[DigitalEYE]

That's right...
Maya Unlimited on the Mac. Is it possible?
Well, according to a recent discussion I had with a Maya rep, it is.
But they are controled by the market.

Apparently, it isn't that hard to recode 'Unlimited' for the Mac but , there needs to be a demand for it.
There was a demand from the Mac community to release maya on the Mac and it came.
Then there was a call from the Linux community and it was answered.

We need to contact Apple, Alias, and the Mac community all over and demand that we be set up to the same level as the others. Why should we get left behind just because we are a small part of the PC sector.

I will be repeating this statement to several other forums...and hope you will do the same.
I'm not compeating against the PCs, I'm simply challenging Alias to give us the opportunity to access the same toolset (fluids, cloth and fur).

I think we desrve it.
It's not about PC or Mac artists, it's about giving us a fair choice. And being treated the same as everyone else. Not being held back because of the market.
There is power is numbers...do not be silent!

They don't have to see you...they just have to hear you coming.

[MindFad]

I wish Apple would buy Alias already.

[Moonray]

Considering the price of $7000 they wouldn't even need to sell many to get their costs in.
It seems that you joined this forum just to post this message, but I for myself can't support you there and I don't think it's plausible if many people who never would use that software demand for it.

-

[Eug]

What proportion of Mac OS X Maya users would use Maya Unlimited if they could? And I don't just mean if Maya Complete included everything for the same price. I mean, how many Mac users would pay the $7000 vs. $2000 price difference?

Also, I wonder how much a speed upgrade of the Power Macs would help the cause, if at all. Does Maya make use of the bandwidth of the SGI stuff, or is the Power Mac's bandwidth "good enough"?

Just wondering.

[DigitalEYE]

Well, moonray. that's exactly the kind of attitude that we're fighting against. The point is to notify those users that they CAN make a difference.
Eug - The Mac can support unlimited now. We just don't have access to it.
The unlimited version of Maya allows you to work with Fluid Dynamics(water, oceans, lava, etc.), Fur (hair, animal fur), and Cloth (fabrics, dynamic drapery and so on)> PLus there is Maya Live with is used for motion tracking backplates.

And just because you don't use it ro know about it's importance doesn't mean you shouldn't support your favorite platform...does it?

[thePurpleGiant]

DigitalEYE: People are lazy. If you don't provide links to give feedback to Alias, I guarantee that 99% of people reading this will not do anything.

...Myself I included. I respect your cause though.

[Moonray]

Originally posted by DigitalEYE:
Well, moonray. that's exactly the kind of attitude that we're fighting against. The point is to notify those users that they CAN make a difference.

Who is "we"?

-

[jaiqua]

Maya is pretty useless on the Mac until professional, and semi-decent GFX boards are released. Until then 3D just sucks.

P.s, I'm talking about using it in a studio environment.

[jaiqua]

Originally posted by Eug:
What proportion of Mac OS X Maya users would use Maya Unlimited if they could? And I don't just mean if Maya Complete included everything for the same price. I mean, how many Mac users would pay the $7000 vs. $2000 price difference?

Also, I wonder how much a speed upgrade of the Power Macs would help the cause, if at all. Does Maya make use of the bandwidth of the SGI stuff, or is the Power Mac's bandwidth "good enough"?

Just wondering.

Very true. I've been using Maya on the Mac for a while and it's just embarrassing. Not only cause the Mac lacks decent hardware (except the latest G5s), but Maya OS X is worse than than any other version out there.

It's funny though, Maya on IRIX is still the best version IMO, it's rock solid except for the lack of 3D performance.

SGI are making a good comeback. I just saw a good review of Discreet Smoke on Tezro (SGI), and the Linux version. The SGI version blew away the highly configured Linux box for virtually most important tasks, rendering was smart too.

[scottiB]

Originally posted by jaiqua:
Maya is pretty useless on the Mac until professional, and semi-decent GFX boards are released. Until then 3D just sucks.

P.s, I'm talking about using it in a studio environment.

Agreed. A year ago, there was a rumor (which I can't find right now) that Apple was building in support for 3DLabs and Oxygen cards in Panther.

Apple is to have a large presence at Siggraph this year. Perhaps something will be announced then? (However, August is a long way away )

[scottiB]

Originally posted by MindFad:
I wish Apple would buy Alias already.

Not unless it divests itself of AutoStudio--which brings in a lot of revenue. That will never be ported to the Mac.

Ever.

[jaiqua]

Originally posted by scottiB:
Agreed. A year ago, there was a rumor (which I can't find right now) that Apple was building in support for 3DLabs and Oxygen cards in Panther.

