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Alias/Wavefront Announces Port Of Maya To Red Hat
Several readers pointed to the announcement that 3-D Graphics tool Maya will be ported to Linux. Darkfell quotes the release : "Responding to demand from leading studios worldwide, Alias/Wavefront will deliver Maya on Red Hat Linux in early 2001.
story at biz.yahoo.com" The high-end graphics world has sure seen some strange convergences and redirections in the past few years, what with the prematurely announced death of the Macintosh, concerted marketing efforts to replace UNIX with NT, and now ... welcome to the turn of the century, guys.
Actually, IIRC, an IRIX port brought Maya to UNIX, before Mac OS X was even announced.
Most likely Redhat cut some Business Development deal with them to make such an announcement in exchange for help in porting or something. This is the kind of PR "spin" that comes out of businesses. It's not about what is the whole truth or waht makes sense, it's about business perception.
Another *excellent* package from the Amiga days is beating them (and alias) to it :) As far as I can tell, it's the best 3D package out there, and the port to Linux is complete (in internal beta right now). They have screenshots, too. Check it out... Realsoft's home page.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Because running it on a PC was less expensive, it enabled some of the animators here to buy some NT workstations to run at home (make no mistake, Maya is expensive - but if you know people and work in education or a corporate environment that buys lots of licenses, your salesman will usually cut a deal).
We recently had an influx of new animators. To save money, we bought some NT workstations. Now it's a nightmare going back and forth between the two platforms. To add to the mix, we use 2 four processor linux boxes as renderers. Why? Because you can't log into NT boxes remotely without a lot of extra configuring and extra software. And you can check your render using an X program to display and you can see it on your SGI. It's a bit more work on the NT. Oh, yeah...these animators are pretty saavy, too - they like writing shell scripts to automate some of their work. All the animators who are familliar with Unix are having a nightmare of a time going between Unix and NT. When they run their render scripts on the Linux box, however - no problems.
We'd love to see the modelling and animation portions ported to Linux - and when they are generally considered to be working as well as the Irix versions, I guarentee we will be changing all but one of the NT boxes to Linux. The hold out will be running some Adobe tools - hopefully they'll be ported, too.
Our engineering department, those that know Unix anyway, greatly prefer Linux (or anything) over NT. Unfortunately you've got to work with what you've got available. It took me five years to get a couple of Linux boxes in the mix - hopefully it won't take that long to get rid of NT (or whatever MS is calling it then).
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
I was looking around the Alias/Wavefront site and found this Taste of Maya thing, an evaluation verion of maya. I wonder if they'll offer this for linux? Also, does anyone have any screen shots of this program under any platform?
The last I heard, SGI wasn't planning to drop IRIX anywhere near now. The story I had was that they were going for a slightly bifurcated market -- with Linux on the lower end and IRIX on the higher end. As Linux is capable of handling the higher end, they're (supposedly) intending to let the market scale with it.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
If you don't mind the question ... how much do you think it will be on Linux?
D
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You must not do much coding to be this naive about porting something that large.
-Jeff
Maya on Linux
The time has finally come
Customers rejoice
I can't wait when a company announces a product and it is just assumed by everyone that it will run on Linux because it does and because that is what the market wants (the same way its assumed today that it will run on Windows). Maybe then, the actual software will be the story and not the fact that it runs on Linux!
Hell when I talked to @home with AT&T customer service, and told them I'm running a linux masq gate... not only did she have no idea what I was talking about, but she asked me if I had called linux to see what the problem was.
The problem I was having had nothing to do with linux by the way.
How do you call linux??
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
If anybody is going to do a good job of porting GL code, it's going to be SGI -- given that they're the original creators of GL to begin with (with OpenGL being the Open Source version).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Uh, IRIX was the original....then NT, then MacOS X, then Linux.
This makes me wonder. Does Redhat have extensions so that that product only will run on it?. What about the other Linux dists? People should say they release "for Linux", not for "Slackware Linux", "Debian Linux", "Redhat Linux". Some stuff for thought.
