Maya now Free for Personal Use

TeknoBilim writes "Alias announced today that their leading software, Maya has become a free download for non-commercial applications. Thanks a lot, Alias. Now I can record the video for my next game. :)" This makes me wish I had talent. At least now I (and many like me) won't have to pay any money just to dabble with Maya.

Comments

Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[DJayC]

I've had the watermarked version for quite some time. I don't think this is anything new. I checked out the link and this seems to be the same "learning edition" they've been offering. Did I miss something?

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[kadaan]

The PLE version was also free for 4.0, I don't know about previous versions... which is why I was reading comments. I swore the copy I've had for years was a free version that I got from their official site.

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[MatthewB79]

You could get 4.0 PLE and 5.0 PLE. You just had to register for the download.

What's next? Maybe Microsoft will generate press by announcing that you can now (in 2003) download Internet Explorer for free.

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[jtkauff]

Yeah, there was a PLE for 4.0 and 4.5, and this version has been available for a few months via the Instant Maya book. Granted, this is the first time you can download PLE 5.0, hence the press release, but yeah, overall it's old news (not to mention a slightly misleading title, since it isn't actually Maya but Maya PLE, which (AFAIK - I've only used the full version) uses a different file format).

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[msh104]

is there a free linux edition? i know maya has there product availible under linux, but the last time i checked the learning version wasn't linux.

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[alexdewaal]

is there a free linux edition?

All editions of linux are free! :)

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[dioscaido]

haven't they been offering the commercial edition for free on Kazaa since it was released?? :)

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[bluethundr]

From the article:

The Maya Personal Learning Edition is for Mac OS(R) X and Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 2000 Professional and Windows XP operating systems and is available with online documentation. Japanese online documentation can be obtained at the Alias Japan web site, www.alias.co.jp/mayaple.

What I want to know is, can you save your work? I'm assuming that was what the watermark was for - to hobble the app just enough to make you shell out for the full version. And I'm assuming that the watermark is now gone which is what makes this such a big deal...Bummer it doesn't appear to be available for Linux.

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[DJayC]

I'm assuming that was what the watermark was for - to hobble the app just enough to make you shell out for the full version. And I'm assuming that the watermark is now gone which is what makes this such a big deal...

Actually if you check the feature page, the watermark is still there... that's why I was wondering what the excitement was all about.

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[YrWrstNtmr]

The 'excitement' is that the submitter just found this. And it's ver 5 instead of 4.

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[corebreech]

Yes, you can, however, you can't later import it into the full version.

And no, the watermark isn't gone in anything but wireframe mode.

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[Rick the Red]

Yes, you can [save your work], however, you can't later import it into the full version.

Why should I buy the full version if it forces me to re-do all my work?

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[PlazMatiC]

Yes, it's been out for quite some time:

# 2002-01-10 09:30:51 Alias|Wavefront releases free "Personal Learni (articles,graphics) (rejected)

# 2002-03-28 09:13:57 Maya Personal Learning Edition available for downl (articles,graphics) (rejected)

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[spitzak]

The reason they do this is that otherwise an FX company could buy only a few copies of Maya and use a hundred copies of the free version for their artists to do all the animation. They then use the official copies only when needed to render or otherwise get around the watermarks.

Making the files unreadable is about the only way to prevent this, and I can't blame them for that.

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[BrGaribaldi]

I don't know if any of you have tried to download the 'new' learning version but it I don't think this site is entirely stable. It took me twenty minutes to fill out the registration because I was having to fill out each form (one of them being all of four questions) two or three times. The site would crash everytime I tried to submit something. Just a bit annoying...

Re:Hasn't there always been a learning edition?

[Professor Bluebird]

No free linux edition of Maya, you insensitve clod!

wo0t!

[strangel]

the more free software, the better! :D

Re:wo0t!

[CapnRob]

'course, the file format it uses is closed and can't be used for anything outside of this application, and it puts a nasty watermark on any output, so it's not really a *usable* bit of free software, in the sense that you can use it to produce something. So, you know, "woot!" may not be the best reaction, unless you really want to learn Maya. Me, I've had this for a couple of months (it's been available in the buy-a-cheap-CD form for a while, it just hasn't been linked from a web page,) because I do want to learn Maya - but *your* mileage may vary.

Watermark

[entropy1980]

Seems like it leaves a nasty watermark so no using to *ahem* make movies.....

Nothing new here

[mmp]

Alias has offered this personal learning edition version of Maya for years now; they're just announcing that the latest release of Maya, 5.0, is also available in the PLE form.

Don't get me wrong--it's great that they do this. There's just no real news here.

The PLE version has a few limitations compared to the version you pay for, but they're really amazingly small in the grand scheme of things.

Re:Nothing new here

[TheMysteriousFuture]

What features are limited in Maya PLE? In your experience which of the limited features do you miss most in daily use?

Re:Nothing new here

[QuantumSpritz]

I believe the biggest drawbacks are the watermarks and the inability to import and export documents to full-version Maya.

Re:Nothing new here

[DarthVdr]

I tried the PLE for 4 or 4.5 (what ever was on the UT2003 cd) and it was pretty useless if you wanted to present anything as a portfolio, imho anyway.
The watermarking isn't "little", like you'd see on most tv stations. It's across the whole image.

Plus, if you go and get a full version of Maya later, you have to do all your work over again. So if you created an amazing model, then get funding to persue it, you have to start all over from scratch.

If you can live with these things, then I guess it's minor. Personally, (speaking with basicly no real tallent in the area) I'd stick to K3D for full modeling, and Poser (yeah I bought it... it was only ~$300) for the "cheating" animations.

Re:Nothing new here

[24-bit Voxel]

save the file as a maya ascii, then open it in wordpad and change the header from "whaterver PLE version" to "the version you have" save and watch it work

Re:Nothing new here

[saynt]

It doesn't include the maya unlimited features, particle based hair, cloth, or the live action tracking software. It does include subdivision surface modelling now, which is nice.

Re:Nothing new here

[Zakabog]

From the first link in the article -

Maya Personal Learning Edition 5 Offers:
A new hardware rendering option using the power of next-generation graphics cards. Get near software-quality images at often dramatically faster speeds.
A unified rendering workflow for easy and consistent access through a common interface.
Animation enhancements to constraints, forward/inverse kinematics and ghosting for added flexibility.
Maya Paint Effects(TM) to polygon conversion for a whole new range of looks plus more editing and output options.
An improved polygon reduction method for making lightweight game models and MODs.

Hmmmmm. Hardware Rendering. Graphics Cards. Animation. Polygons. Game Models.

Ooo ooo I know! It's an office suite! What? That's wrong? Damn I wish the site said what it was! These clues are too hard to figure out!

Beside's most slahsdot reader's know what Maya is as they have a linux version which is used by some large companies to make 3D animation's in some movies. Which get's talked about a lot on slashdot.

Re:Nothing new here

[Jellybob]

This sort of thing always amazes me... companies give away products which cost them huge ammounts to produce, with minor limitations, and as thanks some script kiddie decides they didn't give away enough of the program.

Don't like them not giving away the whole thing... go find something that *is* free, or get a job with Alias, and change their policy.

Re:Nothing new here

[dr00g911]

The Maya PLE is fairly limited -- watermarked images, a non-commercial-Maya-compatible file format (so you can't just use PLE for modeling seats, for example), resolution caps and a few others.

Again, the 'don't get me wrong' caviat: it's awesome that Alias is allowing students and people trying to get into the CG/VFX fields a chance to be honest while learning the software. A lot of us (myself included) used *cough* other means to learn the products back in the day, then bought in (or had our companies buy in) once we were proficient enough to make the investment pay.

The cost of high end 3D packages and all the accouterments (Photoshop, Final Cut, After Effects, Shake, plug ins etc) is fairly staggering for your average college student (even for some of us in the field), and modeling/texturing/animating a single model can take a month or more when you're just learning -- so a save-disabled demo isn't good enough.

The PLE fills that niche very well -- just don't count on moving any of your masterpieces from the PLE to the full version of Maya once you're making enough cash to buy in.

I do have to say, as a CG pro, Maya is an absolutely amazing piece of engineering. Once you've finished fighting the rather odd interface and learn Alias' annoying method for creating nurbs and subdivision surfaces, there's no turning back.

Granted, ten other people will say the same things about Lightwave, SoftImage and Max, and two or three will say the same thing about Blender. YMMV, but it's an amazing piece of work under the hood.

Now the obligatory rant: we want Maya Unlimited for the Mac! -- other products do hair and cloth (much) better... but the built-in fluid dynamics in Maya 5 are absolutely amazing... and very, very, very fast.

Re:Nothing new here

[puppet10]

But they aren't giving it away for free out of the goodness of their hearts.

They realize that marketshare is important, and their pricing structure pretty much eliminates a student from buying it, and their competitors products have a more favorable pricing structure.

They released this free version when competitors were likely staring to make headway into their marketshare because of their very high upfront cost.

So to allow students to use it without stealing the copy from the workstation from school they released this version for free.

Re:Nothing new here

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Ooo ooo I know! It's an office suite! What? That's wrong? Damn I wish the site said what it was! These clues are too hard to figure out!

Yes, and information on the first page of the linked site definitely helps me decide if I should bother clicking through and checking out the site. It must be nice, having a pipe so wide that your bandwidth is clairvoyant... We'll leave aside the obvious case of slashdotted sites.

The person to whom you replied was making the entirely reasonable point that perhaps, just maybe, the summary of the article should -- I'm going out on a limb here -- you know, actually summarize the thing linked to.

Or more succintly: I should have to leave slashdot.org to get an idea as to whether I want to leave slashdot.org.

Re:Nothing new here

[colmore]

This sort of thing confirms my suspicions about piracy of "professional" software. Companies like Adobe and Macromedia seem to barely care that their software is widely pirated, and that the free trial versions they give out get cracked on or before the first day of release. Most of their sales come from companies, who buy dozens or hundreds of on-sight licenses, piracy amounts to free training and advertising for them, since every amateur graphic designer teaches him or herself photoshop and director, they demand the software when they start work for a firm.

Re:Nothing new here

[cgenman]

This sort of thing always amazes me... companies give away products which cost them huge ammounts to produce, with minor limitations, and as thanks some script kiddie decides they didn't give away enough of the program.

Don't like them not giving away the whole thing... go find something that *is* free, or get a job with Alias, and change their policy.

Or release a script that changes the system to do what you want it to do.

Let's be honest... I congradulate Alias Wavefront for introducing low-cost versions of Maya, but it was a necessary step to prevent their irrelevance to most major companies. 3D Studio Max is 500 dollars or less, and has 15 years of artist and programmer acceptance. There is a huge knowledge pool behind the product. Maya is a superior package, but it costs about the same as a used family sedan. In order to sell Maya to corporate users, they need artists who have experience using Maya as a tool. Artists are unlikely to have the 2 grand necessary to use the tool, and may not have the technical savvy to pirate it.

In short, it's not a gift, it is a seed: a seed which may grow into a sale, and which helps support their ridiculous price structure.

