Attached Link: http://cgw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&SubSection=Display&PUBLI

Get it on CD for just $5

read below from their site for info.

This is a great way to beat the competition when they tar and feather you with hard work. Lightwave just released [7] which by all accounts is superior to Maya.

Max along with some 2nd party renderers has knocked Maya almost completely out of the gaming market. And is soon to release 4.5 Max or so I've heard.

So instead of cranking out new code just make the price right and swamp the market with Maya newbies who will one day ask their boss for MAYA.

From the Alias/Wavefront site. The lovely .obj format was the baby of Wavefront.

A new way to learn Maya that's fun, fast and free!*
Maya Personal Learning Edition grants anyone with the desire to learn more about Maya, or 3D computer graphics in general, a seat of Maya for non-commercial use - registration renewable yearly.** Those using the Personal Learning Edition will have unrestricted access to the full feature set of Maya Complete including NURBS modeling, animation, inverse kinematics, Maya Artisan, Maya Paint Effects, particles, dynamics and Mayas advanced rendering capabilities. 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. Maya Personal Learning Edition cannot be used with industry-standard plug-ins.
http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Community/Special/ple_announce/index.html

Wow. Maya is 100% compatible with Linux, which will increase the 3D community by a huge amount once word gets out. (Maya usually cost a bazillion dollars (well, $18k or so), and with this, the Linux community (which pretty starved for decent 3D editing programs) can jump in with both feet. (there's no pirate version of Maya for Linux that I'm aware of, since Unix code is way easier to secure against such things.) This sale is actually good news, IMHO... it may indeed see an increase of folks who get into 3D. /P

Attached Link: http://www.aliaswavefront.com/freemaya

free to download, so you can actually skip the $5 part. get on the mailing list and they will even notify you when it's ready

It will likely be more of a "ripple" in the image... I know the Flamingo Beta (a renderer for Rhino) simply puts a box in the lower left (small) that says "Flamingo Beta"

Ron, it depends on the size of the watermark. It may be only in a corner of the image, like a TV channel "watermark".

It sounds just like Discreet's GMax offering. Free, but you can't export anything that'd be useful commercially without ponying up for plug-ins. It kinda makes sense, IMHO, because methinks the professional users either budget the $$ or get the license through an employer while IMHO the hottest 'market' for the so-called warez people are hobbyists, dabblers, and kiddies who just want an easy way to make porn.

Sounds like a terrific deal for folks who want to add Maya skills to their resumes, create portfolio pieces or samples to convice an employer to spring for a high-end program (which save-disabled demos don't let you do), or just learn more about 3D apps. I had access to 3DMax for a time at work and learned the basics. I've never used Max again and will probably buy Lightwave, but the Max experience has made it easier to learn every 3D app since.

If you truely dream of becoming a professional than it is still a good deal, just because you will be able to learn this program. And as far as the watermark goes if it doesn't take over the image completely it'll be useful addition to many people's program collection (I know that there is no way for me to afford the full package as I fall into the hobbyist catagory)

A lot of these modelers are driven by hobbyists who have a few bucks to throw around. And when will the rest of the big boys follow suit? I think this will result in our getting access to learn better tools and kill a lot of the little guys at the bottom.

I doubt that will happen, as you will most likely not be able to export anything

It says you will be able to save with an alternative file format. I suppose you won't be able to interchange with other commercial Maya users. "a special non-commercial file format" One thing... they are kinda walking on thin ice because this could make a lot of people mad if they cripple it down too much.

That again sounds a lot like GMax. Discreet has gone so far as to warn against trying to write conversion plug-ins for their '.gmax' format unless you get a game pack development license from them. The big problem they'll have (are already having IMHO) is an end user can almost always use a game pack formatted output as an intermediate for importing the result back into mainstream modelers. I don't know how they're going slow down people 'working around' the format issue so trivially.