-Stskeeps, http://unrealircd.com
I manage a computer lab at my university which is heavily into 3D, both for CAD and film/video. Since things are Mac-heavy, the OS X port was very welcome. A port to Linux is fantastic, since I can inexpensively set up a server farm for both the rendering and a "sub lab" of cheap PC's for learning the basics (leaving the high-end machines for more accomplished workers).
Good news!
I guess they won't go open source :*)?
If you use it, apps will come.
--
+&x
(Yes, I know the spaces would prevent it from being parsed that way, just chuckle for a second and move along...)
Dunno about how easy the port is.
We are talking about a port from an IRIX box with GL extensions and optimizations. That is much harder than porting standard POSIX code.
Maya is a large package and it has its own scripting language. The UI is writen in this language. Having all of this work together as well as the hardware and software render portions of the Maya core is not a small undertaking.
UNIX (IRIX) != Linux (well... not without a bunch of work).
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
I guess Lightwave is getting kicked from the machines and will now be learning Maya.
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My mom's going to kick you in the face!
You couldn't be more wrong.
We have 50+ SGI seats of Maya and like 5 NT seats of Maya. We have 40 Linux boxes for the render farm. We are looking at the move to linux to replace the SGI boxes in the future (well... before we put NT boxes down). With an app like Maya, the people don't need to know the OS, only the app. The TD and IT groups need to know and support the OS so a more UNIX solution, the better.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
these announcements really underscore the need for a standard linux base or something similar.
.deb, .rpm, .tgz, .slp (or whatever format) with some supplied tools. then a software vendor would only have to create a single package, and either convert it, or offer the meta-package which the end-user could convert.
but from what i can tell, the lsb only determines what libraries and such should be installed. perhaps a better solution would be to create a meta-package format, which could be cleanly converted into
in any case, until there is a standardized linux base/package system, this sort of thing is going to continue. it's no different than software houses developing for msft; they are the market leader in terms of number of users. similarly, redhat has a higher percentage of users than any other linux distro. it's all about getting the biggest market possible for their software.
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"Liiiiiiiinux! Where are yoooooooou!?!?!?!?"
Think "Scoobie Doo Where are you?"
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
One of the arguments against porting apps to Linux has been, "Why bother supporting an OS with a customer base that selected the OS because they didn't feel like paying". The logic is inescapable. The fact that somebody uses NT or MacOS is proof that they will buy software.
Now, if this proves successful for AW, many others may follow. Naturally, if it proves a flop many others will stay away.
I hope AW doesn't price the Linux version any differently than for other OS's. That will make this a fair test. Also, if they priced it lower, people who view it as their killer app would start migrating to Linux for that very reason, thus decreasing AW's profits.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
No, people buy $10000 maya to put on their $7000 (the price of a high end Visual Workstation) NT workstations. The Intergraph WildCat series is that fastest 3D hardware available on PCs. It outperforms SGI's VisualPC hardware by 126% (according to a MaximumPC review) in awadvs (a viewperf test) In real world rendering, the Intergraph machine could handle complex scenes in MAX that the SGI simply choked on. If you look at the tests on intergraph's website, you'll see that the WildCat consistantly outperforms the Quadro based Elsa card by 40-100% plus has 256 meg of memory, a number even the new SGI VPro cards can't touch. Even Carmack loves Intergraph. Second, Intergraph seems to be doing quite well. Since when did they sell off to 3D Labs? Third, I agree that SGI and the ARB have to get off their ass. Direct3D is coming and seriously whopping OpenGL in terms of core features (and soon speed. Direct3D 7 comes close and D3D 8 may just go over the top.) However, my point wasn't about that. The VisualWorkstations failed at the high end and midrange of the NT workstation market. Maya is definately a high-end product, but as it stands, the supporting technology around a Linux-based SGI machine would be mid-range to low end. (GIMP in place of Photoshop, not as many high-end support tools, lower power hardware, etc.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
You know the reason that this is happening has mainly due to the fact that there are a lot of things on Linux that need to be standardized still like library locations, etc. That is the real problem here. Specifying exactly where libraries go does not hurt the "diversity" of the distributions, but it sure makes it easier for application vendors to port their product to "Linux" as opposed to Red Hat or Suse. How long is it going to take for RH, SUSE, Caldera etc. to realize this?