BTW, a "script kiddie" is someone without technical skill who runs automated software in an attempt to do something which would otherwise require knowledge and ability. The person you are referring to is a "hacker," or possibly a "haxor," or (more likely) an "engineer."

Re:Nothing new here

[jo_ham]

SDRC did this with I-Deas - you could get the student version for 70 and they gave quite nice volume licencing deals to universities to create graduates with a working knowledge of I-Deas, who might then reccommend it to their future bosses as a CAD/FEM package. The full version costs considerably more than the student edition, which lacks FEM capability but is pretty much fully functional otherwise.

Re:Nothing new here

[Reziac]

Which means that their new craze for activation and copy prevention will do nothing but cut their own throats, by killing most of the "just learning" users who don't *YET* have a compelling reason to buy the software.

If you haven't heard, Adobe and Macromedia have both jumped on that bandwagon.
http://www.adobe.com/activation/main.h tml
http://www.macromedia.com/software/activation /

Re:Nothing new here

[Phil Wilkins]

3D Studio Max is 500 dollars or less, and has 15 years of artist and programmer acceptance

I think you must mean $3500 and about 6 years of history, since Max was a ground up re-write, and bears absolutely no resemblence to the original 3d Studio, in either interface, principles, or API. The basic Maya seat has been $2000 for a couple of years now.

I've used Max, back when it was the cheap option. We use Maya these days, because in general, it rocks.

Re:Nothing new here

[EvanED]

Alias isn't being annoying here really. Here's the problem with being able to import into the full version: say your company wants to do 3D graphics. Normally they would have to buy the full version for each computer. However, with the PLE they could put that on all of the computers except the rendering computers, get everything working, and render them on the full version. There would be essentially no way to tell unless you crippled the output of the full version for files imported from the PLE in which case we're back to where we started. (Or as an alternative people could create a company to render things that others created in the PLE.)

Alias I'm sure is well aware of the problems with this approach and sees them as undesirable, but for them the lesser of two evils is to disable filesharing between the versions.

PLE is O-L-D news...

[CptTripps]

There have been two versions of the Maya Personal Learning Edition now. It's nice, but don;t do TOO much work in it. You CAN NOT export anything to a real version of Maya if you get one...I learned that the hard way!

Re:PLE is O-L-D news...

[JenovaSynthesis]

I believe Alias provides a service the does the conversion.

Re:PLE is O-L-D news...

[CptTripps]

Trust me, they don't. I bought 3 licenses for Maya 5. and had a ton of work done in PLE. I spent 3 days trying to get them to convert them for me. I'd have paid a lot for that, but no dice...

Re:PLE is O-L-D news...

[Fiveeight]

No idea if this works, but a workaround

Great Idea

[l810c]

I hope this pays off for them in the long run. I like to play with as many programs as I can. I might Maya just to get the basics. And even though I have no artistic talent and this is not exactly my field, there may just be some day when some company I am consulting for is looking for a particular program and I'll say 'I remember using Maya a while back and it seemed like a great program'

Re:Great Idea

[mr. methane]

Home computers now have an amazing array of artistic tools available. Between my digital camera, camcorder, and Mr. Firewire, it's theoretically possible to shoot some still pictures and video, title them and edit amazingly smooth transitions, rivaling the production abilities of some smaller hollywood facilities.

Sadly, I still jiggle the goddam camera, and mostly shoot video of the inside of the lens cap.

Spielberg doesn't have to worry about missing a paycheck yet. :-)

Re:Great Idea

[lahi]

Sadly, I still jiggle the goddam camera,

There is a remedy for that. You need an expensive piece of hardware, a passive device called a tripod. All it does is stand still, so it's not very versatile, but what it does, it usually does well.

I don't know any hi-tech solution for the lens cap problem, though.

-Lasse

Re:Great Idea

[Gilmoure]

Try attaching a mono-pod to the camera, shorten it to where it's 2-3 feet, add a couple of pounds weight to the bottom of the stick and you have a poor man's steady cam. Works pretty good. Still doesn't give me a good eye for framing a shot or anything. As for Spielberg, yeah, he's sleeping well tonight. I can't come up with a creative idea to save my life.

almost every feature

[laurent420]

"Maya Personal Learning Edition 5 offers almost every feature found in the full commercial version of Maya Complete(TM) 5 including an industry-leading set of modeling, animation, rendering and effects tools." so which goodies do we lose?

Re:almost every feature

[mrpuffypants]

you get some great watermarking and lose the ability to import your stuff into the real Maya

Re:almost every feature

[geekoid]

a save button.

heh

Re:almost every feature

[_xeno_]

The two most important features you lose in the PLE is the ability to save "professional" Maya files and the ability to use plugins. (Mind you there was a deal with UT2003, so you did get the UT2003 plugin with the PLE included through that. That's where this information comes through, my playing with the PLE included with UT2003. You can't use "professional" plugins and I don't think it's possible to write any new ones without some deal with Alias, but I'm not 100% sure.)

I think some other features are missing too, but those are the two biggest that I can remember seeing. The other biggest "feature" you lose is the ability to render without a "watermark" or to model without a "watermark" on the screen at all times.

Basically, this edition is exactly what it says it is: a version for learning Maya on. It's "shareware" in the commercial world - try it before you decide to buy it. Learn on it and then convince your boss to buy it, I guess.

Re:almost every feature

[darc]

Incorrect, and troll. You can save, open, render, do anything but export to retail maya. What they want to prevent is people doing massive amounts of work on learning maya, then suddenly go corporate and buying one license, and rendering on that.

MEL, the built in scripting engine, has the save access disabled as well.

It does indeed have a save button.

Re:almost every feature

[More Karma Than God]

> So anyone who makes a mistake, or says something you disagree with is a troll? Haha, you must live in a small world.

A troll is simply a post designed to provoke a response. Everyone is trolling for something. All Slashdot posts are trolls.

Finally!

[Max Romantschuk]

I've always wondered why high end software shouldn't be free for personal use. It's a win-win situation: Free advertising for the provider, free education for the user.

The truth is that companies who use pirated software for commercial use will do so in any case. Software which is used for content creation should be free to learn for all.

Now then... when will the music software industry start catching on?

Re:Finally!

[Max Romantschuk]

So because there's always some people who will steal software, companies might as well just give away free copies of their software? Also knowing full well that if they do offer a free version, people are just going to use that instead of a version that requires payment?

Let's say I'm a student. I wish to learn to use software X. With a limited budget I could never afford high end content creation software. If I can get it for free for non-commercial personal use I can learn the software.

Say I later start a company to do the stuff I've learned for profit. Would I risk committing a crime by using my personal use version? I think not.

Would I be inclined to buy the software I know and love? I think so.

Re:Finally!

[Micah]

Or even just offer it for a lower price, but maybe higher than the student price.

I once talked to a lady at Wolfram about offering a version of Mathematica for interested end-users who were no longer students. Told her I'd gladly pay $400 or so for it. (The student version was like $130 and the full version like $1200.) She actually seemed to take the suggestion seriously, but I never heard anything back regarding a decision.

Re:Finally!

[saynt]

Any company that thinks that they can steal maya (or lightwave, or houdini, or renderman, or whatever) and display the rendered images publicly needs to have their heads examined. Each of the tools have their own personality and an experienced artist can identify what tool was used to create a piece of CG without much trouble at all. I've worked with a few that can look at a single frame at video resolution and tell you what packaged rendered it. I'm certain that Alias and company keep tabs on who is producing what imagary, and how many licenses they own.

Re:Finally!

[Max Romantschuk]

Now then... when will the music software industry start catching on?

Music industry to give music free to end users so that commercial users can buy it ?

I said the music software industry, as in software for creating music. The music itself has nothing to do with it.

Re:Finally!

[4of12]

With a limited budget

be inclined to buy the software

If it works for drugs I don't see any reason why it can't work for software!

In some cases there are 12 step program that can get you the help you need.

Re:Finally!

[man2525]

Say I later start a company to do the stuff I've learned for profit. Would I risk committing a crime by using my personal use version? I think not.

Would I be inclined to buy the software I know and love? I think so.

I think that's a great attitude. That said, a company that created the CG sequences in Blade II and some other movies used a cracked copy of Maya, according to a guest speaker at Full Sail over a year ago. Why she mentioned this is beyond me.

A company that designed the Sky Mall catalogs (found on some airlines) had a single copy of Photoshop that they ran over a network, one computer at a time. On the tax humor side, this company hid funiture and equipment for another business when that business was audited, and had my friend (an intern at the time) stand over IRS auditors with his arms folded to intimidate them with their company was audited.

Bit Torrent

[TheMysteriousFuture]

Getting 19KB/Sec. Anyone got Bit Torrent file up? Or can anyone put one up?

Re:Bit Torrent

[Awptimus Prime]

Impulsive leeches!

Making themselves look good

[Blair16]

It's not like anybody who wanted it didn't just download it off Kazaa anyways. Now, instead of alienating possible users of their software by going after people who download it, they are giving it away for free and are coming off smelling like roses.

Huh, finally a business plan that works.

duh.

[Sj0]

At least now I (and many like me) won't have to pay any money just to dabble with Maya.

Why do you think they're releasing it? The more people who use your software, the better chances that big industry guy X will pick it up. That's what made MS so big, and I'm sure the Maya folks are doing exactly the same thing.

Re:duh.

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

In Maya's case, however, they are already the de-facto standard for most big CG houses.

Bah, give me Houdini or give me death.

YLFI

Linux Version?

[gmuslera]

What happened with the linux version? AFAIK Maya have a version for Linux, but don't seem to be included in the "for free" offer.

Re:Linux Version?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're looking in the wrong place. Maya 5.0 for Linux is available right here.

Re:Linux Version?

[gilesjuk]

Isn't it more that quite a lot of peope are using Linux that they don't want to supply them with free software?

I know the free version is supposed to be for non commercial use, but that won't stop some people.

Re:Linux Version?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Nooooooo!!!

Oh well, that's what I keep the XP partition on my laptop for. Alas, Win4Lin only emulates 98/ME. Still works for Poser and Photoshop though.

Re:Linux Version?

[kalidasa]

I know the free version is supposed to be for non commercial use, but that won't stop some people.

I dunno. The big freaking watermark they had on models created with the free version I tried might stop them.

Re:Linux Version?

[PixelSlut]

There is a large, annoying watermark. And as far as I know, you cannot export your files in the standard Maya file format, which prevents you from sending the file to a friend who has the full version of Maya to let him render for you without watermark. And I'm fairly certain that you can't write Maya plugins for the PLE version either, although I'm not 100% certain of that. If you could, Maya would be a perfect tool for creating content for Free Software and Open Source video games.

Re:Linux Version?

[captaineo]

You are right, Maya 5 is available for Linux (I own it), but not the "learning" edition.

I assume Alias is afraid of the immense technical support burden. Installing and setting up Maya on Linux is not as simple as on Windows or OSX. They do offer installation support for the "learning" edition, and I bet they don't want their Linux support people tied up helping newbies all day.

This should be fun

[KU_Fletch]

Time to /. a 500mb download. That'll teach em for givin' stuff away for free.

Except for the fact that...

[G-funk]

It watermarks all your images, and even some of the UI panels, making it next to useless.

