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Does this mean I can be signifigantly less worried about the future of Maya after Autodesk's purchase of Alias?
http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/press/press_release_d etails.jsp?itemId=3600004

Actually the last version of Maya to run on IRIX is Maya 6.5.

They cite not enough people running it on IRIX for it to be worth it.

I would hardly call MEL an architecture. In fact, I would hardly call MEL a programming language either.

However, Alias/Maya used to run on Irix, an SGI Unix variant (maybe still does).

Your point is taken since most commercial apps aren't on Linux but how about checking all your facts? Maya has been available on Linux in both GUI and renderfarm forms for a couple years...

Colleges and what not will often (although not always) follow the most popular platform. This is usually Windows (even when Macs are equally capable). Few people are going to stick their neck on the line by mandating Linux in such environments and there would be a backlash because people want to be taught in the same environment as everyone else.

The only time you will see a sea change is if it starts from the top and people start have Linux forced upon them whether they like/want/need it or not.

where's the Maya/3DS/LW/Softimage alternative? It doesn't exist (dont be a bone head and suggest Blender here, its like comaring a 79' VW to a Ferrai).

Maya Software Requirements

where's the video editing solutions? We have one decent one, but all with haggid no-useable interfaces (seen from a non-linux-fanboiii perspective).

Make it yourself (or find one, I don't do this myself).

Where's the DVD authoring software(i know about dvd-author, and the v.0.0.1 guis being made for it. From a desktop users perspective these are 100% useless atm)? Heck, where's the LEGAL dvd player to watch your newly mastered holyday vid?

NeroLINUX

Where's the CAD/CAM software?

CAD Programs for Linux

Where's the games?t

Like Doom III, Unreal Tournament, or loads of Windows games under Wine?

Maybe before you get in a tiff about Linux programs you should go check Google first.

Also there were previous slashdot stories about Pixar's in-house Sketch Review Tool, (a hybrid vector/raster tool) and Microsoft Acryllic.

I believe Studio Artist is primarily vector based.

There are also many vector programs for the sign/graphics industry to control CNC routers and plotters. FlexiSIGN is one of them.

Considering Alias has a write-up about their software and Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/community/customer_st ory_details.jsp?itemId=6600001 what was Discreets software used for? I noticed on the discreet site they have a list of movies coming out this year, but I haven't seen most of them (hitch hiker I saw and Charlie I want to see)

In fact, Pixar has released a couple of its own plugins

It, incidentally, runs on Windows, Mac, Red Hat and SUSE.

Of course, they don't use it exclusively. I was delighted to notice that one of the heros showed briefly in The Incredibles had a POV-Ray logo on his costume. POV-Ray is halfway open-source (not GPL, modification allowed only for the purpose of porting or adding to the feature set), but it's much better for still images than animation because it renders frame-by-frame (see povray.org for more and some very shiny examples)

Taking a look at the System Requirments for the more well known 3D Animation apps we see Alias's Maya and Softimage's XSI run natively under Linux. Which when you are dealing with animations that can take literally days to render for production it's no wonder they'd want to use a Linux machine instead of a Windows machine, I'm sure it cuts the time by at least 30% (totally grabbed that number out of my ass)

So is it news that the big animation companies also use OS X instead of XP too? I think the only big name 3d animation company that is Windows only is Discreet with their 3ds Max software, which I think is really only used for games, can't think of a movie that it was used for.

Sys Requirements:
http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/requirements.php
http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/sy stem_requirements.shtml
http://www4.discreet.com/3dsmax/3dsmax.php?id=966
http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/v42/SysReqs/

Nope, it's true!

A free download!

Unfortunately, finding 64-bit commercial programs for the architecture is nigh-impossible, so you almost have to be able to run a lot of 32-bit code. The problem lies in the fact that ALL of your software has to be compatible, and that's not even close to feasable currently.

