Alias revealed the latest version of Maya 6.5, a performance-driven release optimized to meet the needs of games, film, broadcast and digital publishing professionals seeking dramatic performance enhancements while working with massive datasets. By re-architecting the software to boost performance across the package, Alias has prepared Maya to provide the power and reliability to work with the heaviest models, scenes and animation data. Customers on the Maya Platinum Membership Program can download the software immediately at www.alias.com/maya/support. Maya 6.5 will begin shipping worldwide in February.
This latest version of Maya proves the dedication of Alias to meet the needs of the game development community, commented Stephen White, programming director, Naughty Dog Inc. Maya continues to evolve as a critical tool in our game development process and this version addresses many important current needs as well as features critical to the future of game development. Naughty Dog is widely regarded as one of the most forward-thinking games developers, having produced the highly acclaimed and successful CRASH BANDICOOT and JAK & DAXTER titles with Alias products.
Maya 6.5 was clearly driven by daily production demands, added Dirk Bialluch, md at Lightstorm 3D, a German-based computer graphics firm. Overall performance has increased drastically and working with Maya feels much more fluid in almost every aspect. With the tight level of integration reached in Maya 6.5, we switched our complete render pipeline to mental ray.
In response to a massive increase in scene file complexity within the 3D community, Alias has introduced new scene segmentation features to Maya. These enhanced tools give artists more control over scene load times, project collaboration and overall data-handling performance.
Scene segmentation enhancements include new file referencing options such as proxies, reference locking and the ability to save changes back to a reference, as well as enhancements to existing file referencing features.
Additionally, the range of large CAD datasets that can be imported into Maya 6.5 has been expanded through the addition of the new STEP translator that allows efficient importing of files from most major CAD packages. Importing OBJ files on Windows platform is also significantly faster and the FBX plug-in is now included with Maya. The FBX plug-in allows for the exchange of 3D assets and media between a wide variety of applications.
Maya 6.5 is loaded with performance improvements throughout key areas of the software, which assists artists in dealing more effectively with their large scenes and datasets. New with Maya 6.5 is mental ray for Maya Satellite, and a host of new features (including rapid scan-line rendering) that stem from the integration of a new mental ray 3.4 core.
* Modeling Many polygon and UV texturing operations in Maya are now orders of magnitude faster, helping artists achieve their desired look with much greater efficiency. A series of enhancements have also been made to the polygon bevel tool.
* Animation, Character Setup and Deformers Toolsets have all been optimized, resulting in a more efficient workflow for character animators. Wrap deformer setup is many times faster in Maya 6.5 as are cluster deformation and sculpt tool deformations. Optimizations to the soft modification feature permits animators to quickly manipulate many vertices at a high-level an ideal workflow accelerator for those working with dense datasets. Animators can now get better results when copying smooth skin weights between models with differing topologies and take advantage of the new ability to bind to non-joint objects and maintain max skin influence.
* Large Address Awareness Maya artists using the Windows XP platform can now take advantage of up to 2.6 GB of memory for Maya.
* Rendering Alias introduces a new network rendering option that supplements the mental ray rendering capabilities within Maya 6.5 by taking advantage of the processing power of other networked computers. This allows artists to achieve faster rendering results, including Interactive Photorealistic Rendering (IPR), improved interactive and batch rendering performance and faster pre-lighting of both textures and vertices. The mental ray for Maya Satellite feature comes free with Maya Complete (2 CPUs) and Maya Unlimited (8 CPUs) and is available for the Windows, Linux and Mac OS X platforms.
Along with providing performance enhancements across the software, Alias has also addressed other highly requested features from the global Maya customer base. Areas of improvement include Maya Cloth, Maya Hair, Maya Fur, Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Embedded Language (MEL), API, Plug-ins, Devkit and the embedded Web browser.
Along with the numerous benefits of being part of the Platinum and Silver Membership Programs, Alias is launching additional new services for those members.
New Platinum services include: improved interactive online case management with automated bug reporting and super user access; expanded hours for hotline support and improved response and resolution times; and until June members can take advantage of one hour of personal training via phone call with an Alias expert support engineer.
New Silver Membership services include: new textures and shaders database, selected Learning Tools at no charge and Alias Weblogs by industry leaders and Alias product specialists who discuss how they create work using Alias software.
The pricing of Maya remains unchanged from Maya 6: Maya Complete 6.5 is $1,999 and Maya Unlimited is $6,999. Upgrade pricing is $899 for Maya Complete and $1,249 for Maya Unlimited. Both Maya Complete and Unlimited are available on the Windows, IRIX, Linux and Mac OS X platforms.
mental ray 3.4 is offered from Alias as a stand-alone renderer and will be available to those customers on Alias mental ray maintenance program on Feb. 8. mental ray 3.4 will begin shipping to new customers Feb. 28.
As a leading innovator of 3D graphics technology, Alias (www.alias.com) develops award-winning software, custom development and training solutions for the film and video, games, Web, interactive media, automotive, industrial design, education and visualization markets. Alias is headquartered in Toronto with a Custom Development Center in Santa Barbara. Alias recently acquired Kaydara and was recently purchased by Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity firm, and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