Re:Except for the fact that...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true, and highly annoying. If the branding wasn't so blatant it would be tolerable, but as it is, it's not usable. You cant even switch to a 3rd party renderer to get rid of the watermark!

Re:Except for the fact that...

[LostCluster]

That's kinda the point. If your work goes beyond personal use, you need to buy the license and they'll gladly de-watermark your files then...

Re:Except for the fact that...

[gwappo]

Game-development wise, it locks down all 3rd party plug-ins and will only store to a properietary "learning edition" file format.

There's no practical way without hacking it to get to the geometry; thus making it useless for indie game development.

Re:Except for the fact that...

[morzel]

thus making it useless for indie game development.

That must be why it's called the "Personal Learning Edition"...
It's there to allow you to play and learn with Maya, not for developing any kind of product (including indie/free stuff).

Oh please, biggest BS line ever

[Alcimedes]

"At least now I (and many like me) won't have to pay any money just to dabble with Maya. "

Like you ever paid for Maya just to dabble with it. That's the biggest crock of shit I've heard in.....

Well, since that 24 hours for Windows patches article.

Where's my Linux version?

[wardomon]

...and "No", VMWare or Wine don't cut it. I want native.

Damn, no linux :(

[incom]

Apparently they are only giving the Windows and OSX versions away, even though linux versions exist.

Re:Damn, no linux :(

[4minus0]

If they gave the Linux version then people could just look at the source code and remove the parts that limit the functionality for this personal edition.

AC you ignorant slut.
If you had ever installed anything at all on a Linux system you would know that there are such things as binaries. As it is shipped, Maya for Linux comes as an rpm.

Do you honestly think that to install Maya on Linux you actually do something like this:

tar xzf Maya.5.0.0.tar.gz
cd Maya.5.0.0
./configure
make
make install

?
Jesus Christo if you think KDE takes a while to compile!!

I imagine that the folks at Alias|Wavefront figure that if you're forward thinking enough to use Linux on the desktop for animation then Maya and general 3D capability is a skillset you already have. I'm guessing that their reasoning is: if you're firing up Maya on Linux it's to do a job not monkey around.

Re:Damn, no linux :(

[msimm]

Right..

I bet you didn't know what a EXE was until you used windows.

It would be the same if you started using Linux. You download a program/double-clickity/install.

But you haven't even got past the slashdot login. ;-)

Re:Damn, no linux :(

[dr00g911]

I'm fairly experienced with Maya for Linux (it runs on Red Hat only, and each version of Maya is only qualified for a single version of Red Hat with very strict dynamic library version rules).

In short, it's an absolute bitch to configure and get running properly, and it assumes and (in some cases) requires that you have high end hardware. How many students do you know who just happen to have a Wildcat collecting dust in their Linux box? Own one of the two sound cards that's qualified for it?

Regardless, the difficulty in support for the Linux version is probably the reason it's not available -- not to mention the demand (major studios are starting to migrate to Linux, but unless you're your own support department, Maya for Linux is way more trouble than it's worth for an artist). Also, you'll note that Alias doesn't sell the Linux or SGI versions boxed from their website like the Win/Mac versions.

That's because they assume you'll be purchasing from a local dealer with a support contract that can iron out the headaches for you, and sell you the hardware as well with the OS pre-configured and optimized.

To reiterate: even for someone who's used to getting down and dirty with the kernel and dependancies, it's a very scary prospect to get this beast working.

Re:Damn, no linux :(

[BlackBolt]

LOL!!! Too bad you're not logged in, AC - that disclaimer's hilarious. I'd add you to my friends list in a snap so I can be sure to catch your p2p (prison2prison) comedy tour dates.

Re:Damn, no linux :(

[Politburo]

For Linux users, it seems like Maya has taken the traditional Linux route of educating users -- RTFM.

Re:Damn, no linux :(

[_|()|\|]

I'm fairly experienced with Maya for Linux ... it's an absolute bitch to configure and get running properly

I'm a LightWave user who has considered using Maya for Linux. I've heard horror stories about Maya's software-based node locking scheme, such as users having to pay $200 to get a new key after a disk crash. Has Maya's copy protection caused you any problems?

One thing LightWave lacks is platform parity. The Mac users are second class (especially when it comes to plugins), and support for the new Linux renderer is non existent. How does Maya for Linux compare to Maya for Windows? Is Maya Unlimited even available for Linux?

Re:Damn, no linux :(

[dr00g911]

Actually, the LMtools aren't really a big deal (the licensing scheme for Maya).

You receive a key via email and save it (if you're reasonably intelligent) ... it installs into either a node-locked or network license server for floating licenses.

It's completely text-based. If people lose their key or misplace it, it's really their problem. It's even plaintext, something like:

FEATURE Maya Unlimited HostID AABBCCDDEEFF Checksum 1234567890

And then it checksums the feature against the host id.

Easy enough? Print it out. Save it as an email. For all purposes, it's a serial number. Saved in a aw.dat or key.txt file.

At any rate, I've been a Mac Lightwave user... no joke about being second class citizens. I wrote a twelve page tutorial a couple years back on getting the Mac Screamernet client to work (probably still on the lightwave forum). At all. It's a joke. That's part of the reason I've switched to Maya... the others are the interface, and the unified model/animate/render environment. Lightwave's got some cool stuff... but once you start playing with expressions and MEL, you'll be hooked on Maya. Built in Mental Ray is icing. Best image quality I've seen (surpassing Renderman).

As of Maya 5, for Maya Complete, there's total feature parity across platforms. If you save a .ma file (maya ascii) you may need to run a utility to fix the linebreaks in the file (mac2win/win2mac commandline stuff). We're still waiting for Unlimited on the Mac (Unlimited is available for Linux). I'm not horribly upset because there's better cloth and hair plugins available (syflex and shave/haircut). The fluid dynamics are really amazing, however, and I miss those quite a bit.

You can render over a network on mixed Mac/Linux/Win nodes as long as you have a third party utility, and all your floating point stuff (dynamics, fluids, hair) are baked.

So, all told, I'm a really big fan. The guys at ILM/Pixar have it right. Maya is a platform (almost an OS) that you build your workflow around, and it's more customizable and deeper than anything I've experienced.

Try the PLE. The guys having trouble with the licensing probably aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. It's easy, doesn't eat up much overhead, and you can have floating licenses available to banks of machines if you'd like.

If you'd like more info you can contact me at i n f o [at] t r e y h a r r e l l . c o m

Not for long

[Winterblink]

Watch them reconsider this when they see how much bandwidth they burn today thanks to /. :D

From the site:

[fishybell]

The Maya Personal Learning Edition restricts users to non-commercial applications through the display of a watermark on images as well as through the use of a special non-commercial file format.

i.e. useless for making money, useful for learning. I remember Bryce 3D having something similar.

NO SDK

[beauzo]

Well, artists (those who have troubles computing powers of 2) are not the only ones learning Maya. Why not include the SDK for us programmers? :|

Caveats...

[loucura!]

Alias is only releasing the Windows and Macintosh ports of Maya for free. Neither the IRIX, nor the Linux ports are being released under the Personal Learning Edition.

Glad people can't read

[afidel]

Maya Personal Learning Edition has been available since 2002. Unfortunatly plugins don't work, it comes with almost no textures, and it watermarks your output. I'm still using my educational copy of 3DSMaxR2 when I feel like messing around with 3D.

Re:Glad people can't read

[Overly Critical Guy]

Good lord. 3D Studio Max is up to version 4.2 now and has changed radically since 2...

Yay :-)

[carise]

Finally - I can "test" software legally. ;-)

finally but no LINUX version!!

[morelife]

Just Winblowze XP and 2000

512MB required minimum? Sounds kind of steep.

Sorry, but I'm selfish...

[jmkaza]

I was in NYC a few month's ago, at a bar with a producer, talking up Linux, telling them about all the big animation studios that are moving over, and his response was basically, "Sorry, we're on Maya, we're not considering anything else". Don't get me wrong, distributing their great product for free is a huge bonus, but think of what could be done if their Personal Learning Edition(TM) 5 was open source. Not only could we port it to a REAL computing platform (nothing against Apple!), but the technology could benefit so many applications that have no direct competition with MAYA. Kudo's to Alias Systems for making the first step, but let's hope they go even further. Let's hope we some some of this technology GPL'd.

Re:Sorry, but I'm selfish...

[dsyu]

Wait, I don't understand -- Maya is already available on Linux. We use it at the studio I work for. As far as the GPL thing goes, it's somewhat unlikely, given that Alias/Wavefront wouldn't have much income if they went that route...there's a fair amount of proprietary stuff in Maya.

Re:Sorry, but I'm selfish...

[amRadioHed]

but think of what could be done if their Personal Learning Edition(TM) 5 was open source.

Hmm... remove the watermarking code, give people no reason to ever buy the full version of Maya, put Alias out of business. I'm sure they have though of what could be done, hence we get this.

Re:Sorry, but I'm selfish...

[Dynedain]

Next time you go and try to convince someone in an industry to move to Linux, at least try to do some research first.

Maya works on Linux, natively. It's also avaliable on WinNT, IRIX, MacOS9, and OSX.

This is news?

[MatthewB79]

You could download Maya Personal Learning Edition from thier website since 2002 (at least).

This is the PLE!!

[protohiro1]

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.

maya linux

[color]

No Free Maya for Linux this time

Maya PLE was already free...

[agent oranje]

At least several months ago, I downloaded Maya PLE... the free version, for those who want to learn how to use this powerful tool. Basically, the only thing that has changed in the past several months - aside from the upgrade from 4.5 to 5.0 - is that there's a neato newspaper article about it!

Strangely enough, I downloaded v5.0 last night from the kind folks at Alias... no slashdot effect for me :D

pssst!

[mrpuffypants]

It's not the full version of their software that's free, just the Personal Learning Esition of the software that they've been giving away since Feb. of 2002

Slashdot's already been there, in fact

Re:pssst!

[oPless]

Watch out!

The next Dup is almost ready! Subscribers can see it first ! (You must log in to use this feature)

clarification

[Datasage]

This should be clairfied. Its the personal learning edtion, which has always been free.

But, it uses its own file format, and watermarks the images and viewports.

yep

[Kircle]

Yep, they did. Used it once. I remember that version inserted a watermark into its renderings. Plus the file format for the "free" edition wasn't compatible with the commercial edition. Very good for evaluation, but worthless otherwise.

Not really

[sakusha]

This is the Personal Learning Edition, which as others have noted, puts a big ugly watermarks your images, it even puts the watermark on your work windows so you can't just do screen caps for output. It is not possible to use Maya PLE for real work, just for learning the program functions, and even that can be tough working behind the watermarks. PLE cannot import or export data from real Maya versions, nor can it use plugins. It's pretty much useless for anything except learning the program basics. Of course, the full Maya release is pirated to hell and back, anyone who really wants the full version can get it if they want it. Or you could get a lower cost educational version if you're eligible.
I also note that Maya for MacOS X doesn't match the features of the other versions. No 3D Invigorator, no Maya Unlimited (no cloth, fur, etc). Maya is a speed demon on dual proc Macs, they really need to get the damn Mac versions up to speed.

doh, can't download

[Quelain]

Some fuckwit in charge of the site there has decided to disallow downloading if they don't get a HTTP referrer. This breaks my download manager, and there's no way I'm going to get 130Mb on 56k modem before my ISP session time limit is up.