Some problems we run into with program support for our Itanium2-driven Altixes (Altices? Altixen??):
PTC Products System Requirements
Alias Maya 64-bit Requirements

you must not have read the warez manifesto.

apparently people feel that it is ok to bootleg software for learning purposes. basically they do stuff like this with it: pet projects until they get good enough with the technology to the point where they can land a job in the field. then they will be able to get their employers to spring the cash for a real valid license. i wonder if anyone has checked mister belmonte's shelves for license agreements?

but seriously, at 24 i understand your doubt that he would have the disposable income to buy a highend video editing package and 3d modelling software. but then again if you look hard enough, you can find free and education editions of most of the major software packages. http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/products-services/pro duct_details.jsp?productId=1900003

now back to the topic...

Or because you run Maya and Klipper makes it crash.

Some sort of non-gaming application that uses a graphics card. Having trouble thinking of one now, but I know they exist somewhere ;)

Its a limited Beta, the plan is to charge, not give it away. Would you say Maya http://www.alias.com/eng/index.shtml thwarts competion because they give their product away?

Other good programs are Light Wave, Cinema 4D, and Modo.

All of these programs can be used at the professional level and are relatively cheap.

... or a similar instance.

Maya might fit better, but the platform would not be that crucial, I hate to say the trouble would be more on the side of managing it all.

Besides, LINUX took quite a while to grow in term of man years, see The true costs of Linux development.

CC.

Why do you have to agree with that argument in order to like open source software when you aren't in it just for the price?

RMS's argument is completely ridiculous, no matter how right in certain areas. But sometimes open source just isn't there, or maybe it can't be. Saying that one should use inferior products if the disparity in quality is significant just because they are "Free" is what "doesn't make sense."

It's similar sorts of zealots who always say "it's open source, fix it yourself." So it's time to put up or shut up. Which hopefully won't be too hard, since if McVoy can do it, I'm sure there are tons of people who can put together something similar to BK with an open source license, though it does make one wonder, if that is true, why they haven't done it yet.

You may be thinking of Massive, which was written by devlopers at Weta to drive the crowd behaviour in Maya, and has since been spun off to its own product.

Yes, you probably are. In all seriousness, there are quite a few applications that cost significantly more than the OS: Lightwave3D is $1695.00, Maya 6.5 Unlimited is $6999.00, Cinema 4D R9 Studio is $2995.00, Coldfusion MX 7 is $2999.00. And those are just a few from one field. Just take a look at CAD software, high-end video and audio editing software, not to mention prioretary enterprise-wide business solution software.

I understand that when your computer world consists of bittorrent, w4R3z, and the one legitimate game you bought for $29.95, $150.00 seems like alot. However, for professionals $150.00 is practically nothing.

And there really is no excuse for this as software such as Alias's Maya not only work fine with a 3 button mouse, but require it.

But nice mac trolling there, buddy. Good to see that /. is still free for differing opinions as long as they all agree with Apple's design decisions.

As far as animation is concerned on Linux, I think the lack of an affordable and high quality video editing and compositing solution is a MUCH bigger problem. Sure there's Shake (now from Apple) but you can get 2 Macs and a copy of Shake for Mac with free render nodes for the 10 grand they charge for the Linux or Irix versions.

I'd mod you up if I could. Agree 100%. I've downloaded tons of stuff I would never use. When companies like Aliashttp://www.alias.com/eng/index_flash.shtml provide a download for a type of preview/not full software of their popular Maya program it gives people lik eme a chance to use it. I heard Maya was cool, didn't know anything about it, but I was able to download it. Come to find out it just wasn't for me, but I would definately suggest that to anyone who asked me. Now, if I had downloaded an illegal copy if they didn't offer that, they would not have lost a single sale. I wish more companies would follow suite.