Apple is to have a large presence at Siggraph this year. Perhaps something will be announced then? (However, August is a long way away )

That sounds promissing. I read a little about that over on cgtalk, I really hope they have something lined up along what you mentioned.

The GFX boards is really the last major area that Apple needs to address to really compete in ther high-end animation market, and if they can get it right, and create solid drivers then I'd be smiling.

I also heard that Softimage are keeping their options open on releasing an OS X version of XSI. I use thar more than Maya and if SI released it for the Mac I could move virtually my whole setup to OS X.

One of the problems I do get concerned about is the impact of porting software over, especially with companines that are competing in a small, highly competitive market. I'd be worried that important resources would be used in the port asnd the rest of the productrs would suffer. So although I'd love to see SI ported, I'd rather have them focus on the Linux/Windows ones than seeing a disatrous turn to support a smaller platform.

Here's hoping sales of Macs for 3D is enbough to encourahe, and support Mac ports.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by scottiB:
Not unless it divests itself of AutoStudio--which brings in a lot of revenue. That will never be ported to the Mac.

Ever.

I'd have said the same thing about Shake back in the day. If Steve Jobs wants Alias as an Apple subsidiary it is a done deal. I doubt Apple sees Alias as a fundamental core company that would be a pillar for the Mac platform. Then there would always be the question of SGI willingness to sell.

[jaiqua]

Originally posted by voodoo:
I'd have said the same thing about Shake back in the day. If Steve Jobs wants Alias as an Apple subsidiary it is a done deal. I doubt Apple sees Alias as a fundamental core company that would be a pillar for the Mac platform. Then there would always be the question of SGI willingness to sell.

If Apple buying Alias would result in what happened to Shake, then I'd be dead against any takeover. Having Apple destroy Shake on other platforms was the nail in the coffin for me, and killed a lot of belief that I had in Apple.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by jaiqua:
If Apple buying Alias would result in what happened to Shake, then I'd be dead against any takeover. Having Apple destroy Shake on other platforms was the nail in the coffin for me, and killed a lot of belief that I had in Apple.

Lets face it: Apple buying a software company == near immediate and absolutely guaranteed demise of their software for any other platform than the Macintosh. Examples are Shake and Logic. It makes 100% sense too and reaffirms my faith in Apple. They are not over 'Microsofting' their way into marketshare

[jaiqua]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Lets face it: Apple buying a software company == near immediate and absolutely guaranteed demise of their software for any other platform than the Macintosh. Examples are Shake and Logic. It makes 100% sense too and reaffirms my faith in Apple. They are not over 'Microsofting' their way into marketshare

I know, and I hate that. It makes so little sense and just angers ythose who work professionaly with the software. Apple tried to buy a few key apps. from Discreet a while ago, but Discreet told them to basically get lost since Discreet have a lot of patents tied up in their high-end compositors which are filtered down into their lower-end apps. I'm glad they did cause Apple do not have hardware that is as scalable as certain PC's or SGI's.

I don't see them buying Alias, and SGI are now out of their dark patch and just re-affirmed their interest in Irix and the R18000 cpu, ehich is great news for the high-end compositor market.


You have to admit that it's not good practise to buy a well used app. like Maya and stop the development on non-Mac platforms.

I'm not interested in Hardware except for what can give me the best performance to run my software, and software being the thing I'm more loyal too. I need my tools, and I need them to be working at their best, and on the best platform for them.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by jaiqua:
You have to admit that it's not good practise to buy a well used app. like Maya and stop the development on non-Mac platforms.

I can say that it is possibly bad for the app and it is certainly bad for the people whose platform support is being axed. Being a Mac user means you're pretty used to being at the business end of that axe

If Apple decides to buy a software that is highly specialized and used by a niche market it wouldn't make sense for them to continue development or support for it on other platforms than the Macintosh. They are in the business of selling Macs and they do that any way they can. In some cases that means buying yourself into a market, although that is a very crude and expensive way it is quick.

I know the Mac support for Shake wasn't all that when Apple bought it but Logic wasa predominantly a Mac app according to Emagic. When Apple acquired them they did the inevitable thing only faster: drop the Windows support. I wish there was a better way to get people to notice the Mac platform but muscling your way in is a time tested M$ tradition. It works.

[scottiB]

Originally posted by voodoo:
I'd have said the same thing about Shake back in the day. If Steve Jobs wants Alias as an Apple subsidiary it is a done deal. I doubt Apple sees Alias as a fundamental core company that would be a pillar for the Mac platform. Then there would always be the question of SGI willingness to sell.

True and we agree (and I should've enumerated why Alias will never port AutoStudio). For anyone perusing this thread who's never heard of AutoStudio (DesignTools) it, frankly, doesn't fit into Apple's market goals (video, film, compositing)--as I see them. It's an ID and surfacing product that (with the right translators) can export data to Unigraphics, Catia, and other engineering applications. Since all of these and AutoStudio are offered on WinXP, designers and engineers can use the same box (and run Office, Outlook, etc.).

