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Alias has a prett neat quiz bettween real pictures and computer generated ones. If you've never seen it it's availible here. I first recall seing it more than a year ago, so it's not exactly still state of the art, but I don't think I did that well on the quiz.

Maybe for some superduper modelling and 3D work in SoftImage or Maya

Unless you've used BK you really have no idea just how much more powerful it is than everything else. And yes, the p2p model that BK seemingly employs is a big part of it, but only a part of it.
BK has beautiful diff and merge tools. It has incredible file history tools. But most importantly, it's best at doing it's job: accurate revision control while staying near completely out of your face. That's why we used it at SOMA, and that's why I really wish we used it at Alias. Of course, all this really just scratches the surface.
Try it. Check in code. Share it with others. Propogate changes between people. Imagine sharing a development branch served off your desktop without doing any setup other than typing "bkd". Imaging 10 people pushing and pulling code between themselves and the server. Now you understand BK. It's not that source is stored or even the toolset alone. It's the fact that umpteen developers can push and pull between themselves and/or the server and accurately propogate changes all around. Combine that with the tools Larry and crew have written, and now you'll understand why it's better.
And to be fair, I work in the field and I've used SourceSafe, CVS/RCS, BitKeeper, Perforce, ClearCase, arch, Subversion, Accurev, and others. BK is easily the best of them... by far!

--ck

Guess not. There are many other things that are much easier to do in Linux, like OpenGL programming. If you fuck up your program, the system does not go down. I guess you get similar things in Windows with OpenGL, but at least in X I can actually use xterm instead of some stupid cmd.exe or Cygwin.

I actually switched a few months ago from Windows to Linux for development. gcc is slower than VC or Borland, but it catches more errors. The desktop also looks nicer! And I can have 5 or 10 desktops (screens) if I wish - this is quite handy.

That 1% usage might be developers writing software for Windows :) lol

Yeah, they work for Corel, Alias, Hummingbird, MKS, Cognos, Zero Knowledge, Blackberry, Nothern Telecom ...

As if blender wasn't complex enough

WTF? Compared to what? Softimage? Maya? 3D Studio?

"[...] certain applications (3D modelling software like Maya, chip-designing software, and so forth) are Windows-only."

Obviously, Not the best example you could've given:

Available for the Windows® XP Professional, Linux®, SGI IRIX® , and Mac® OS X operating systems.

Alias was acquired by AKKR recently, and with that transfer probably went the ownership of the file format rights (the cursed or blessed .mb, maya binary). I doubt that AKKR has any interest in opening the format up, unfortunately...

Taken!

maya ple

Aah, no.

Maya is a high end 3d design and rendering tool used primarily in TV/ feature film and video-game production. The main relation it has to Photoshop is that you can paint textures for objects using photoshop.

As for the article, this seems mildly redundant at best and useless a worst. Graphic Design is my living (not exactly by choice . . ), and despite the spin in the article, my left hand is often as useful or more so than my moue hand. I taught myself photoshop 3 and have been getting more efficient at using it since then.

To get the most out of its tools, access to the shift and alt(option) keys is nessecary (subtracting from a selection for example). Holding down the spacebar completely eliminates the need to use the scroll windows at all. Learning keyboard shortcuts eliminates the need for most menu operations in a session, not to mention being that "cmd(ctrl) L" is much more effecient than menu selecting "Image>Adjustments>Levels."

I'm sure this device is useful for CAD, but the description doesn't sound like it is easier than pressing the space bar in photoshop or the option key to navigate Maya.

Maya Works on Linux? Since when?

1.9 Will Alias offer a file conversion service to convert Alias Studio Personal Learning Edition files into regular Studio files once the user has purchased a commercial version of StudioTools?
No, the Alias Studio Personal Learning Edition is specifically intended as a non-commercial learning tool.

2. What's the primary tool being used in the development of HW2? Will it be required to create a mod?

The primary tool being used in development of HW2 is Maya 3.0, and the assorted custom tools that we've written for it. Yes, Maya will be required to create mods. However, we realize that a lot of people may not have access to Maya and we are currently trying to work with Alias to release our Maya tools for Maya PLE (Personal Learning Edition).

Actually, Maya requires three mouse buttons.

Not true. I purchase quite a lot of closed source software for Linux. Some of it I run under Wine, but where possible, I buy Linux versions.

When I was working on my CS degree I purchased copies of Matlab and Mathematica, I also would have purchased Maya (went to the lab instead) if it had been less than $400 for the student version. All my windows friends found them on irc/p2p.