Oh well, off to Kazaa then....

Re:doh, can't download

[deke_kun]

Use a real dl manager that sends a referrer then. Der.

Re:doh, can't download

[Quelain]

No, I like my Gnome Tranfer Manager just fine thankyouverymuch.

It's their site that's broken. If they really must ensure that people hand over their details before downloading, then there are ways of doing it that don't fuck things up.

Re:doh, can't download

[badzilla]

Too right, it's not just the referer either it's lots of other things like a strange piece of non-working script to display the "country" box in the form - a mandatory field.

Re:doh, can't download

[Reziac]

What download manager are you using? I use Getright, and it's smart enough to pass along an HTTP referrer -- so it usually works with even fairly cranky sites. (BTW, Getright is the only shareware I've seen in years that I think is worth buying. www.getright.com)

How does one tell if it's personal use?

[namespan]

I'm not familiar with Maya or any kind of 3D modelling/rendering/animation app, so I can't really speak to the specifics directly, but I am familiar with a few other kinds of creative software: Pro Tools, Digital Performer, Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop. I have licensed copies of some of these, and unlicensed copies of 1 of them.

In each case, my finished project is a sound or graphics file that I could have created with any number of apps. Sometimes I use this stuff for work I get paid for... so my question is, how is the company that produces this software supposed to shake me down?

Re:How does one tell if it's personal use?

[nuance9]

How? By inserting a BIG FAT UGLY WATERMARK on anything produced. Logic: If it is NOT personal use, the output is unacceptable. It would be like Pro Tools interrupting your sound file every 0.5 seconds and saying "Brought to you by Pro Tools".

Reading Comprehension

[Fruan]

That is his point - He is saying that in the past, had he wanted to dabble with Maya it would have required paying a rather large sum of money, and thus was not something a sane person would do.

Now, on the other hand, it is merely a matter of a 500 meg download. ("merely", that is, for those of us on a dialup. Oh well.)

Yes!

[PovRayMan]

Now if only we could have the same for POV-Ray! Oh wait...

Well how about Blender! Oh yeah..

Oh well, woo hoo for Maya!

South Park is created using Maya...

[dotgod]

reference here.

Not as good as it sounds

[Andy Smith]

Bizarrely it was only this morning that I thought, I wish there was a free or cut-down version of Maya available. It would be a huge help for a small, non-commercial game that I'm working on as a hobby. And now my hopes have been answered! Sort of...

The trouble is that it's so cut-down that it can't really be described as "free for personal use". The watermarks prevent you from doing anything useful with what you create, even non-commercially. The lack of SDK and plug-in support prevent it from being used for non-commercial game development. It even uses a different, non-standard file format.

In my opinion, this is nothing more than an advert for the full version. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but please let's not give credit where it isn't due. There's no community spirit here. No generosity for non-commercial game developers who could really benefit from a free version of Maya. This is a 133Mb advert and the download is even set-up in such a way that you can't use a download manager without some tweaking.

Could have been great. Isn't.

Re:Not as good as it sounds

[KewlPC]

Get off your high horse. This isn't new. Maya PLE has been available since at least 2002.

Maya Complete is already fairly cheap as it is, at least as far as professional-level programs go.

It's called the Personal Learning Edition for a reason. The SDK and plug-in support are disabled so that you can't do the majority of your studio's work on Maya PLE and then buy one Maya Complete license when you're nearly done for rendering.

Don't blame Alias when they give away a watermarked version of their bread and butter, only to have CmdrTaco & Co. and all the Slashbots misconstrue it as though Alias decided to give the full version away for the good of humanity.

Re:Not as good as it sounds

[El_Ge_Ex]

This is a 133Mb advert and the download is even set-up in such a way that you can't use a download manager without some tweaking.

One acronym: RTFW (website)

PLE is not supposed to be the non-commercial version. They make a separate one for non-commercial use (Colleges, schools, hoobyists, etc..) This one is full featured, but its not free. PLE was created because people wanted to learn Maya but didn't want to grab a pirated copy and tick off Alias. Alias did them a favor by creating it.

News Flash!: To all you guys that think you can just simply "Try out Maya" like its some easy piece of Windows software. Get real. Maya's learnign curve is so steep only the dedicated ever learn it, only the gifted master it, and only the insane :) develop for it.

Those who would like to see how it would work with a game, find an artist who is learning it. They'll probably do a better job and it can then leave you to doing what you're good at.

Keep in mind: These words are for those who are unsure about Maya of whether its worth the time commitment. There are others (you know who you are), who can simply ignore these words and go back to working on their MEL scripts. :)

-B

My best friend's girlfriend is named Maya...

[LeoDV]

...I'll make sure to tell him I saw you could get her for free on the Internet. ;-)

Re:My best friend's girlfriend is named Maya...

[dvNull]

The word Maya means Illusion. My aunt's name is Maya too.

They aren't supporting Linux!

[iplayfast]

You would think that with shriek, LOTR and all the other movies made using Linux they would support it. You can buy a linux version, but the personal edition version is only XP or OS-x

Maybe if a few of us suggested this as a feature request :)
click here if you support linux!

Re:They aren't supporting Linux!

[shylock0]

Okay, here we see the biggest misconception involving the use of Linux in movie production.

Linux is primarily used on headless RENDER FARMS, clustered or network computers that simply do the number crunching. The editing/compositing is still usually done on an OS X or Windows platform (or, less often, Sun or SGI).

That isn't to say that Maya, which is available for Linux as a complete compositing workstation, isn't available for Linux -- it is. But, as a percentage of licenses, Maya for Linux is probably tiny. It doesn't make sense for them to develop the PLE version for Linux as well.

Re:They aren't supporting Linux!

[El_Ge_Ex]

Linux is primarily used on headless RENDER FARMS

I can think of a few that would beg to differ:

1, 2, and 3.

Of course, given your statements; this info is pretty much useless to you as demonstrated by your statements.

1. Suns and SGI stations were used in 1997. They got old. They were replaced with Intel/Linux and saved a slew of money in the process.

2. They love linux because they can hack it up as much as they want. It does what they want and nothing else.

3. Microsoft tax anyone? Why pay it if you don't have to?

-B

Re:They aren't supporting Linux!

[jtosburn]

While it's true that linux dominated the CG render farms, don't write off it's presence on the content creation side of things too soon. Lucasarts announced a year ago that they were making a complete switch to linux on the desktop for content creation, and I think are about a third of the way into that. Disney is also moving that way. From what (little) I understand, access to code, and strong customisablility is REALLY improtatn to these folks, and as linux matures, the fit works well. Maya for linux was produced at the request of the cd industry, not because Alias thought it was "neat".

Re:They aren't supporting Linux!

[RigMonkey]

First off, Maya isn't a compositing software.

And, they are in fact using it for everything in the productions (not just render farms).

I know this because as I type this I am working for one of those really big animation studios, on my dual-Xeon Linux Workstation, with Maya running in the background, waiting for me to stop procrastinating by reading /. and finish rigging that character I have due to go in to animation next week.

try blender, free as in freedom (and zero-cost)

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I haven't used Maya, so I'm no authority, but it looks like it's in the same realm as blender. Blender is free as in freedom (GPL), available for GNU/Linux, M$ Windows, MacOSX, FreeBSD, and a few Unices. It's maintained by it's user community, and it's 100% Free Software, so it'll never be crippled etc.

Ciaran O'Riordan

Re:try blender, free as in freedom (and zero-cost)

[G-funk]

Tried that, get nothing on my pc, just a blank screen with some half-drawn widgets (and it's not a freaky machine).

Re:try blender, free as in freedom (and zero-cost)

[KewlPC]

To say that Maya is in the same realm as Blender is to say that Linux is in the same realm as Minix.

The fact is, Maya has Blender beat, hands down. Hell, Alias' previous 3D animation package, PowerAnimator, probably had Blender beat too.

Re:try blender, free as in freedom (and zero-cost)

[Reservoir Penguin]

Yeah and youi probably think that Photoshop is better than Gimp! Thats fine you brainwashed fools are welcome to keep sponsoring megacorps while we enjoy superior Free Tools!

Re:try blender, free as in freedom (and zero-cost)

[KewlPC]

You're an idiot. If VFX studios could use free programs, they would. The less they spend on software, the more they can increase their profit margins.

In some cases, this has already happened. VFX studios are dropping SGI hardware and IRIX in favor of PCs running Linux like crazy. The free image sequence touch-up program CinePaint is used at several major studios.

But where the non-free software is superior, they will continue to use it. It makes no sense for them to cripple their artists' productivity by making the artists suffer through Blender's wretched interface.

And when it comes to The GIMP, just about everything is superior, at least interface-wise. It's interface rivals Blender in terms of how much work has to be done just to accomplish simple tasks, and that's simply unacceptable for artists working on somebody else's schedule.

Re:Not Maya

[bursch-X]

It's not a rice scoop, but get this: the resonance skin on the instrument is preferably made from cat skin. meow!

MOD PARENT UP!

[Stormie]

agent oranje is right, Slashdot is wrong - Maya Personal Learning Edition has been free to download for a LONG time, this news article, if you'd bothered to read it, is announcing the "highly anticipated" release of Maya PLE v5.0, not the first free download availability of Maya.

Now only if they remove the Watermark

[EqualSlash]

Even if it's purely a personal project, nobody will like to see that stupid watermark in the background. It's not really free, it's just a free demo.

Re:Now only if they remove the Watermark

[softspokenrevolution]

Yes, that's why it's free. If they just let you download the software all willy nilly then they wouldn't make any money from it, especially if they advertised that you could do such things on their site. Seriously, the watermark and the other copy protections are there to make sure that you just aren't some rinky-dink organization that's going to try and squeeze out some stuff using their software without having paid for it, of course if you really wanted to do that then you could just download Maya Unlimited of Kazaa.

Take Maya's Fake or Foto Challenge

[illuin]

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.

Re:Take Maya's Fake or Foto Challenge

[sahonen]

Hmm, I got all the CG ones correct, but I mis-identified some of the real photos as CG. The CG ones gave themselves away with too-perfect reflections, off colors, and with glitches in the triangle smoothing techniques they used. The photos that looked like CG I flagged because they looked too perfect to be real. D'oh.

Re:Take Maya's Fake or Foto Challenge

[imroy]

Doesn't seem to work in Mozilla though. I click on the "CG" or "Real" buttons but nothing happens. What's supposed to happen?

Anyway, I looked in the Javascript code to see what it was doing and saw the array of answers :P

Big deal, where's the USB key?