Hi, There's a pirate version of almost everything for every platform, it just a mattter of looking. The pre-eminant serials dbase package has Mac, Linux, BeOS, PocketPC and Palm sections, (in addition to the more mainstream PC section.) I reckon this is more of a grab for mindshare, once you know an interface, and you become familiar with it, you're loathe to change to something else. Poser users are far more at home with Bryce because of the same quirky interface, IMO. whereas "poser pro pack" tries to make the UI more like that of a traditional 3D package. I doubt that a "pirate" is going to waste thier time downloading a crippled version when they can download the full thing for free. later jb

And while I'm at it... The "real" problem with pirate packages of things like Maya and lightwave is the support. Having worked in a university where we had lightwave for both PC and SGI, I can tell you that the studnts who had pirate versions at home had no end of problems, both with opening the stuff the produced in the labs at home, and with getting the program to work with their graphics card. We had to spec the lab out with the cheapest GFX card we could find, but even then, buying in bulk, it still cost us 1.5K (pounds) a pop, per card. Not to mention plenty of support calls to find out which cards we could and couldn't buy. The problem is that in order to get the best out of these programs you need full OpenGL support in hardware, and even the most advanced game card won't support the entire spec, since it's too costly to code & debug in a realtime game, both in terms of programmer hours, and in the brute force needed to get it to run at speed, since most traditional computer animation is done "on the farm" and laid off to tape one frame at a time. The idea that you can run this sort of software on a "bog standard" PC is patently ridduculous. later jb

I understand that there are pirate versions of software available in alternate OSes, but the biggest problem in *ix would be getting the binaries and distributing them... there's not much market for warez copies of programs that a typical Linux user can find legal and free alternatives to. The Linux community can, 99% of the time, find alternatives they can legally download for free, literally (http://www.freshmeat.net is a wonderful example - it's chock full of GPL/LGPL/BSd licensed stuff.) As for the stuff you can't find a GPL'd alternative to without buying it? I concede that they do exist, but it's rare, and rarer still to find one that isn't packed full of trojans (there's no other real way to get virii to work in *ix, incidentally.) /P

Attached Link: http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Community/Support/qualified_hardware/QUAL/maya_40_NT.html

Hi, The above link will take you to the page that details the recommended (required) hardware spec in order to run Maya, our labs had the entry level Oxygen card, (and even then it didn't work "out of the box") you will notice that the GeForce2 & GeForce3 cards, (the gamers card of choice) is not supported to run Maya, nor is XP, (or the win 9x family) on Linux your choices are even more limited. "don't worry, be happy" (on Mp3 at the moment :) later jb

Tux :) Both of your assertions are myths. Name me any commercial program on any system, and I will provide you with the binary header that you can check against an original, it may take me a while, but I've got all night :) If you want I can provide you with a simple "shell virus" that performs all the classic functions on any *nix box you choose, they're not impossible to write virii on, but they're not widespread enough and too hard a target to crack when you can bulk infect myriad PC's in minutes. If you want proof of a real trojan that spread like wild fire on UNIX, do a search on google for the Morris internet worm. Being smug in this game will get you dead real quick :) later jb

Hi, Mine neither, I run Xp on a laptop, so what passes for my GFX card doesn't stand a chance. I'll need a new PC, and of course a new house to put it in... But that's another matter entirely :) later jb

XP hasn't really been out long enough for the folks at Alias Wavefront to do any kind of modification for XP's quirks; ergo it ain't gonna get recommended for XP until the coders can make sure that it all works in XP. Give it time; they'll prolly add XP into the pile in about 6 months or so. - boring *ix stuff clarifications (and perhaps a little backpedaling on my part too) fer praxis :) - Fair enough - there are indeed viruses that do work in *ix, but I could probably count them on one hand, two tops... hence the assertion of there not being a 'real' way to get *ix viruses going. Also, Morris hit in 1998, a time when even many *ix admins were still fairly complacent about Internet security. *ix is the toughest environment for a virus to do anything in, much less propagate; it takes a serious security hole to allow it, and enough folks who don't keep current on their patches (with things like red hat's up2date, it's gonna get even tougher still as time goes by.) Compared to Windows' hundreds of thousands, statistically I'm still right, so nyah :p (by the by, "smug" is the last thing I am when it concerns security... I was just speaking in general terms. I'm damned near religious when it comes to patches either at home or at work.) Also, my assertion about the rarity of *ix warez may have been a bit overeggagerated, but as you yourself said - it will take you a long while to find 'em, making them rare indeed. OTOH, finding Windows warez is as close as the nearest copy of Morpheus, Bearshare, or Gnutella (yep, two of those have *ix versions, but still...) I guess the point I was trying to make is this: With so many honest alternatives around, it's not really worth the bother of warezing something in an Open Souce environment, hence you only get maybe a couple of thousand of *ix warezers compared to the millions upon millions of Windows warezers. (now if you consider mp3's to be warez, then all bets are off :) /P

