Pixar has announced RenderMan for Maya, a new rendering solution based on Pixar's award-winning rendering technology. The RenderMan for Maya plug-in, which is entering beta testing soon, will be available on computers running Mac OS X or Windows XP. It will be priced at $995.
RenderMan for Maya enjoys complete integration with Maya. Just switch your renderer to "RenderMan" and automatically render everything in your Maya scene, including Maya materials, Maya particles and Maya fur.
RenderMan for Maya is intended for small studios who covet movie-quality images but do not require the premium features of RenderMan Pro Server. The software has been streamlined for ease of use, giving Maya users one-click access to Pixar's core rendering technology, the PhotoRealistic RenderMan renderer.
"Pixar and Alias have a long standing tradition cemented by our mutual customers, who have created the most compelling and successful films using our combined technologies," said Bob Bennett, general manager of product management at Alias. "The availability of an affordable integrated rendering solution from Pixar will make many Maya artists happy. We're confident that users will love how the engineers at Pixar took advantage of Maya's unified rendering interface. Now the proven power and stability of PRMan is even more accessible to Maya artists."
Emeryville, California-base Pixar Animation Studios (www.pixar.com) has created and produced five of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time: recent Oscar-winner and animation box office champ FINDING NEMO, MONSTERS, INC., TOY STORY 2, A BUG'S LIFE and TOY STORY. Pixar's next two films are THE INCREDIBLES (Nov. 5, 2004) and CARS (holiday 2005).
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.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