[xpeeblix]

Don't get me wrong, it's great that they released the PLE for evaluation purposes, but beware what you're buying. The $2000 buys you a license to run the software on one computer. Not one computer at a time. One computer. Upgrading your motherboard? Buy another license. Contrast this with Newtek's Lightwave which comes with a USB key and both Mac and PC versions. Install it on as many computers as you like, you can only run it on the one with the key. I think Maya is a better animation tool, but I won't buy it because I need to have it on a laptop and a workstation. I can only use it on one at a time, but I'm not buying two copies. Granted, they offer a floating license version for another $500 or so, but that requires an internet connection. What a hassle. Alias fed me a crock of bull at Siggraph that they're having "trouble" implementing the USB version that they plan to have one day. Would that trouble be letting go of the white-knuckled grip that's squeezing the funds out of their users pockets? Just my two pesos.

Re:Big deal, where's the USB key?

[jacbo]

Upgrading your motherboard? Buy another license. Incorrect.

I run my licence my laptop at home and my workstation at work. Licencing is based on either a flex dongle or a MAC address.
I use the flex dongle because I can't swap out the laptops network card.
There are no "licence transfer fees" or any nonsense like that. The licence.dat just needs to be on any of the machines you want to use it on.
when you want to swap machines, move the dongle.
it's still one machine at a time, but it's the machine I decide.

At least it's not 3DSMAX which, once in a 32 machine lab, I had to get each individual request code, then enter the registration code. 32 times. stupid.
ever heard of a site licence Discrete?

Another Idea:

[ciaran_o_riordan]

It will pay off. They're giving away nothing substantial - it's a crippled piece of software, and in return they'll get publicity from the watermarking, and more users because people can learn Maya at home now.

Tinkering with an array of apps is cool, but I'd tinker with Blender instead of this piece of cripple-ware. Blender is Free Software (GPL), so you get the full version, no loaded marketing tactics. It works on all major platforms (M$, GNU, MAC, and others).

The diference between Maya and Blender, is that you can give someone a complete copy of Blender, rather than just recommending it. OpenOffice.org is a similarly cool thing to give to people. M$ users always think there must be a catch :)

Ciaran O'Riordan

Re:Another Idea:

[gfxguy]

Your points are well taken. The problem is that the commercial software offers certain features not found in the free counterparts.

For you average joe, OpenOffice is quite good (it's what I use, anyway). I could even recommend that a majority of MS Office users could switch without too many problems and get the benefits quickly of using free software.

However, name one major TV show of motion picture that has used Blender for production. Name one big production or 3d house that uses Blender. Again, for your average joe with no aspirations to become a 3d artist in "the real world", Blender would be great.

People aspiring to work in the industry, however, need to learn the tools. If I'm not mistaken, there is also an XSI learning version. Having seen both, I can say XSI might be a step ahead of Maya. The animators that I support seem to like it better. It also costs more.

My problem is that I'd like to be able to work on MEL scripts at home (Maya Embedded Language), which the learning edition won't allow me to do (at least in previous versions).

So while I mostly agree with you - people should try OpenOffice and Blender, people who want to really get into the film and video production business will probably want to learn Maya or XSI.

Re:Another Idea:

[prozac79]

While there are a plethora of 3D apps out there, knowing how to use Maya is a huge plus in a lot of markets. For a lot of companies in the entertainment industry, knowing how to use Maya is a must. If you walk into an interview for a movie company and say that you know Maya then you get a big plus. However, the interviewer might not have a clue what Blender is. If you want to develop stuff on your own, then sure, Blender is a good choice. But if you want to learn Maya, then use the Personal Learning Edition.

Re:Another Idea:

[symbolic]

God only knows how many times this story has been repeated by others who stumbled into your predicament. I started using Blender several years ago, and on many occasions, I championed the idea of an interface overhaul. To be sure, there are some nice things about the current interface, but little of it is very intuitive to a new user, and there are some things that actually detract from one's productivity. Most of my comments fell on deaf ears, as the response was always the same..."It's easy once you get to know it!" What isn't?

Things seem to be turning around however, and rumor has it that the end of October (or thereabouts) will sport a release that *starts* to pay some attention to interface issues. Let's hope this isn't the last of it.

Re:Another Idea:

[symbolic]

People aspiring to work in the industry, however, need to learn the tools.

On the other hand, the tools don't make the artist - the talent does. If you've got the talent, you CAN produce some amazing stuff with Blender, should you care to endure its shortcomings. Shigeto Maeda's work is one such example.

Re:Another Idea:

[arrow]

God your stupid.

Anything else you think you could quote from the army-of-clueless-linux-zealots handbook?

They are giving you something free. Sure, there are some strings attached, but no one but you should be seeing the watermark anyway. Blender is good for personal stuff, but it dosen't hold a candle to the stuff that commerical apps can do. If it could, movie studios would jump on it, because free software would lower costs.

Re:Another Idea:

[gfxguy]

No argument here, but you're not going to get a job at ILM or Pixar by being an expert with Blender.

If someone wants to freelance or do independent work, then that's great - and maybe it'll lead to more adoption of the tool when it proves itself.

Re:Another Idea:

[_|()|\|]

you're not going to get a job at ILM or Pixar by being an expert with Blender.

Pixar disagrees:

In general, at Pixar we look for broad artistic and technical skills, rather than ability to run one package or another. We concentrate on finding people with breadth, depth, communication skills and the ability to collaborate. If you have those attributes, we can teach you the tools.

What I've seen of Blender suggests that it's plenty capable for learning modeling, lighting, and animation. As for communication and collaboration, that's what Slashdot's for, right?

Re:Another Idea:

[gfxguy]

Do you work in a film/video production facility? That's what they SAY, and when things are slow, that might actually be how they act, but most people are hired to bulk up staff for a production where they don't have time to re-train people to use different software.

It's true that, while we mainly used Alias where I work, we hired a couple of people who knew SoftImage, but they were the exceptions to the rule, and they were only hired because we had a SoftImage license and they could do their first work in SoftImage. After that, we let the license die and they had to learn Alias (and subsequently Maya). Everyone else after that had to have Maya experience.

So I don't work for Pixar, but I do know how it works. If it's slow and they can train, that's one thing, but most people are hired when needed and they don't have time to train them.

Look at it this way. Say you have a great demo reel, and another guy has a great demo reel. Yours is done with Blender, theirs is done with Maya. The place you're applying to uses Maya. Who is going to get hired?

Re:There is only one problem with that

[MikeFM]

They do if it crashes before they press save.

Er...

[CMU_Ken]

The blurb on Slashdot is misleading. I thought Alias was offering Maya for free, not Maya Personal Learning Edition, which has been offered since at least version 3 or 4. Personal Learning Edition is a whole different ballgame, since it's got a whole bunch of watermarking features in it (which basically visually degrade the quality of any work you make with it). It makes learning Maya easier, but it's not really worth it unless you either work for someone with the full version or you've got a lot of money to spend on it.

Re:There is only one problem with that

[MisterFancypants]

Talented people don't care what tool they use. Sorry :(

Even talented people like to use applications with actual undo/redo, which Blender does not have.

Yes.. And is pretty worthless.

[Viewsonic]

I mean, people use it for art and all. When it renders your artwork with a huge watermark over it, you just feel angry and uninstall it a minute later. Artists are fussy people. I applaud them for making a version for people to take a spin with, but unless you can see your work completely undisturbed, there is nothing to learn. I never know if the picture is how I want it if theres a huge crappy watermark all over it. Just an opinion...

It's Animation and Visual Effects Software

[billstewart]

I always find it annoying when somebody puts out an announcement that Foobie Bletch 5.7 has been released, with an URL for the Big!! Announcement!! web site that says that the Personal Edition now supports the Skins and Graphics Accelerators that were introduced in Foobie Bletch Professional 5.1!! and an FAQ that tells you how to work around the popular bugs in the installer and Doesn't tell you what the bloody product does!

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.

Re:It's Animation and Visual Effects Software

[sammy baby]

Look, pal, Foobie Bletch Pro is a great piece of software. If you have nothing better to do than take potshots at the nice folks at Foobie Bletch Inc, I suggest you get a hobby - maybe a download of Bletch 5.7 would be a good idea?

Watermarks

[NTmatter]

It's all nice and good that Maya's free for noncommercial use, but the watermarks are terrible. They say that they're "unobtrusive" and won't prevent people from evaluating your work. In reality, they're horrible. They're put over every last work surface imaginable, as well as your renders.

Now, compare this to that of Side Effects Software's Houdini. They give you a full modelling/animation/compositing suite, with only a tiny watermark that appears in the bottom-right. Before you go saying that this is a small and useless piece of software that nobody's heard of, it has had roles in The Grinch who Stole Christmas, Fight Club, and Final Fantasy 10. Check out their references.

Also worthy of praise, they have a Linux version out too. I'm trying to put it onto a LiveCD so that I work with it wherever I'd like.

Maya now "free" for personal use, eh?

[sunspot42]

At least now I (and many like me) won't have to pay any money just to dabble with Maya.

So, Tony was pimpin' her out, eh? Figures. Beer-brewing freak. You can take the boy out of the Mafia . . .

I'd be careful "dabbling" with Maya, though. When she turns herself into one of these and rips your gonads off, you'll think "personal use".

Blender documentation, articles, & tutorials

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Glad to hear a friendly voice.

Although Blender was always available zero-cost, it only became Free Software in September 2002. Since then, the new developer community have improved the documentation along with the code.

The interface is indeed quite unusual, but when you get used to it, it's very efficient with key bindings for most tasks.

You'll what you're looking for at:
http://www.blender3d.org/Education/

And there's more tutorials, articles, and docs linked from:
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name =documentation&file=index

Ciaran O'Riordan

Same idea...

[Delphinios]

This is only a bit more open version of what many companies have done for years.

Ever notice how Dreamweaver and Photoshop never really came with much anti-piracy measures beyond the basic serial-number?

The idea is self-training specialization. A million people pirate Photoshop, and train themselves in it's use. They then get hired by companies for those skills. the company is then obligated to go with Photoshop because "Everyone knows how to use it". Ka-ching. Instant secured licenses.

Sure, you're not gonna make Cash off of the end-users who can't afford the triple-digit licensing fee, but you have companies who will order a seperate license for Each user on the Graphic Arts team, their laptops, their desktop computers, and a few extra in case they want to hire a few more people.

It's a beautiful business plan that involves the users, sets a standard and guarentees a secured market for -years-, and in the end, makes everyone happy!

Re:Same idea...

[way2trivial]

Yes, why do you think the 'educators & students' version of microsoft office is avaialble at best buy for 129?

maybe because no one will pay almost 500$ for what they percieve to be a word processor program.

Re:Same idea...

[SageMadHatter]

Ever notice how Dreamweaver and Photoshop never really came with much anti-piracy measures beyond the basic serial-number?

Not anymore. All of Adobe's next product revisions(CS versions) will have online-key checking, ala Microsoft's Windows XP.

Mad Hatter

Re:Same idea...

[Reziac]

"Ever notice how Dreamweaver and Photoshop never really came with much anti-piracy measures beyond the basic serial-number?"

They do now..
http://www.adobe.com/activation/main.html
http://www.macromedia.com/software/activation/
Wi ll be interesting to see what happens to their marketshare over the space of the next couple years.

Especially since Macromedia is using that "write crap in the boot sector" protection scheme:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/activa tion/faq/ #itemE-9

Which means I won't even install Macromedia's free trial versions, let alone buy the real thing. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Re:Same idea...

