Alias|Wavefront announced that it is now offering the mental ray for Maya plug-in at no extra charge to all Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited customers. The mental ray for Maya plug-in, previously priced at US $3,995 is available free to all Maya customers beginning with Maya 4.5. Maya 4.5 customers can now download mental ray for Maya 1.5 public beta at www.aliaswavefront.com/maya/getmental. This announcement covers all platforms which Maya is available for, including Mac. Mental ray for Maya 1.5 is currently not available for Mac, but should be released mid-winter and will then be available as a free download from the Alias|Wavefront Website. Alias|Wavefront and mental images (developer of mental ray) say they are committed to develop and integrate mental ray for Maya as a standard rendering feature in future versions of Maya. Although Maya has its own built-in renderer, Shai Hinitz, Maya product manager at Alias|Wavefront, said the merger of Maya's internal renderer with the power and programmability of mental ray will allow Maya 4.5 users to instantly benefit from the photo-realistic rendering effects mental ray for Maya has to offer. "From now on Maya customers will get to choose between two of the industry's most powerful renderers," Hinitz concluded.