Not three years ago, when I'd visit GM's Tech Center, every workspace would have both an Octane and a PC--now they all have a PC (much to EDS's happiness). While Architosh and some small ID firms (and a few of my PowerBook owning friends) would love to have AutoStudio for the Mac, the firms that purchase 100 seat licenses and pay the annual maintenance fees could give a fig. GM's not about to migrate their licenses to Mac and return to having two boxes on a desk. There's just not enough demand.

[Eug]

Not defending Apple here, but with Shake it made at least a bit of financial sense (even ignoring the Apple factor) to drop Windows support. Windows Shake was a minor seller, and it's potentially much easier to maintain a code base for OS X and both those and Windows too. That said, I betcha Nothing Real still made money on the Windows version, even after considering all that.

And I wonder about that pricing structure for Shake. Why must it be so much more expensive for Irix than OS X other than to promote it on the Mac?

[jaiqua]

I can understand some of the reasons for Apple's decisions on Shake, but it doesn;t create a good feeling about their intentions if they were to buy something like Maya. Apple are also dropping Shake Irix which is a bummer.

[Eug]

Originally posted by jaiqua:
Apple are also dropping Shake Irix which is a bummer.

Hmmmm... I wasn't aware of that. How many Irix licences have they sold in comparison to Linux and (recently) OS X?

Is there financial justification for it, or are they simply trying to muscle SGI out of the picture? Even though the CPUs for SGI hardware aren't so fast, the specs of the rest of the hardware can be quite impressive (for $$$$ of course though).

[voodoo]

from www.apple.com/shake

"Shake 3 is also available for Linux for a suggested retail price of $9,900 (US) with an annual maintenance of $1485 (US). Render-only versions of Shake 3 are free on Mac OS X and are available for Linux for a suggested retail price of $3,900 (US) with an annual maintenance of $585 (US). Contact an Apple Authorized Professional Film Reseller to purchase."

There is an IRIX version? They sure aren't advertising it!

[jaiqua]

Originally posted by Eug:
Hmmmm... I wasn't aware of that. How many Irix licences have they sold in comparison to Linux and (recently) OS X?

Is there financial justification for it, or are they simply trying to muscle SGI out of the picture? Even though the CPUs for SGI hardware aren't so fast, the specs of the rest of the hardware can be quite impressive (for $$$$ of course though).

Yup, they're wanting Irix Shake users to migrate to OS X over time, there was a notice up on Apple's site a while back deatailing the timescale for phasing out the Irix version. It's not there now, but on the main Shake page they are advertising only the OS X, and Linux versions, although, you can still buy the Irix release if you dig through Apple site. It's a bit crazy, and asking people to pay am exobitant amount over the OS X version for the Linux one tells me that the yare aggresively pushing users onto OS X only.

I'm not sure about the numbers of seats on Irix/Linux, but I know many studios are still on Irix with a view to maybe moving to Linux. One of the key benefits is having scanned film data shuttled onto the SGI's (for which they are still quite strong) for various grading work, and then put into Shake. The beauty if this is that studios don't really have to invest in new hardware just yet, but also, many sudios are looking to cheaper Linux boxes if they were.

I last used Shake on an Octane 2 and it just flew, I had Flame running alongside to make use of some of the layer tools, and to be able to have both apps. running on the same machine helped out no end.

I'm not against Apple buying software houses, but I'm always wary when platform shifts are thrust upon me for no apparent reason.

[Eug]

Originally posted by jaiqua:
Maya is pretty useless on the Mac until professional, and semi-decent GFX boards are released. Until then 3D just sucks.

In what way does it suck? What would your response be to this post?

[jaiqua]

Originally posted by Eug:
In what way does it suck? What would your response be to this post?

Lol, One example is the use of Ati, their cards are crud for very high-end apps. now, too flaky drivers, plus colour accuracy that is no match for nVidia. Stable drivers are just one part of the equation, and ATi have been lacking sorely for a while. It's true that some of these cards can excel in games, but use them for 3D then you'll notice the brick wall.


Both nVidia, and ATi make their higher-end tech cards forthe low-end gaming market, the thing to note is the lack of some very specific features for 3D.

[Eug]

Originally posted by jaiqua:
Both nVidia, and ATi make their higher-end tech cards forthe low-end gaming market, the thing to note is the lack of some very specific features for 3D.

Yeah, but what specific features, and how much of that can be covered simply by improving the OS X drivers?

[jaiqua]

Originally posted by Eug:
Yeah, but what specific features, and how much of that can be covered simply by improving the OS X drivers?