[MrScience]

Actually, everything after Photoshop 5 has built-in spy ware.

Useless? no, TRY PRICLESS. My industry perspective

[MrCaseyB]

Useless? Its called PERSONAL LEARNING EDITION, Not the personal profit edition. There is absoltely nothing preventing an interested user from learning the basics and beyond of Maya. It's not like a nag box pops up EVERY time you want to open hypershade or outliner.
Watermarking is annoying of course but if this product is intended to give users a free method to LEARN, a watermark isnt going to interfere with that. You will still see accurate results of your render.

If you claim it is useless I really need to ask what it is you are trying to do with it? If you want to use it for billable hours, yes it is uselss and this product is not for you.
On the other hand, If you are trying to put together some work for a demo reel to get a real job in the business this PLE will do just fine.
As someone who receives and views artist reels every week, the watermark does NOT bother us. We are judging the quality of your work which will shine even through a watermark. In fact If I saw a reel come through that was watermarked to shit, it would tell me that this artist chooses to use legal software rather than cracked copies like everyone else. I would admire that kind of integrity in a prospective employee.

When I was teaching myself 3d animation it was with an educational edition of 3dsmax which I actually had to pay for from the University bookstore. When I later got into the business and I expanded our CG dept, we stuck with 3dsmax because it was what I knew. Had Maya Personal Learning Edition been around during my self teaching days, I would have given it a shot. If that were the case perhaps I would have a shelf full of Alias software now where all our Discreet boxes are.

Alias knows that the future 3d artists of tomorrow are young kids with no money. They choose to embrace them and provide free software and tutorials and learning resources. They are expecting a return on that investment and will probably get it. It also stregthens the community, now many more people can write "maya for beginners" books or publish online tutorials because maya is available to everyone, the audience grows.

Brilliant scheme that is so simple. Try before you buy, get em hooked while they're young. Win their loyalty now and they will come back as paying customers in the future.

Everyone wins in this situation.

What moron posted this?

[Magnetic_Monopole]

This is the LE edition, updated for Maya 5. Severely restricted and stripped. There's been an LE edition for over a year.

Re:What moron posted this?

[jacbo]

Ummm........ no.
It's not "Severly restriced and stripped", slighlty crippled yes.
This program does exactly as the commercial version, with the only limitations of a watermark
in the render and not being able to use it's files in the commercial version.
There is no function missing from the free version that's in the Maya Complete commercial version.
A person can learn the basics and goto the normal version and do exactly the same work.

Also this is nothing new, Alias released the Maya PLE in verison 3. (PLE = Personal Learning Edition)

Re:try blender, free as in freedom (and zero-jobs)

[sakusha]

Oh yeah, for sure you're no authority. Blender is like Maya in the same way a Yugo is like a Ferrari.

Nobody uses blender in real production work. They're all using Maya and Renderman. Blender might be cool for a few geeky experiments but nobody's going to hire you for a serious animation gig with only blender on your resume.

But there is one downside to the ubiquitous PLE edition. I've been studying Maya for about 2 years, and now that I'm thinking of getting really serious, I pick up a magazine for pro animators and they inform me all the entry level Maya production work is being sent offshore to Korea and India. I'm sure the Koreans and Indians love Maya PLE.

The headline is misleading

[Pan T. Hose]

The headline is highly misleading. Maya is not free software by any stretch of imagination, it's not even open source software. There are strings attached, be careful.

Not Free

[LuYu]

Select your operating system | View System Requirements

• Windows 2000/XP Professional (133 MB download) (Not available for Windows 98/ME)
• Macintosh OS X (110 MB download)
• *(Not available for Mac OS 9 or earlier)
  (Not available for IRIX or LINUX)

If one has to buy Windoze or another proprietary OS to use it, whatever is offered is not free. :'(

Re:Not Free

[cK-Gunslinger]

If one has to buy Windoze or another proprietary OS to use it, whatever is offered is not free. :'(

??

So if the local gas station start giving away free gas, we should all complain thats it's *not* free, as you really need a combustion engine to use make use of it?

Perhaps you expect Alias to show up at your house one day with the source code, sneak in you house (so as not to wake you) and build/install it on your Linux PC for you? Wait, I mean *bring* a *new* PC for you (it's not free if you have to *buy* hardware) to use.

Lame.

Re:Not Free

[LuYu]

So if the local gas station start giving away free gas, we should all complain thats it's *not* free, as you really need a combustion engine to use make use of it?

Actually, gas would be analogous to electricity. I never said that paying for hardware and power would have anything to do with the equation. Software is another story. Software is not free if I have to buy more software to run it. I have the hardware, and I have the power. This software does not run on my box. Therefore, it is not free.

Re:Not Free

[cK-Gunslinger]

Bah, you're not just going to cave in and admit that your original comment was silly, are you?

You said: "If one has to buy Windoze or another proprietary OS to use it, whatever is offered is not free. :'("

My point is, why stop there? If you are going to arbitrarily pick the OS as something "non-free" that you have to buy to run it, why can't you just keep going to the other "non-free" things it requires: hardware, electricity, bandwidth/media, time, etc. Also, since you have to have been born and living up until now in order to use it, throw in hospital fees, food, water, clothing, shelter, etc.

Criminy! It looks as if this "free Maya" thing is going to cost the average person thousands upon thousands of dollars to use! Might as well just buy the retail version and save some money! =P

Or, you could simply look at it the *correct* way, and realize that there is a no-cost version of the software, that is *free* in relation to the price of the retail version.

Re:Woohoo

[Goldberg's Pants]

who gives a turkey about some piece of crap software nobody knows

Maybe you don't, but I know a ton of people into graphics that will be gagging to get their hands on this! Maya is right up there with 3D Studio and the like when it comes to 3D packages.

ho boy

[cca93014]

when you know a girl called Maya, this story conjures up more than just raytraced pool balls :S

All I can say is...

[pimpinmonk]

I'm glad we have the real edition in our university lab, open to students 24x7 (along with matlab, mathematica, studiotools, photoshop, etc.) Seriously, people complain about being "poor students"... well, you may be poor but most universities provide for their poor little ducklings!

So shame that this is crippled, but if you're looking to do anything CONSTRUCTIVE which would take tons of time and effort, you gotta to pay to play.

Rhino 3D

[pipingguy]

Anyone have info on Rhino?

Is Maya in the same league?

The Maya/Alias/AutoCAD/Discreet site pops up an uncancellable cookie.

Not a good sign.

Re:Rhino 3D

[dnoyeb]

Rhino is vector based I believe. Maya is probably triangle based. Rhino is for precision drawings meant for build or shops. Maya is for animation and character creation.

If you are looking for something inexpensive, try www.hash.com. I have used AnimationMaster for years and you will find it an awesome package that is only behind Maya and 3DSMax in name.

Re:Rhino 3D

[Reziac]

Hash sometimes shows up at computer swaps here, hawking AnimationMaster for $200 or so (including a thick but badly-bound paper manual, and some tech support). Apparently that's still out of the "dabblers" price range, as they get few takers. I think they'd get a lot more interest from the casual market (which seems to be what they're courting) if they'd offer it as a $39 naked CD, with the manual on the CD, and no tech support other than downloadable patches as needed.

It does seem to have a nice straightforward interface, tho.

Myself, I've got a free version that came with a book (about $50 retail, or 25 cents at the junk shop). I haven't messed with it enough to tell whether it's crippled or not (it doesn't say one way or the other), but the install sure isn't very big. It does save files, tho.

Re:Rhino 3D

[Kazoo the Clown]

If you are looking for something inexpensive, try www.hash.com. I have used AnimationMaster for years and you will find it an awesome package that is only behind Maya and 3DSMax in name.

I bought a copy of Hash based on a computer show demo, and liked the interface and features until I really tried to get down to business and import some triangle models created algorithmically with other software-- and found that despite it claims to be compatible with triangle formats such as DXF, it really can't import them, as it goes off and crunches on it so long that you won't want to wait for it to finish-- I ran a simple model and after 8 hours it still hadn't finished the import. I've yet to see the results of an import, as it takes so darn long it quickly gets to the point that it doesn't matter how it looks because the time it takes is nuts. Hash is a great program as long as you don't want to import any modelling from anywhere else, but that doesn't work for me. I might use Hash to generate models, then I'd export them to a triangle format that I can use in some other renderer with models generated elsewhere. Hash's unusual model format is powerful within itself but appears to be a dead end when the rendering is strictly dependent on it. The rest of the world is not going to make itself compatible with Hash, and given Hash's apparent inability to usefully import sources from outside, it is an isolated island and will apparently remain so.

So what am I using now? OpenGL and a C compiler. I'd probably be using POVRay except I've been spoiled by the real-time performance of OpenGL.

Re:Question

[eatdave13]

To some extent, I agree with your point. It is kind of childish to use M$, Microshaft, etc. (although MICROS~1 still cracks me up... I'm a geek, sue me). I do have serious issues with the amount of control they want to have over my computer, however, so I don't use their stuff.

The problem is, as you've realized, this IS Slashdot. Not only is it positively FILLED with MS-hating Linux geeks, but it's run by an OS company. If you can't deal with seeing anti-MS comments, what are you doing here? If you wonder why there's very few anti-Linux comments, you need to realize that your colon doesn't have any answers.

Yeah. I just said you've got your head up your ass.

I actually bought the PLE a while back...

[madmarcel]

I figured I'd save myself the download and buy it off their website...on the web-order form it was $20 or $25 for the PLE and eh...right above that was listed the full version at a meager $2000 or something :)
<< ah what the heck, let's click on THAT checkbox instead >> ;^)

The PLE came in a nice DVD case, with an extra free DVD filled with tutorial/video material, showcase stuff, etc and a little booklet with other helpful hints. The CD contains the Windows and Mac OS X version btw :)

And yes, there is a frigging ENORMOUS blue watermark in the background. Cannot be removed. I do believe the software can only be used for a limited time or something...but I'd have to check on that. (This is not the latest version BTW) There are other limitations as well, as mentioned above, no or limited compatibility with the full version of Maya being the major one.
Obviously it is a learning tool only.

But still, always a good skill to have on your CV - proficient in Maya :D

There is a linux version, but AFAIK it only works with specific kernels and distributions and hardware. (An older version of RedHat with a specific type of graphics card? Something like that...)

Re:There is only one problem with that

[danila]

Do you think all those great marble statues of the Ancient World and the Renaissance were made with undo enabled? :) Undo is for wimps!

Re:The ghost of predictions past.

[arevos]

Five or six years ago, that would be entirely true. Perhaps in a few more years Blender will close the gap on Maya. Maybe not. Interesting to see though.

Good start

[pvera]

I tried it a couple days ago when it came out. I thought it was some sort of crippled demo with a time bomb but it was just the full version with a bunch of "non commercial use only" messages splattered all over. This is great for people that are curious about it but can't spend the dough just to see if they like it. It pretty much keeps a big fraction of the experimenters from trying to dowload a warez copy.

The one thing I did not like was I found some commands that require the 3-button mouse, which I only use at the office.