Attached Link: http://www.esa.int

Hi, The reason, at a rough guess is that even MS think of Xp as a consumer OS, even the CEO is on record as saying that he wouldn't recommend a company that has committed to upgrade to W2K to change track to Xp mid stream, and since Maya is a heavy weight app, it's priorities are probably skewed towards backing up it's current user base first, (because if you think the software itself is expensive, you ought to see the yearly maintenance bill that comes with it...) With that kind of money at stake, you're not going to be rolling out your flagship app, to a platform most of your users aren't going to be installing anytime soon, especially if it takes manpower away from providing custom tweaks and plugins to paying customers. Like the man says, give it 6 months to a year. Do I consider Mp3's Warez? No, and we roll our own rather than download, it's quicker :) My point was "never say never" when it comes to the computer underground, because if a way can be found then they'll probably find it. A f'rinstance: I bet when the ipod gets a Linux port, you'll be able to download from as well as upload too. Unlike the native mac, and newly minted PC platforms, when you can only upload too, and delete from. Switching tack completely, I'm a Solaris admin for ESA you? later jb

Windows XP is mostly a new shell on a slightly (very slightly) modified win2000 basic core. Maya runs fine XP from everything I've read. Alias simply doesn't support it "on paper" because they haven't had time to find out issues, if there are any. They have no support to offer, as it were, even if you ahd a problem.

Also, in regards to the videocard.. Elsa makes quite a few geforce based cards aimed at workstations. As far as I am aware the geforce3 has full opengl 1.2 compliancy, although slower than a 3Dlabs card... all features of the spec. are supported. In fact, in terms of game development, most of these higher end programs have begun implementing features only found on such cards for use in prototyping realtime shading effects.

I'm running Maya on XP. It's the even more crippled free "Taste Of Maya" (no saves) that they used to send out before this latest strategic move. Runs fine. I have a geForce2 mx400 64mb

While it is true that MS would like to see everyone go to XP and dump all the other lines, common sense says that ain't going to happen, and app-writers know this. Look at it from the software developer's point of view: While MS does have XP Home, Pro, and dot-NET servers, app-writers know that a huge percentage of their professional Windows-using customer base will remain with 2k for at least 3 years (not to mention the suprising percentage of NT-4 holdouts...) only a small percentage of Maya's customer base is going to be in any hurry to migrate to XP - most are still ironing out the quirks and bugs of Active Directory and other Win2k helps/hinderances... (praxis) I was once an AIX admin, but have since been infected w/ MS software, and eventually wound up teaching Operating Systems and Networking at the Utah Applied College of Technology. I may collar you later on and bug you about Solaris quirks once I get the rest of two donated Sparc5 servers in :) /P

Oh and as far as the Maya freebie.. its just a marketing tactic used to ensure that Maya is learned all over. Alias is the Microsoft of the 3D graphics world throwing cash at every advertising venue like water. Instead of programming intuitive, easy to use features and interfacing, such as Newtek and Softimage spend so much time doing, Alias concerns themselves with dumping everything in, and then glamourizing how "re-programmable" everything is. Re-programmable that is, if you have a team of programmers that work in your studio. Then they spend a fortune convincing everyone that they "have to have Maya to do anything worthwhile". There was a very interesting article in this month's Keyframe about Alias's "assimilation" of various studios who were using other packages, where the artists prefer their previous program, but feel compelled by the market to use Maya. I'm not saying Maya is bad, but unlike people are lead to believe, its also not the best at anything except being able to be reprogrammed. Lightwave is widely considered to have superior modelling and rendering, softimage supposedly has far easier animation tools and rendering, and maya is the role-model of customization scripting, if thats something your production house requires. Its modeller, renderer, and interface are often criticized, yet glossed over in awe of its programability.

Although, I should add, that version 4 was almost exclusively aimed at making the program easier to use I've read. Most of the work was put into re-working the interface.

Yeah, and the only real value added with XP is the granting of extra control to Micro$oft. Pass, thank you. Cheers! Mark