On the other hand, the question is about windows. Here's the best freeware list I've found, taken off of the neowin.net forums. These are not guaranteed Clean, but most of them are. Also, you might want to check tinyapps.org, which specializes in SMALL apps (usually not enough space for ad/spyware).
Category 3D Graphics: ----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/CharacterCountF ilterForAValidList----
3Delight Free - http://www.3delight.com/index.htm
Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/
Aqsis - http://www.aqsis.com/
Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/
gmax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/
Houdini (Free Edition) - http://www.sidefx.com/apprentice/index.html
Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services...ple/i ndex.shtml
Now3D - http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.h tm
OpenFX - http://www.openfx.org
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP - http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/
Toxic - http://www.toxicengine.org/
Wings 3D - http://www.wings3d.com/
Category Anti-Virus:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Char acterCountFilterForAValidList----
AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/
Avast - http://www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/
ClamWin - http://www.clamwin.com/
Category Anti Spyware:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
Ad-aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Bazooka - http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/index.html
Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.htm l
SpywareGuard - http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html
Category IRC Clients:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/
BitchX - http://bitchx.org/download.php
HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/
TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/
XChat - http://www.silverex.org/news/
Category Audio Players:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
1by1 - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch
Billy - http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy
CoolPlayer - http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net/
DeliPlayer. http://www.deliplayer.com/
Foobar 2

Three recent trends lend credibility to the image of those modest studios (indies) developing games: 1) the fact that many such developers are are coming from industry proper; 2) the actual nomenclature "Indie" being a positive term; and 3) small studios' newfound ability to create games that are visually appealing.

First: An interesting but not-well-known fact is that many members of the indie gaming community come from a background of well-known companies. Take, for example, the Moonpod team, which had experience at Gremlin and Infogrames before starting out on their own. Monkeystone is headed by none other than id's John Romero. I would argue that games industry experience is not a prerequisite for the development of a good game; but the recent movement of folks from big gaming companies to their own studios makes independents more credible. Put simply: if folks who have worked on shipped, big-budget games are now part of the indie community, there must be something to the indie community.

Second: The actual term used for smaller studios (Independents or Indies) is an important one. You could call many of the products in this category "Shareware Games," but there's a horribly negative connotation to that term. "Indie Games" evokes the notion of a small, dedicated team of professionals crafting out something new and interesting. By contrast, the term "Shareware Games" evokes the notion of some dude in his basement churning out a buggy arcade clone that looks like it was written for the Intellivision. To parahrase someone, (I want to say Chris Barrie): A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but may be less appealing if it were called "sewage-weed." The adoption of the "Indie" label has helped legitimize games made by smaller studios.

Fifth (20 years from now, we'll be those old farts still making Python references to people born in twenty-oh-one): Independents can make games that look good. It may be because indies now have access to tools that would have made Pixar cry during its formative years. (Maya, for example, can be had for about $2k, and is even free for personal use.) It may also be because there's great talent now available. Either way, I think indie titles, taken as a whole, have become visually appealing. During the '90s, shareware titles had a bad reputation for being ugly, because they lagged so far behind the cutting-edge. These days, titles like Starscape, Dark Horizons: Lore, and Wik & The Fable of Souls are (IMO) looking pretty good. And, while indie titles may not be as spectacular as those developed by a major studio, (our own Inago Rage focuses on bright colors, but doesn't quite outdo Tron 2.0, for example), decent sales suggest that gamers like what Independents are doing.

However, given the dearth of posts in this thread, I still believe we have a long way to go. :) So, if you haven't already, check out the DIY and Game Tunnel coverage of the 81 IGF entrants. You may find that precious diamond in the rough.
_____________________

I can vouch for Alias Sketchbook too, I have an M200 Toshiba tablet PC here with it installed. It is both a fun and useful drawing program. Gabe (Mike Krahulik) from Penny Arcade has used it quite a bit, and has a tutorial on the Alias site as well.

Lightwave, Maya, Bauhaus Software's Mirage, NewTek's Video Toaster (up until recently when the source was released), shall I continue?

Try this found in one of the papers.

If you know what to look for you should get a ten out of ten on your first go, and there is no way you'd be able to apply a 'filter' to get realistic results on the CG images.

I found the nails, screws images hardest, the others were strightforward, look at the depth of field and the detail on the nail/screw head.

The bonus round's a little harder, mainly becauase they've picked very CG looking images, not realy a good add for 'realism' in maya.

Perhaps he's bright enough.