I used to purchase my copies of Redhat, I have the boxed sets (other than those I gave away) for every release between 5 and 7.3. However, I quit using Redhat since I received the exact same benefits for buying it as someone that downloaded it for free. I would have stuck with them if they had allowed me a year of priority access to up2date with the box set purchase. They didn't. I left. I now use Debian and am much happier with it. It isn't because I want something for free, but because I when I pay I want something more than is given away for free. If I get something better for a few dollars than I could get for nothing then I'll pay a few dollars. That is why my display is running Accellerated X. The display drivers in Xfree86 could not handle my laptops screen/videocard (1400x1050 lcd with an intel i830M graphics card) and left a nasty black border around the screen. I tried the Accellerated X demo and it worked perfect.

There IS software available to purchase for Linux. Much of it is better than the free stuff, and lots of us use it. Many people have no idea that some of it even exists. I think that many of the companies that sell Linux software and have superior products just need to spend a little more on marketing so they get some name recognition (this means you XIG). The companies also tend to get "stuck" on a distro. Many of them only release RPMs and refuse to provide instructions for other non-RPM distros, even when it works perfectly on the distro (this means you again XIG).

see here

I think that with Apple's 64bit systems, they can give the likes of Sun and SGI a run for their money, hardware wise. StudioTools does run on windows x86, just not as well. Both Maya (then Power Animator) and StudioTools started life in IRIX, which is what made Maya such an easy port to OSX (i think it only took 2 months). Apple would love to enter the 3D workstation market and id love to see them, because StudioTools is the only program that i need to keep a wintel box around for.

there were rumors at the end of summer that Alias was working on a StudioTools port to OSX, but i havent heard anything since.

I think Maya is one of the most revolutionary products in software history not just for its tech capabilities, but the way they sell it.

To curb piracy of their full value product, they released a Personal Learn Edition that made all the features of the full product available, but put on a watermark that made the output useless for commercial use and encrypted the saved files so that the commerical version would not open them. Those who designed something and then sold it, however, could send their encrypted file in when they purchase their license to get it converted to a file their full version could open and output without the watermark. They also offered a $20 how-to DVD for those who wanted to learn the program with a minimal outlay of money.

They also made what could be the most dramatic price cut in software history, knocking their entry-level product's price from $7,500 to $1,999 and taking their high-level product from $16,000 to $7000. Clearly, they made it up on volume.

So, not only was this a great technical program, but it became priced so that even moderately-funded producers could afford the program, and therefore made it accessable to the people who needed it. I just hope these unnamed investors don't raise the prices back to where they were...

I think Maya is one of the most revolutionary products in software history not just for its tech capabilities, but the way they sell it.

To curb piracy of their full value product, they released a Personal Learn Edition that made all the features of the full product available, but put on a watermark that made the output useless for commercial use and encrypted the saved files so that the commerical version would not open them. Those who designed something and then sold it, however, could send their encrypted file in when they purchase their license to get it converted to a file their full version could open and output without the watermark. They also offered a $20 how-to DVD for those who wanted to learn the program with a minimal outlay of money.

They also made what could be the most dramatic price cut in software history, knocking their entry-level product's price from $7,500 to $1,999 and taking their high-level product from $16,000 to $7000. Clearly, they made it up on volume.

So, not only was this a great technical program, but it became priced so that even moderately-funded producers could afford the program, and therefore made it accessable to the people who needed it. I just hope these unnamed investors don't raise the prices back to where they were...

My suggestion would be nix (no pun intended) the whole linux angle to this. The kids are going to be learning difficult apps, and having to deal with an operating system that functions differently (think stuff like cut/paste) will just be frustrating. You also don't know about the hardware the kids are using at home, so a LiveCD that may or may not detect their hardware correctly could end up being more of a hassle than a bonus.

Second, LiveCDs have very subpar performance compared to a hard-disk install, doing graphical work or trying to model in 3d is going to be a painful experience to say the least; and will leave a poor impression of linux in the campers minds.

You mentioned that the commercial versions of these apps are expensive; they are. In many cases, the company that makes the app offers a much discounted or even free version. For 3d studio max, there is the excellent gmax software that does what most of your campers would likely love to do, create models for computer games. If you aren't content with gmax (which is a truly great program), there is always the Maya Learning Edition which is a learning version of the program the pros are using.

I would contact the software companies that offer learning versions and see if you could distribute those. The companies will be very happy that you want to use their programs, and may throw some free stuff your way (I can't think of anything cooler to win at summer camp than a software t-shirt).

If you are dead set on FOSS, I would make a compilation of those apps(gimp, OO.o, thunderbird/firebird, etc.) for Windows and throw them on a CD. Without Linux, you'll have more space for some killer free apps, and you'll have way more kids that will use Gimp or Open Office or Blender if they can use them without having to install a new, unfamiliar operating system. Remember, gratis will mean more to them than libre . If you want to get them intested in FOSS, download a small game (even something like a solitaire/tetris clone) and show them little snippets and explain what they do ingame.