I wish more companies would do this. I saw on a Lightwave (another 3D app) newsgroup someone said newtek (the company that makes it) would never make a port of lightwave to linux, linux people aren't the type to buy lightwave. But with software like this, everything else revolves around it, the OS, the hardware, input devices etc. So the question is, not will linux people run lightwave, but will lightwave people run linux? I think the answer is yes, because of many different factors, especially memory management and stability. I hope this encourages many companies to do the same thing, then many hardware vendors may jump on and make drivers for linux to support video capture, graphics tablets and a host of other stuff ( not even to mention better 3D support which everyone wants!). This could really be where linux picks up quick if the right people want it to.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Correct me if I'm wrong (but be damn sure I'm wrong), but doing OpenGL on IRIX is just like doing OpenGL anywhere else; You include the includes, link the libraries (Which on Win32 are DLLs and on UNIX are .so, but other than that...) and then call the standard OpenGL 1.2 functions.
Considering that there ARE OpenGL implementations on Linux (last I checked) how is this a difficult port? They'll have to make any changes necessary for threading and/or libc variations, but the OpenGL code itself should come over just fine.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
.. then there are some other steps to overcome.
One thing is clear though. Linux is gaining ground in the game area, and, after all these years of hacking kernels and nifty unix clone tools, it is in fact a surprise that it's beginning to happen only just now. Maya will certainly boost game development under linux, but let's not get over-excited here.
The big question will be whether this comes a bit too late or not. Microsoft practically converted the PC into a game console with it's X-BOX specifications, and though I think that was a most remarkeable, if not hilarious marketing push (one wonders why MS should reserve the rights to be the only one to build X-boxes), they're betting on a safe horse that's even an easy target for most game companies.
But then the even bigger question is: who will buy an X-box, which is in fact an overly expensive functionally degraded PC with multimedia cards on steroids ? How long-lived is the X-box concept, given that the step-up factor of hardware in general is very high ? Will it perhaps freeze the general consumer markets chip evolutions as we see them today ? Or can I stay with my linux/nt box instead and have close to the same perfromance ?
Maya as a tool is cool. Giving it breathing space on a linux platform is a logical thing to do. Whether it can give games and multimedia an extra push remains to be seen, and how linux benefits from this, other than receiving a bit more aknowledgement for it's valuable features, is an intirely different question.
Nevertheless, this is some impressive new player on the linux horizon!
With great power comes great electricity bills.
on top of that, the Linux user base is not very graphically oriented.
Ah, this no doubt explains the miserable failure of the GIMP to gain any users. And the absolute dearth of eye-candy window managers.
-- Alastair
Oh come on, you think they're going to port to a different platform and toolkit at the same time?
Of course it will be Motif. But don't worry, you can always use the "Notif" theme for GTK and everything will match.
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
yasb-frirwwthsgtiadko2. Sounds like some linux software package.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Why choose one distro? Because it's not a moving target. Many of the people that are the first to bitch about how Slackware, Debian, SuSE (I'm a SuSE user) aren't supported probably haven't ever used an application of this class.
Anyone that's every put any time in a *production* environment, not a maw-and-paw ISP, knows that major application vendors support a very small subset of the possibilities.
I've supported A|W products on SGI, as well as Oracle under Digital UNIX and Solaris - the two products' purposes have nothing in common - but why don't you check out either vendor's support site. On the sites you'll find that not only is a specific version of an OS supported - but *only* with a specific set of patches installed. If you're not running *exactly* the specified rev level, you can kiss your tech support goodbye until you're matching their spec.
