB conference), Sumatra brings new and exciting features such as the Animation Mixer, Multipass Rendering, and Interactive Regional Rendering to animators who choose to take advantage of the system.

Read more about Sumatra in Jade Ohlhauser's article "Inside Sumatra" in Visual Magic Magazine.

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