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Kaydara and Alias Announce MOTIONBUILDER 6

Kaydara Inc., and Alias announced from SIGGRAPH 2004 the forthcoming release of MOTIONBUILDER 6, the newest version of the company's award-winning character animation software. This comes on the heels of the recent news that Alias has signed an agreement to acquire Kaydara.

When the purchase closes (which it is expected to within two months), then MOTIONBUILDER will be rebranded Alias MOTIONBUILDER.

Kaydara is a leader in character animation and motion editing solutions. Alias is the leading provider of 3D graphics technology and services for the film, video games, Web, interactive media, automotive, industrial design, education and visualization markets.

One of the industry's fastest 3D animation solutions, MOTIONBUILDER 6's improved usability, advanced keyframing capabilities and increased character animation controls have been designed for creating animated content quickly and easily for games, feature films and television series.

"MOTIONBUILDER 6 is our next logical step in building the best 3D animation software on the market," said Michel Besner, president of Kaydara. "The new version includes many improvements that make it more powerful and easier to use, and is an ideal solution for even the most demanding keyframe artists."

With unique features such as "smart" character technology (HumanIK), 3D story-timeline tool and realtime photorealistic rendering, MOTIONBUILDER 6 allows 3D artists to easily create high-quality, visually compelling animated content using a true WYSIWYG environment without having to master difficult tasks such as building custom rigs and complex character setups.

"MOTIONBUILDER 6 delivers an unprecedented level of flexibility and a powerful toolset that makes it easy to develop high quality character animation in significantly less time," said Remi Brun, senior motion capture supervisor at Attitude Studio. "We're using MOTIONBUILDER on RENAISSANCE, the first European fully motion-captured feature film, and on our 26x26 TV series SKYLAND, and it is making a tremendous difference in our team's ability to quickly and easily produce subtle and complex character animation it's a huge asset for our overall productivity and workflow."

New features in MOTIONBUILDER 6 include:* Simplified User Interface includes a totally new customizable picking mode and toolbar, giving animators increased manipulation and workflow control, and a new screen layout that maximizes the size of the 3D viewer.* Enhanced Keyframe Animation Capabilities including improved IK/FK sync, autokey, animation path and trajectories, and MotionInspector: a revolutionary new way of managing motion curve dynamics.* Character Animation functionality includes multi-referential animation for characters and props; user defined character setups with built-in support for props; constraints and custom properties; and improved animation controls with degrees of freedom, pivots support and referenced properties.* Improved Story-Timeline includes increased flexibility and workflow, allowing users to easily edit 3D animation tracks in combination with audio, video and constraints. Independent camera track allows producers, special effects directors and 3D artists to work out camera shots and timing independently of the animation timeline for maximum flexibility.

MOTIONBUILDER 6 natively supports Kaydara FBX, an award-winning, platform-independent 3D authoring and interchange format that allows MOTIONBUILDER users to quickly and easily acquire and exchange 3D assets and media from a wide variety of sources. Kaydara FBX is widely supported by the industry's leading software and hardware manufacturers, as well as film and game studios, including 2D3, 3Dwings, A&G Soluzioni Digitali, Alias, Apple, Ascension Technology, Autodesk, Darwin, Di-O-Matic, Discreet, Luxology, Maxon, Motek, Natural Motion, Newtek, NXN, Okino, Softimage, Strata, TurboSquid, Vicon and Virsys.

Kaydara MOTIONBUILDER 6 will be available September 2004 on Windows XP Professional and Mac OS X 10.3. MOTIONBUILDER 6 Standard is priced at $995 USD; MOTIONBUILDER 6 PRO is priced at $4,195 and includes 12 months support and upgrades. For more information on features, pricing outside of North America and upgrades, visit Kaydara's Website at www.kaydara.com.

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 was recently purchased by Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity firm, and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.

Over the course of the past decade, Montreal-based Kaydara (www.kaydara.com) has become a leader in the development of realtime character animation and motion editing solutions for the entertainment industry. Kaydara's product portfolio serves a vast and varied range of clients in the TV, film, game development and Web content industries.

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