Photoshop costs ~$600USD, Lightwave ~$1600, and Maya at least $2200 (up to $7000 for Unlimited). $4400 dollars' worth of "long term investment" when he can barely afford to pay himself? Yeah, riiggghhttt.

Testimonial and tutorial.

Testimonial and tutorial.

I believe it was Alias PortfolioWall. I've seen it used primarily with gestures, which never seemed to work well. People would drag right for the next slide, but get so lost that an assistant at the keyboard had to help. The guy on TV stuck to simple button pushing and map zooming, which was effective.

When I worked on a rather large IT company in the old days[a year ago] with a lot of clients I found that Radmin was the best choice. The speed and refresh rate of it is great. Much more than in any standard VNC programs I have tried. Plus the option of using a radmin computer as a gateway to another radmin computer is great when trying to help cusomers over a vast WAN. Plus it has shell and file transfer possibilities. And I found it useful for checking how my EVE Online pilot was doing from work.

Only problems is that is is Windows Only.

For adminin linux or unix computers I just use SSH and an X tunnel. Heck. I even ran Maya between continents using that method. Both systems running Irix.

To admin the Windows servers at work I use a combination of an SSH tunnel and RDP.

Maya personal learning edition
Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003

On the other hand, this is free and open source, and looks very promising.

Well let's see here. Star Wars used a lot of sets and even more props. Sky Captain used very limited props and only blue screen sets that were per set up using MAYA. They used http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/in dex.shtml/ to produce the entire movie even before the first shoot. Every camera angle and every set was already known by the directors and CG artists. Tell me one film that has done this without being FULL CG. I can't wait till more movies are done like this.

Actually, you don't know that I don't know that. In other words, don't assume what other people don't know, and just stick to what you do.

It's not clear how hard it is to make that watermark work out.

There's at least one company that knows how hard it is, as they've already done it: Alias. They don't have to reinvent the wheel, they only need to apply what they've already spent money on to as wide a product base as they can. This will leverage the money already spent should there be people fleeing IRIX or Windows to Linux.

They'll have to perform more tech support on an even harder platform to use than Mac or Windows

As they already have Irix and Linux versions, I doubt tech-support is going to be any harder for them if a cripple-ware version (which often don't come with anything more than e-mail support) is made available.

What WOULD be silly is to go through the BS to make Maya PLE work in Linux, then have virtually nobody use it.

Actually, what's silly is your argument that they would make the initial tremendous effort of porting a fully working version for a platform where "virtually nobody" would use it. But, not apply the same marketing technique of cripple-ware to drum up business as they do in Windows. Where's the logic in that? Why do you think the PLE version was created for Windows or Mac anyhow?

In any case, the point is moot, as there's little doubt if they want to drum up business in the Linux, they'll have to make it available as a free download for Linux. How do I know they want to do business in Linux? Why else take the expensive effort of porting their product over? Ipso facto.

= 9J =

erm, most of the South Park episodes are made in $$$$ 3D application Maya, also widely used by nearly every big SFX house in the world. Emulating paper cut-outs, how far we've come!

*BIG*No No No`s.

from the site: "Available for Maya 6 on the Windows® 2000/XP Professional and Mac® OS X operating systems."

and here's some onfirmation too...

Then Blender has to do, for 'US' ... I guess ....

Bingo! Graphics people are the target market for this gizmo, not suits who want to take notes. This is why Windows-based tablets fail, Windows still doesn't really 'get' creative graphics. The killer app for the tablet Mac is Alias Sketchbook Pro which recently became available for the Mac.

Don't even try to say that Maya is not an "industry standard"

At least for illustrators, Alias SketchBook Pro is a godsend. I don't use it myself, but I've spent the last six months doing Tablet PC UI research for Microsoft, and the people who are most passionate about these computers are professional illustrators and artists. Unfortunately that's not MS's primary target audience, but hey....

Actually, Mike (Gabe) Krahulik (the guy that draws Penny Arcade) gives a nice little html tutorial here on using Alias Sketchbook Pro, which comes bundled (at least with Acer Tablets) and is a perfect compliment for tablet pc's I would assume.