Not a lot, we need to see cards that can push x amount more triangles around than what is currently available. Things like texture memory, shading, and so on are secondry, and most of it for real-time graphics in games .But for 3D we need high vertex no. support, and so on.

[jaiqua]

Here's an example of what I mean. The FireGLX2 can push 3.3G pixels/sec, whereas the Geeforce FX5200 which comes with the G5 only pushes 81 million. It's pretty much the same for other factors too.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by jaiqua:
Here's an example of what I mean. The FireGLX2 can push 3.3G pixels/sec, whereas the Geeforce FX5200 which comes with the G5 only pushes 81 million. It's pretty much the same for other factors too.

Yeah, but a GeForceFX 5200 is no Radeon 9800 Pro.

[jaiqua]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
Yeah, but a GeForceFX 5200 is no Radeon 9800 Pro.

True, but a 9800 Pro is a multmedia card, and is still a far cry from being a capable product for 3D work, or even comparing to a FireGL, or nVidia similar offering.

[Eug]

Originally posted by jaiqua:
True, but a 9800 Pro is a multmedia card, and is still a far cry from being a capable product for 3D work, or even comparing to a FireGL, or nVidia similar offering.

Well, the hardware between gaming cards and pro cards is very similar these days. As posted elsewhere:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2003-01/3dsmax.gif

But yeah, Apple does need pro video cards.

[jaiqua]

Originally posted by Eug:
Well, the hardware between gaming cards and pro cards is very similar these days. As posted elsewhere:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2003-01/3dsmax.gif

But yeah, Apple does need pro video cards.

Yeah, but the fireGL x1 is a crummy card. The game cards sufferr from defecits in vrey specific needed features of 3D, also combined with the driver problem, and if the drivers are flaky (more times than not), then ther card just fails to be of use. FireGL is a bad example. even the newer ones still lag behind nVidia, combined with awful drivers.

[DeathMan]

Well the front page of macnn is now reporting that SGI is shopping around for a buyer for its Maya software. Sooooo, as a mac user, I'd be interested in an Apple owned, and improved version of Maya.

Assuming we get better GFX cards in the nearish future, with an Apple owned Maya, Apple could quickly become THE solution for 3D. Who wants to futz with IRIX when they can get a cluster of G5s for the price of an SGI/IRIX setup.

With Shake, Apple dropped the price on the Mac version to get people to come over. They didn't jack up the price on IRIX. Why would Apple support a product on another platform? Any Shake support for windows, linux or IRIX, is a loss to them as a hardware company. As a computing platform, it has every incentive to buy a software package, fix it up in a way only it can do, support other platforms long enough to get people comforatbaly moved over, and then drop support.

The only time these tactics are off limits is when you have a monopoly, and you abuse that monopoly in one area to kill off competitors. If Apple buys Maya, do you think suddenly Lightwave or 3DS Max is going to just fall over? If MS did it, and bundled it for free with windows, maybe it would.

Maybe I'm an apple appologist, I don't know. But I think if I buy a piece of software (IP, not a license) I can do whatever I want with it, as long as I'm not breaking the law (which Apple hasn't done with Shake).

An example of this is Halo. I'm not pissed at MS for not releasing it as a Mac only app. Duh, I wouldn't expect them to do that. I'm pissed at Bungie for selling out to MS.

So if Apple buys Maya, and kills IRIX support, write a letter to Alias, not Apple.



Fine, thats it.

[intastella]

I bet if Apple bought Alias they could get some killer cards supported on the Mac.

BTW, at school we have some PC's with nVidia Quadro cards. Is that the caliber card Macs need to rock with 3D or are they even more specialized?

[rezonate]

Originally posted by DeathMan:

So if Apple buys Maya, and kills IRIX support, write a letter to Alias, not Apple.



Fine, thats it.

it's not the Irix version that one has to wory about, that one is dying, it's the Linux and Windows versions. If Apple was to screw around with pricing like they do with Shake, or if they were dumb enough to drop those versions, then they'd be in real trouble. Animation Studios don't go out and buy hardware just like that, they are pretty much tied into working solutions that they have already, and currently the non-OS X platforms offer far moire flexibility in terms of hardware, and software choices.

The main reason for houses to drop SGI was price, and performance, it was being able to pick up SGI quality hardware at a price far less and that isn't changing soon.

I'm hoping it isn't Apple that is behind this, and I've a feeling that it isn't.

[rezonate]

One thing to note, if it's not Apple then the buyer might actualy drop the Mac version. One of the reasons being forward for the sale is Aias moving away from the SGI market. I know that the Mac version isn't up there with the linux/Windows, and also not selling as well, so there could be some cost-cutting by dropping Mac Mays.