Alias (
Toronto) +
Wavefront (
Montreal) = Alias/WaveFront, an
SGI division which makes the
mind-blowing Maya animation system, available for a variety of computer flavors, such as
Windows,
SGI and even
Macs running
MacOS X (soon).
This product took many years to develop, and their patience and determination shows. The
physics system is incredibly powerful, and surprisingly easy to use considering how much it does. While
Pixar still rules the
CGI camp, you can use Maya without having to work
Steve Jobs. Not that that would be a bad thing, though, depending on your outlook.
This product builds on the older
Alias PowerAnimator, used in
Terminator 2 to render that fluid metal robot, uh, thing, which at the time was priced at a cool $40K
US. The software, that is, not the
T2000.