I've been using it for a while now with a Wacom drawing tablet and for the first time can see the use for a tablet PC. Drawing in a horizontal square which has to be perpendicular to the screen is not as intuitive as it should be. I'd much prefer to be able to draw while holding the pad at an angle.

And the alternative is a Cintiq. Look at THAT price!!!! The tablet PC's in listed above do more (apparently) and cost less than these behemoths, so for the graphic artist who needs to draw, this is DEFINITELY the way to go. I understand that Wacom does some special treatment to the Cintiq screens to avoid wear, tear, and distortion as the pen touches the screen constantly, but yikes that is a pricey sketchbook.

It's strange -- Apple has always been regarded as being the machine of choice for the designer or visual artist, but it seems that they may be missing the boat on this one... Niche market, perhaps, but could be a strong one.

...offers no services over a pda that I would want to use on the go. Unless of course you're talking about laptop-type activities, in which case, the laptop is the natural choice.

I almost agree. Despite the hype thrown behind the tablet PC, I consider it to be, at best, an evolution of the laptop. That's not a bad thing.

I bought the Toshiba Protege M200 when it came out and was really excited. Within a couple of months, I was using only it's laptop functionality 90% of the time. However, it's that 10% that keeps things interesting. A tablet has capabilities beyond that of existing laptops which opens doors to interactions that just weren't possible before. Alias Sketchbook Pro rocks! I'm excited about that untapped potential. My Treo 600 can record voice,(crappy) video, and act as a webcam now. It couldn't do that when I bought it.

Don't even bother asking about why one would need X to do Y when you've got A, B & C. For me it's about exploring the possibilities.

Some day the line between laptop and tablet will be nonexistant. Until then, save your money unless you're interested in helping that future get here a day or two sooner. Someone's got to be an early adopter. I can't wait for a Linux Tablet, which is made increasingly probable by lower priced hardware. Sometimes the slow, steady progress just isn't that impressive.

He's probably talking about Croquet which is a 3d collaborative environment developed on top of Squeak. Impressive stuff.

I don't know about this - 3D interfaces tend to fail becuase they don't make tasks any easier. You don't want to miss a web page or a file because another one is in front of it. And 3D navigation tends to be quite hard if you want to do it in an efficient manner - if you want to be able to zip halfway across the universe really quickly instead of walking there slowly using a game controller.

An old but good article on this can be found here. The points seem to be very relevent to what Croquet is doing.

Oh, I'm a software developer at this place so I'm pretty familiar with how difficult it is to get things right and usable in 3D.

On the other hand, if someday I do a freelance job these companies that have unwittingly supplied me with a learning tool will be the first to receive my money.


That's what is so great about the Alias guys. They supply a free, fully featured version of Maya as a learning tool -- Maya Personal Learning Edition. There is a watermark on all the renders (and they obviously prohibit commercial use), but aside from that, its pretty much the real deal. I wanted to learn a little about Maya, so I downloaded it off of a p2p network. Then when I found out about Maya PLE, I ditched the p2p one and started using their free version, complete with snazzy tutorials. One downside: no linux version of the PLE.

We did this because we primarily use Discreet's 3dsmax (with Brazil and V-Ray) and Eyeon's Digital Fusion. We have found that most existing render farm solutions do not support these two packages very well -- thus we decided to develop our own custom solution. We also support After Effects, Alias|Maya, AIR and other RenderMan compliant rendering packages.

Of interest to the general Slashdot crowd may be that this Deadline Render Management Solution is based on the open source (BSD License) Exocortex C# library originally released with this C# 3D Engine. Deadline is built with C# in the hopes that using Mono we will be able to start supporting Linux with minimal extra effort.

I'll be reading all the posts on this Slashdot thread but I would also appreciate any direct feedback on our current beta product. We also found solutions such as Rush and Smedge to be less than user friendly in many respects. Thus we have tried as best as we could to increase a 3D package that is not well supported by most render farm management solutions -- except for Discreet's Backburner (which we found not that that scalable.)

I think he means stuff like this: this - a contest to see if you can tell photographs from stuff rendered in Maya