Avid Technology Inc., announced the worldwide availability of its leading asset management system for digital content production, Avid Alienbrain Studio 7.5. Designed to meet the needs of art teams working on next-generation game development and industrial design projects, Alienbrain Studio 7.5 comes in two new configurations with new pricing: Alienbrain Essentials (starting at $495) and Alienbrain Advanced ($1,495).
Alienbrain Studio 7.5 also boosts team productivity with new features to improve system reliability and increase software interoperability. These include: the Server Health Monitor, a live database monitoring and diagnostic tool; full compliance with Microsoft .NET framework with native Alienbrain functionality; and updates to the plug-ins for the leading 3D modeling and animation packages. In addition, a free Alienbrain Reader is now available that allows casual users to access specific asset revisions and perform non-modifying operations.
We chose Alienbrain Studio early in our production process on EVERQUEST 2 and without it, we wouldnt have been able to make the game as effectively, said Daniel Lewis, art director for Sony Online Ent. in San Diego. Its advanced functionality allowed us to reduce our production costs by increasing team productivity, which led to a shorter development cycle. As we revise our existing art production pipeline for forthcoming projects, the new productivity and interoperability features in Alienbrain Studio 7.5 provide exactly what we need to tackle future production challenges.
Alienbrain Essentials offers two specifically optimized editions for mid-size productions. Essentials for Artists ($695) features a highly visual user interface with fast previews and thumbnails and unrivaled third-party integration support into the latest releases of leading 2D and 3D design packages. At $495, Essentials for Programmers includes software configuration management with intuitive branching features and change sets, integration into Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and the award-winning Araxis Merge Professional (a $269 value).
Alienbrain Advanced, targeted at mixed or complex productions, offers full project control with extensive reporting and communication tools designed for team leads and project managers. In addition to the feature set of Essentials, the Advanced package includes powerful reporting and workflow capabilities, cross-platform support for Mac OS X and Linux users and additional plug-ins for high-end design and animation applications like Alias StudioTools.
Matthias Adrian, senior production manager for Avids Alienbrain product line, added, By streamlining our product packaging and pricing with Alienbrain Essentials and Alienbrain Advanced, we have more flexibility to meet the needs of varying production environments while offering artists an easy, simple way to work with Alienbrain and their favorite 3D packages. Increased interoperability with leading programming languages and advanced monitoring tools also allows developers and administrators to work with and support the art teams seamlessly, making Alienbrain Studio an affordable asset management solution for digital content productions of all levels.
Other feature highlights of Alienbrain Studio 7.5 include:
* Server Health Monitor. The Server Health Monitor is a modular server-side watchdog process for operational conditions of the Alienbrain server processes that tracks available disk space, memory consumption, transactions and database journal operations. System status is reported to the administrators desktop and uses visual alerts to reduce the risks of unscheduled downtime and improve overall system availability.* Enhanced 3D integration. Alienbrain Studio 7.5 allows 3D tool developers to easily integrate asset management procedures into custom pipeline tools through native 3D scripting languages such as MEL and maxscript. In addition, Alienbrain Studio 7.5 supports the latest releases of major 3D applications, including SOFTMAGE|XSI 5.0, Alias Maya 7 and Autodesk Media and Ent. 3ds Max software.* Support for Microsoft .NET. Alienbrain Studio 7.5 is compliant with Microsofts .NET framework and programming languages such as C#, offering an easy-to-use interface integrated with the Visual Studio development environment, offering programmers a native interaction with Alienbrain Studio.
Customers with current maintenance or subscription contracts will be able to upgrade from Alienbrain Manager Client to Alienbrain Advanced, from Designer Client to Essentials for Artists and from Developer Client to Essentials for Programmers. In addition, a new maintenance program now replaces the current maintenance and subscription programs with a flat rate model:
* Alienbrain 7.5 Advanced for $400
* Alienbrain 7.5 Essentials for $250
Additional details on upgrades for existing customers and the new maintenance program are available on the Alienbrain website at www.alienbrain.com.
Avid Technology (www.avid.com), headquartered in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, is a world leader in digital nonlinear media creation, management, and distribution solutions, enabling film, video, audio, animation, games and broadcast professionals to work more efficiently, productively and creatively.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