Lastly, if this is a summer (read fun) camp, there will be some time for gaming. I obviously wouldn't recommend a live CD for this, but if you are looking for free(beer) software that is multiplatform, I'd recommend America's Army and Enemy Territory

I searched around and I came up with a list I think you'd get some good mileage out of, and I promise you'll hook more kids with these than you will a Linux liveCD.

6.19 MB - Firefox 0.8
7.52 MB - Thunderbird 0.5
257 MB - Wolfenstein Enemy Territory
51.0 MB - gmax + help, tutorials, and textures
133 MB - Maya Personal Learning edition
2.20 MB - Blender
63.5 MB - OpenOffice 1.1 installer
--------------
520.41 MB total

One of the most interesting uses of the Image Search I have seen is to find screenshots of software you're interested in, say looking for Maya screenshots to explain why to need it to your boss without having to do much prep at all or a formal presentation about Maya.

The image search has been a huge time saver for artists like me. It's like having a catalog of visual reference material which would take years and lots of cash, travel and patience to compile. The results aren't always what you expect, but if you're familiar with how to do some of the syntax tricks for regular Google, you can refine quite a bit. This is a direct result of efforts by Google Labs and I thank them for it almost daily.

Perhaps Adobe should mimic the approach that Alias uses with Maya. Offer it free for non-commercial use. Then they wouldn't be wasting resources on useless security measures.

I just wish IFF had survived the death of the Amiga as a mainstream platform.

It did. IFF (in a quite extended form) is still the binary format used by Maya.

Most of the people encoding audio and video

Macs have been the native platform of artists and designers doing serious image creation/manipulation, video editing, and music composition for a long time. OS X just continues that tradition, but makes it simple for the end-user to also get into how powerful a multimedia machine the Mac is with tools such as iMovie, etc. And of course, on the other end, you've got these two.

So, to answer your question, ramping up speed on the G5 chips is not only good for the whole marketing "Mine is bigger" approach, but there is also real value to Mac users, from casual to hard core.

The watermark is still there. I have to admit this is a major disincentive for me to move from the 2.0 version.

So The Maya Family of Products are a bunch of tools for video animation and special effects, and come in different flavors with different prices and feature sets. And as the parent article says, this one appears to be yet another set of features added to the personal edition.

Be sure to check out Maya's Fake or Foto challenge Can you tell the difference between real photos and CG? It took a bit of scrutinization, but I was still able to answer all of them correctly on the first pass.

This has been around since maya 4. It IS NOT the full version of maya. It saves in a format not compatible with the commercial version, doesn't include mental ray and it watermarks renders. It is useful for learning maya or just playing with it. Its not suitable for creating anything useable, even for your star wars fan films. You'll have to keep using the crack.

Actually, Maya has been running on Linux for quite some time. Since release 4.5 actually all 4 distributions are on "version parity", at least for the Complete version. I use it on an O2, on a PBG4 and on a dual-G4, and I've installed it on Linux and MS-Windows machines. People using it on O2s switched to Mac OS X machines just fine (3-mouse button quite necessary :-)), etc. Quite a few things are now written in Java, AFAIK: the IRIX version for example installs Java if you don't alread have it.

The free PLE version however only runs on Mac OS X and MS-Windows.

Actually, Maya has been running on Linux for quite some time. Since release 4.5 actually all 4 distributions are on "version parity", at least for the Complete version. I use it on an O2, on a PBG4 and on a dual-G4, and I've installed it on Linux and MS-Windows machines. People using it on O2s switched to Mac OS X machines just fine (3-mouse button quite necessary :-)), etc. Quite a few things are now written in Java, AFAIK: the IRIX version for example installs Java if you don't alread have it.

The free PLE version however only runs on Mac OS X and MS-Windows.

Actually, Maya has been running on Linux for quite some time. Since release 4.5 actually all 4 distributions are on "version parity", at least for the Complete version. I use it on an O2, on a PBG4 and on a dual-G4, and I've installed it on Linux and MS-Windows machines. People using it on O2s switched to Mac OS X machines just fine (3-mouse button quite necessary :-)), etc. Quite a few things are now written in Java, AFAIK: the IRIX version for example installs Java if you don't alread have it.

The free PLE version however only runs on Mac OS X and MS-Windows.

Look here:

Alias.

Maya was originially written for Irix not Windows.

I would imagine the code base for Maya (if it hasn't changed significantly since 1.x) was easier to move to Linux and OS X than the initial Windows port.

Alias/Wavefront Maya

Houdini

Oh? You mean FREE 3d programs. hm. i have no idea. try this, though, 3d linux programs