When you have something this large and complex, you can't be coding for a moving target. Even smaller applications can be bitten by this. I recall trying Linux Mandrake a while back, and finding that the library set it shipped with was horrid. Netscape would crash just about every time I tried to send a message. I switched to SuSE, and everything worked peachy.
While I'm not a huge Red Hat fan, the reality is that RH holds a dominant position in the Linux world. They've got the capital now to handle liability issues, and they've got the clout to throw around to get things like this done.
I, for one, am thrilled to see Maya ported to Linux.
Can Slashdot ever post some good news like this, and not get a crowd of fucking whiners?
I doubt they care. Only porting to one version of the OS is something that these companies often do. For example, SoftImage even has a list of cards that they certify to work with it. They won't gaurantee that it will work on other cards. When you're laying down $10K for a product, most people just go out and buy a machine custom made for that product.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Yea, the whole desktop will look ugly;)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Which raises an interesting question: if SGI is dropping IRIX and switching to Linux, won't everyone who make IRIX software need to port it over, and thus make it much easier to port from SGI-Linux to other Linux distributions?
Or am I missing something?
and that's exactly what I saw.
How can people be so dense as to not understand the needs for standardization, and the reason behind not porting every program to every single platform and distribution?
Why won't anyone discuss this instead of crying that anyone who releases a linux application should produce, support, and test 175 different versions of it?
The above comment was moderated down to -1, Flamebait. As the page refreshed for my reply, it's now at 1.
Can the moderatorS justify why the comment was moved down twice? Should it be as easy to moderate DOWN as it is to go UP? Moderate downs should be reviewed a lot sooner than the MetaModeration stage.There are trolls smart enough to get moderated up, and then they're eligable to be bad Moderators, and do their Troll damage that way.
If anything, the above comment is somewhat informative.
Adding to the authors comments, Adobe also has a UNIX Photoshop for SGI that could quite possibly be ported to Linux, although I suspect Adobe is afraid of good graphics apps on Linux due to their cash cow Photoshop, already cloned by GIMP.
Alright, here I go starting the holy toolkit wars. Does anyone know which toolkit they will be using on Linux? I believe they use SGI look and feel Motif on IRIX, I wonder if this means they will be using Motif on Linux (I sure hope not, it would look ugly.) Or are they using GTK or QT? Would be nice if it integrated with the Desktop Environments. Just wondering if anyone is in the know.
I think oxygen cards should be supported soon (no official word yet)
Meanwhile - Intense3D writes a dri driver for XFree 4 for their Wildcat cards
Hetz (Heunique)
Side Effect's Houdini is SHIPPING for Linux. Each package has it's own strengths and weaknesses. A|W is particularily strong in modelling; Houdini's strengths include a powerful scripting language and the drag'n'drop "visual procedural interface" (really COOL if you ever get a chance to use it). And of course the most important strength is Linux support today (and not just the renderer).
A killer app should have widespread use. This is not a product for joe schmoe average. This is an expensive commercial package with a limited market.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Now, there *is* a reason for such a thing as Linux software piracy.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
I come from a studio of 50+ octanes and 40+ VA Linux boxes and we use Maya exclusively. This announcement has been expected, but it has been a long time in the waiting. I figure that A|W should have done this earlier, but I would rather wait for a stable product than get an earlier release with bugs.
SGI has had a box to support this for at least a month, yet no good products to use on it. This will be a welcome addition to our studio as I am sure to studios everywhere.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
My point exactly. SGI is using the ZX10 line to fill its high-end NT workstation position. Also, look for Linux support for the Wildcat to come soon. (Yea, I've got SGI ALL figured out ;)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
They have versions for NT, IRIX and Mac, and with a completely custom interface, porting would NOT be a problem. No "which GUI shall we use" type problems, since Lightware does all it's own UI.
I encourage everyone who loves Lightwave to take this opportunity to write to NewTek and politely request a port. If you're in a buying position, point this out. They've always ignored such requests in the past, but they can't hold out forever.