Maya vs. Povray

[andy666]

I use povray a lot to make pictures and movies for work. Could anyone tell me how Maya compares ?

Re:Maya vs. Povray

[Disoculated]

I hope this isn't a troll :)

POVRay is an excellent raytracer, but it doesn't have a modeller, and the learning curve is very very steep. The third party Moray just doesn't cut it for very complicated scenes, and there's no good Linux modeller at all. But if you like programming AND you like raytracing, writing your own POVRay scripts and rendering them across a cluster with PVM can be very cool, and is, of course, very cheap.

Maya is a whole different story. Most users do everything through the modeller interface, can create complicated and lifelike animations after a week or so of training. It's also built so that multiple people can be working on a single project at the same time and accepts all sorts of cool plugins. It's stupidly, insanely expensive too, with per seat licenses in the thousands of dollars.

I love POVRay, it's definetly got a niche, but you don't see them making Final Fantasy movies with it for a reason. Speaking of Final Fantasy, if you get the DVD, there's a lot of really cool stuff on there showing the animators interacting with Maya.

Re:Maya vs. Povray

[andy666]

Thanks for the useful info. I spend a lot of time hacking Povray and from what you say it would probably be a good idea to look into Maya. Thanks again.

Thank you

[JamesP]

for once again kicking Discreets butt...

It's great that you have access this software

[Lord_Frederick]

I learn best when I play around with something myself, as opposed to taking a class. When I was first looking into getting into digital animation in the late 90's, Softimage was king and very expensive for anyone. Even an academic license was in the thousands of dollars, not to mention the cost of the hardware to run it.

So, you may have watermarks to deal with and you can't move file formats to the full version, but when you're starting to learn or just seeing if you like this field enough to persue a career, this is an invaluable opportunity.

PLE has been around

[Mantrid]

Maya has had a PLE around for quite some time - I tried it but I could not stand the watermarking. (The version I had watermarked all of your project views!) Although if someone is seriously considering entering the industry Maya is the defacto standard in a lot of places (for movies and such anyways). For the hobbiest I can strongly recommend Cinema 4D.

Pirates Booty?

[screwthemoderators]

How hard is it to find pirated full versions? I don't think its too difficult- Are those copies I see on the P2P networks PLE versions? I think if someone serious enough about using and learning such a complex piece of software, they'd steal a full working version, if they could.

Re:Pirates Booty?

[BiOFH]

How hard is it to find pirated full versions? I don't think its too difficult- Are those copies I see on the P2P networks PLE versions? I think if someone serious enough about using and learning such a complex piece of software, they'd steal a full working version, if they could.

Some people have this thing called "scruples" or "morals".
It's what sets us apart from the riff raff.

Re:Pirates Booty?

[BiOFH]

'Official' people have names, Coward.

Re:Pirates Booty?

[screwthemoderators]

Usually I don't waste time responding at all, but it looks like you're trying to pick a fight, so I'm game. If learning software is a matter of employment, I'd rather be an employed member of the "Riff raff" then an unemployed man with "scruples" I was only trying to make a point anyways, so you can just fuck off, asshole

Useless. Or rather, not free for personal use.

[Pius II.]

The parent just clarifies that Maya is indeed completely useless for the purposes given in the blurb, namely to create content for your own non-commercial applications.
Instead, what we see here is the PLE, which is old news.
For someone who read the /. blurb, thought, "oh, Maya is now a free download for non commercial applications. Thanks a lot, Alias. Now I can record the video for my next game. :)" (yeah, some people think in smilies), this is useless.

Watermarks/Demo Reels.

[rbolkey]

I guess the question I have is: if you use the PLE, how does this help you when showing a demo reel to get a job? Somehow I don't think that watermarks smeared across a demo reel will help impress recruiters? The opposite if anything?

Would recruiters care?

This stands to make them a Profit..

[Dr Reducto]

They simultaneously made the software available with their 19.99 DVD that teaches you how to use Maya. That is really smart.

Alternative OSS - Blender

[gr8_phk]

OK, it's not Maya. But Blender is a free as in beer OSS program for 3d and character modelling. I figured it could use a plug. You can even buy how-to books at your local store and get the software with them. Downloads available for:

Windows
Mac OS X
Linux 386
Linux PPC
FreeBSD
Irix
Solaris
NetBSD

Developer site: www.blender.org

Im glad I tried it

[Spiked_Three]

I got this a while back with the learning DVD for $20 total. I have been considering a switch from 3DS because I'm tired of the constant $1695 'upgrades' that are hardly more than a couple of bugs fixes.
Well, I reviewed the video, played with the PLE a few days and I can not understand where a lot of people say it is better than 3DS. The rendering looked like crap - poor anti-aliasing etc even on the higher quality settings. In short, the trial learning edition taught me not to buy, probably not what they intended. But, I thank them for putting it out there and letting me decide.
Now I wish Lightwave would offer the same thing.

Re:How bad is the watermark?

[Spiked_Three]

it is pasted multiple times across the entire screen. This version can be used for nothing other than learning.

Re:Useless? no, TRY PRICLESS. My industry perspect

[Java Pimp]

I understand about the personal learning edition being just that. The problem is, I don't have a desire to waste my time making something cool that I can't show my friends without haveing a lame watermark on it.

Not that I want everything for free. How can I motivate myself to use this version to learn, knowing the whole time that if I come up with something cool, I'll have to completely redo all the work over again in a licensed version just to get rid of the lame watermark.

Perhaps the licensed version came with a tool to convert the lame personal edition created projects to the licensed version without the watermark??? Kind of a differed payment type thing. There isn't much difference between, I paid my money then learned or learned then paid my money... They get there money either way and I get all my work.

Re:Woohoo

[bluethundr]

Parent post is right : who gives a turkey about some piece of crap software nobody knows that becomes free as in free beer for non-personal use ?

Not sure if it's quite up to Maya's strospheric standards, but Blender 3D is a Free (as in beer) modeling and rendering tool that stacks up pretty well against the competition.

Another really nice aspect of Blender (aside from having the sources) is that you have a wider selection of platform choices than Maya ever likely will.Win32, MacOS X, Linux, LinuxPPC, FreeBSD, Solaris, and NetBSD. Bet THAT!

Forget Maya - Houdini is the next best 3d app....

[paulzoop]

...and it has an "apprentise version" which allows you to try. Check out www.sidefx.com

Try telling the BSA that

[TrentC]

Say I later start a company to do the stuff I've learned for profit. Would I risk committing a crime by using my personal use version? I think not.

If this hypothetical statement held true, then the Business Software Alliance would never exist.

Many companies, of all sizes, do rationalize their illegitimate use of software in order to save money.

Jay (=

Re:Useless? no, TRY PRICLESS. My industry perspect

[Wolfier]

You know what? When you buy the licensed version, I bet you can just reopen the file you have saved.

As far as I know the watermark is dynamically created everytime you render, NOT in the Maya scene description files themselves - otherwise you can edit them away easily, because it's format is so well understood.

So your concern is a non-concern.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Proof there not out for profit

[digitalgimpus]

Read the FAQ:
http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/m aya/ma ya_ple/faq.shtml

You can't read files created in the personal edition with the paid version. Makes me wonder.

You would think they want this functionallity. So that people like the product and upgrade.

Now any work you do in this version, is just playing.

Only on Slashdot

[Overly Critical Guy]

Only on Slashdot can a company give away a free shareware version of their product and have it be called "crippleware" by some ignoramus.

Hello?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Hello, they do. Pro Tools LE is the free, limited-edition version of Pro Tools.

And, of course, Cakewalk has its various limited versions of its products like Sonar.

Other free 3d modeling/animation software

[mnemonic_]

There's also a free version of SOFTIMAGE|XSI, that runs on Linux. SOFTIMAGE is generally considered to be Maya's primary competitor in the high-end 3d graphics industry, though Maya seems to be more popular at the moment (then again, that appearance could just be caused by Alias's advertising). There's also a free version of Houdini. Houdini is kind of a niche product in the cinematic effects industry, very powerful though not as well known as either Maya or SOFTIMAGE.

Re:OMFG

[stanmann]

The red Sux are just an unofficial Yankee farm team... Babe ruth, Roger Clemens Etc...

Re:Files not portable

[_xeno_]

OK, so the analogy to shareware was a little off. But the entire point of the Personal Learning Edition is just that - an Edition of the software for Personal use to allow you to Learn how to use the software.

If you try and do anything "professional" with it you're missing the point. It's supposed to be a way to learn the software without requiring the paying of hefty license fees. Once you're proficient with the software, then maybe when you go to work in a professional field you'll advocate using Maya.

Yes, anything done with Personal Learning Edition is irrevocably stuck in it, and I didn't make that clear. But that's part of the point of the edition - it's there to learn on. If you want to do something "professional" you'll have to shell out money for the full version and create it with that. Using the Personal Learning Edition for commerical work is against the entire purpose of the Personal Learning Edition. It's for learning, not for doing anything important.

Re:Useless? no, TRY PRICLESS. My industry perspect

[jonnyfivealive]

read up a bit, somebody posted that this is not true at all. your information is non-information

Re:Useless? no, TRY PRICLESS. My industry perspect

[krenn]

You said:

>Brilliant scheme that is so simple. Try before >you buy, get em hooked while they're young. Win >their loyalty now and they will come back as >paying customers in the future.

Man that sounds like drug dealers dealing out crack, "Here, here's a sample to see if you like it". Only thing is a crack habit is probably cheaper than a Maya one...

Still it is nice of them to make it so you're able to mess with the real software without emptying the cookie jar.

Re:There is only one problem with that

[Zelet]

That attitude is what a lot of free software suck compared to its commercial counter-part.

Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux user for 3 years.

No, not the same league

[nurb432]

Rhino is nice for what it does, but its a totally different animal ( pun unintentional )

Check out the new Blender UI that is in the works!

[nuance9]

Check out this thread which has a screen capture of an alpha version of the new Blender 2.3 UI.

Re:Woohoo

[cloak42]

Wow... I'm looking at this software, and while the demos on the website are beautiful, I can't make heads or tails out of this user interface.

I guess it would probably be easier if I were more familiar with the traditional 3D rendering programs, but I was never very good with 3DSMax, either.

people... people...

[BiOFH]

"Why use this when you can get X? It's not Maya , but it..."

"This doesn't let you do X! Z does and it may be no Maya but it's..."

The point is that this IS Maya. If you have no interest in Maya them move on. No one is saying that you shouldn't be using X or Z for your project or self-gratification. A|W went out of their way to give people who are interested in training up or evaluating Maya, a very complex and far from 'hobbyist' bit of software, a chance to do just that. That's it. Nothing more.

Of course, /. went and put up a misleading headline, per usual, and treated this as news despite the PLE being instituted nearly 2 years ago. You wanna bitch at someone, bitch at Pater for not doing his homework on this one.

Re:Woohoo

[lightcycle]

I agree that the interface is nonstandard and very confusing. I have been trying to learn using blender lately however, and it is actually possible to learn getting around in the program. You should check out this page.
There you will find tutorials targeted to blender novices. I'm about halfway through them, and some of them are very enlightening. (Although some of the links are dead). Now, I just wish I had an ounce of talent for graphic work!

So how about Lightwave?

[DG]

From a quick look at the Newtek site, I see that there's a screamernet node client for Linux, but not a user-interface version.

Why hasn't Newtek done a Linux version of Lightwave?

DG

Re:Useless? no, TRY PRICLESS. My industry perspect

[Dynedain]

Actually, regular Maya cannot open files created on PLE. This is to prevent studios from putting PLE on all their workstations and only having one legit copy of Maya on the machine that will submit the rendering to the render farm.

Most of the 3D vendors have free versions

[Animats]

But you can't do much with any of them.

3D Studio Max has gMAX. gMax is usually used as a level editor for games that support it, but it lets you try out most of the things you can do with 3D Studio Max. Saving is in an encrypted format and you can't export anything useful.

Maya, of course, has this free version with huge, annoying "watermarks" on everything and no useful exports. But it's the full Maya. Maya pricing starts at $2000.

softimage doesn't offer a free version of XSI, and the list price is $13,000.

And, of course, there's Blender, which is free, open source, maintained by a community, and incomprehensible. The Blender community is redesigning the user interface, which may help.

Great for students, but Blender still hobby choice

[ducomputergeek]

I do 3D animation and rendering of space scenes for fun. I started with 3D Studio during college since many lab machine already had it installed. Then I tried Blender 1.8, but it was too complex for me at the time for my level of interest.

I like the idea of having such a release especially for students that need to learn some more of the professional stuff. While blender is gaining popularity, because of it small download and price, it still lacks several fetures needed, like a raytracing engine, for professional work.

While this is cool and all, chances are I will still use Blender for my hobby work because it is free and allows me to do the level of work that I am at. Again, I am a hobbiest, not a pro, but I know of two shops in town that is using Blender over other packages for at least some of their work, like animated logos and such, because of the cost.

Non-commercial applications...

[stickyc]

"Alias announced today that their leading software, Maya has become a free download for non-commercial applications. Thanks a lot, Alias. Now I can record the video for my next game. :)"

So you'll be giving your game away free, right? Lets try not to bite the hand that feeds too publically, lest they take it back, eh.

Why Win 2K and XP only?

[Nom du Keyboard]

This is another piece of Windows software that claims to require 2K or XP only. What are the necessary feature(s) provided by 2K and XP that aren't supported in 98/Me?

Re:Why Win 2K and XP only?

[SharpFang]

A real winNT kernel (made by Sun or something around this thread, I don't remember) unlike the puny MS DOS extension that passed for kernel in 9x/ME.

Re:Useless? no, TRY PRICLESS. My industry perspect

[Wolfier]

Okay, some idiot modded my non-information up. Mods please bring it back down. Thanks.

The only high horse I see...

[freeBill]

...is the one you're riding.

The poster isn't complaining about the price of Maya Complete. He's not even complaining that they offer a Personal Learning Edition. He's saying that a "free for non-commercial use" version would not be a bad thing. Maybe he's right. Maybe the Alias lawyer who nixed it is right.

Your point about buying a single copy of the commercial license for a whole studio full of "personal learners" is a good one, but you obfuscate it by claiming the parent poster said things he (or she) did not say. But a carefully worded license for each version would take care of any personal-learner shops that cropped up. And I don't think it would be hard to spot a shop with 1 license, 40 artists, and an explosion of art. It would be roughly on a par with looking for a shop that does multiple installs from a single license.

It would be an interesting question whether allowing a shop with 20-40 artists to work with Maya PLE until the company was ready to render for publishing would produce more sales or less. Some companies would probably say, "We've got millions invested in this art, why worry about the measly cost of 40 licenses?" while others might say, "We're behind budget here, can't one license do everything we want?" Whichever side predominated, it wouldn't be hard for Alias to tell which was which.

Re:Woohoo

[illumina us]

Maya is right up there with 3D Studio and the like when it comes to 3D packages

I've been using Maya since Maya 1.0. Maya is an amazing piece of software because it allows the ability to model in nurbs not just polygons. No other 3D Software can come anywhere near Maya when it comes to making anything 3D. 3D Studio Max has got to be the lowest end on the 3D software market. Lightwave 6 is better than 3DSM, and Maya is just... wow. Anyone else that was wondering, Maya runs natively on IRIX, Windows NT, and Mac OS X. It only runs on Mac OS X b/c Mac OS X is FreeBSD (or is it Open BSD?) based

Pro Tools

[SendBot]

Now then... when will the music software industry start catching on?

Pro Tools has a free version available here

Re:Check out the new Blender UI that is in the wor

[symbolic]

Very promising. :)

Is this what's supposed to be in the end-of-October release, or is this scheduled for release later on?

Who cares?

[Pan T. Hose]

Who cares?

Who cares? I, for one, most certainly do. I'm sure there are lots of people on Slashdot who don't want to violate the copyright law.

Re:Check out the new Blender UI that is in the wor

[nuance9]

I'm honestly not sure what the projected release date is. But from what I have seen Blender is very good about the "release often" philosophy.

Installing an RPM is as easy as...

[yerricde]

Maybe normal people don't know wtf binaries, rpms, tar, xzf etc. are.

Why can't a web page say "if you are running a popular GNU/Linux distribution on a use a Dell, Gateway, or other PC with an Intel or AMD processor, then download this RPM file, right-click the file you downloaded, and then choose Install"?

Mouse wheels

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

Your mouse wheel is a third button. Try clicking it like a button rather than rolling it.

Re:Mouse wheels

[pvera]

I am using it on a mac. At the office I have a MS Explorer Optical Wireless, which has the wheel and yeah, the wheel is a button too. Away from the office I am SOL unless I want to start carrying the mouse and RF unit everywhere.

Re:Files not portable==No Amature Showreels

[turtleshadow]

The artiste's catch 22. You need money for the industrial tools however you have to have reels to show employeers you use industrial tools.

Im all for alias trying to watermark but the mark is SO BLATENT I switched to another package (Blender) as it was distinctly annoying to model with the watermark in 4.5. It was like trying to drive with a very dirty windshield, It hindered the the 3d input with the 2d watermark stuck on top when trying to do shape placement with just basic shading turned on.

At 2k USD a pop for Maya 5 complet version Im having to try Sketchup3d --> Blender3d which if it works for me is the cheapest solution.

Re:Not Maya

[Destoo]

Dans un pays de tous les temps
Vit la plus belle des abeilles
Que l'on ait vu depuis longtemps
S'envoler a travers le ciel

Cette petite abeille porte le nom de Maya
Petite oui mais espiegle Maya !

Qui n'a vraiment peur de rien
Qui suit toujours son chemin
Venez donc decouvrir la malicieuse Maya
Petite oui mais espiegle Maya !
Tout le monde aimera Maya

Maya Maya Maya Maya
Maya raconte-nous ta vie.

Forget Maya. Get Houdini. True pro 3D Package.

[Qbertino]

Still no Linux PLE, Alias? Kinda amature-like don't you think?
Well, that's no problem. We'll just have to get the Houdini Apprentice Edition.
They've had free non-commercial versions for all OSes since almost a year now. Linux too.
To bad Alias won't get the message and *still* not release a Linux PLE.
Oh, well, Houdini is the better package anyway, so what am I complaining about?
Check out www.sidefx.com and look for Apprentice Editition. Houdini Master with all the features free for non-commercial use. It kicks Maya up and down the street btw.
It's been available since way back then when /. rejected my submition on that issue I might add.

Re:There is only one problem with that

[JCholewa]

> That attitude is what a lot of free software
> suck compared to its commercial counter-part.

Don't you wish that Slashdot had a "grammar undo" function?

--
-JC

Re:Modding false info

[Anm]

As a moderator, the best I could do is mark it Troll or flamebait. I chose troll. Some negative moderation suggestions to slashdot:
Didn't RTFA
Misinformation

Or something... Even "Pulling out of ass" would be better.

Anm

Re:Blender documentation, articles, & tutorial

[Reziac]

[goes to look]

Actually, the interface looks more like my idea of how to do it -- with room to WORK. I messed with Bryce a bit, and was soon ready to kill whoever designed it -- or better yet, steal their 48" monitor. :)

Re:There is only one problem with that

[MAXOMENOS]

Don't you wish that Slashdot had a "grammar undo" function?

I'd settle for a "grammar do" function.

Re:Woohoo

[flewp]

Erm. A lot of programs offer nurbs and polygonal modelling. A lot of other programs can come close to and exceed Maya for making anything 3d. It's more the artist than the tool.

Oh geez! I have a college mate called Maya. She...

[hover]

... she is a kind of sweet pretty girl, makes my heart beat faster every time there's an ambiguous title like this. "Maya now Free for Personal Use".

Just buy Unreal Tournament 2003

[huginOGmunin]

It comes with a version of Maya PLE made to just work with UT2003 and it's dev tools

Make you own characters and levels.

Not entirely free but you get the full game as well.

http://www.us.atari.com/games/unreal_tournament_20 03_pc/

Clarification

[huginOGmunin]

Rhino is primarily for 3D Modeling - especially for product design which requires spline based modeling (NURBS)

Maya (unlimited) does NURBS modeling, polygonal modeling (games and animation) and Subdivision surfaces which has some of the advantages of both.

It also has fur rendering, cloth simulation, particle systems, physics simulation, and a host of animation tools (inverse kinematics, skeletons, keyframes, blend shapes).

Maya is also incredibly extensible, supporting plug-ins (comes with API), custom user interfaces and scripting.

In fact, Maya is a few binaries tied together with scores of scripts.

I've been learning Maya for the last year after work (we have a site licence) and it's a world unto itself.

They made a deal with Atari to bundle a special version of PLE with Unreal Tournament 2003 but I haven't used that.

Re:There is only one problem with that

[Zelet]

Every day of my life. :)

Re:Maya 4.5 for Linux

[SouthOfHeaven]

is it running in Linux with wine or actual Linux compilation ?

Re:Useless? no, TRY PRICLESS. My industry perspect

[ezraekman]

Brilliant scheme that is so simple. Try before you buy, get em hooked while they're young. Win their loyalty now and they will come back as paying customers in the future.

Everyone wins in this situation.

You don't work for the tobacco industry, do you? ;-)

Re:There is only one problem with that

[_|()|\|]

Blender does not have [undo/redo]

LightWave users have been waiting for proper undo in layout for years.

Re:Great for students, but Blender still hobby cho

[dcuny]

If you really need a raytracer, Yafray is nicely integrated with Yable, so you can use a raytracer with Blender.

RenderMan didn't have a raytracer until fairly recently. For movies such as A Bug's Life where a raytracer really was needed, Pixar ended up using Larry Gritz' BMRT (Blue Moon Rendering Tools), a RenderMan compliant raytracer.

Ironically enough, Pixar ended up suing ExLuna for infringment of intellectual property, which ended up in ExLuna's products (including BMRT) being pulled from the market.

So how did Pixar get by all those years without a raytracer? Well, there are a lot of shader tricks that can be done, as well as clever use of lighting. Radiosity, reflections... all these effects can be simulated.

All this is to say that the real limit of tools isn't so much the tools themselves, but what people do with the tools.