I believe it is possible. It has long been rumored that alias|wavefront was having some trouble, and it is no secret that Apple is looking to expand its creative applications. It seems a perfect fit. It is interesting to note, however, that Pixar (the “other” company) is interested in the use of and the code-base of Lightwave. Hmmm….
On 2002-03-09 00:21, Brad Smith wrote:
I believe it is possible. It has long been rumored that alias|wavefront was having some trouble, and it is no secret that Apple is looking to expand its creative applications. It seems a perfect fit. It is interesting to note, however, that Pixar (the “other” company) is interested in the use of and the code-base of Lightwave. Hmmm….
Brad
Brad,
Where did you get this info on Pixar and Lightwave? I LOVE Lightwave. It is the first 3d app I learned to use, and think it is super cool.
With Apple having just bought high end film compositing applications from NothingReal (Shake & Tremor), not to mention their excellent professional editing application Final Cut Pro, it would make sense that they’d be looking at the top of the line for 3D. Alias|Wavefront’s Maya would be the obvious choice.
It’s pretty much accepted that SGI has dropped the ball in the high end film and broadcast visual effects market and a lot of post production companies are still sitting on the fence as to what direction they need to go with their future hardware and OS strategy. It should also be noted that the majority of these shops already have Mac’s as a part of their pipeline to one degree or another.
I think what we’re seeing (and what’s still coming) is Apple making some bold moves to get a bigger presence in the film/broadcast/visual effects market. Apple wants to be the new SGI, and I personally, think they’re the company best equipped to attempt this. Good luck to them.
no, this is not a good idea. I love Apple and I love Maya (which I use since 4 years) so why then is this not good?
I have used Maya on OSX and NT and I have to report that there is a very big performance gap. G4 machines are really fast when doing photshop or after effects work but NOT when 3d rendering. A dual AMD 1900+ costs less than 2000 USD and delivers nearly the double render performance over a dual 1ghz G4. I am sorry to say this I would like this is not true but it is a hard fact. When building large render farms or dealing with huge poygon scenes there is currently no other way than using pc machines = half the cost and double performance. In the Case Apple buys AliasWavefront and stopps developing Maya for PC I can tell you for shure that most of the 3d Artist now using pc’s won’t using macs - they will switch to XSI or LW or Max. Don’t misunderstood me, I welcome maya on OSX, but for most studios it is essential to have the choice of using multiple platforms. As much as I love my G4, when doing Highend 3d stuff with heavy scenes it is absolutely not important if I use a mac or a pc- you just want the fastest available machine to get the job done. Things are changing of course- 3 years ago the powerPC was much faster in 3d rendering than pentiums, - of course this can happen again in the near future. I will always take the fastest one, no matter which label the box has.
Apple did excellents jobs with finalcutpro and dvdstudio, there is no doubt, but bear in mind, that the 3d market is slightly different. FinalCutPro for example is very easy to learn and therefore it is used by a large number of non technical people. Maya instead is a huge monster, it is not a application where you can quickly do cool things, non technical people need a huge amount of time to learn this app. And most of the technical 3D operators prefer using linux or nt. Maya really does not help apple, If they would do that, I guess it would be the end of maya, because to develop such a complicated app u need the money from as much users as you can get. Loosing the huge amount of pc users would cut the financial earnings to dramatically.
On 2002-03-09 00:21, Brad Smith wrote:
It is interesting to note, however, that Pixar (the “other” company) is interested in the use of and the code-base of Lightwave. Hmmm….
Where did you get this info on Pixar and Lightwave? I LOVE Lightwave. It is the first 3d app I learned to use, and think it is super cool.
Mitch,
I found it in a forum post by the editor of Architosh:
G4 machines are really fast when doing photshop or after effects work but NOT when 3d rendering….
You’re quite right. However, I have heard some great reports of Maya 4 on OSX. Apparently they’ve optimised it heavily for the G4 and it’s showing great promise. Not to mention the fact that people can still use their Linux render farms for projects they originated on a Mac.
On 2002-03-09 00:21, Brad Smith wrote:
It is interesting to note, however, that Pixar (the “other” company) is interested in the use of and the code-base of Lightwave. Hmmm….
Where did you get this info on Pixar and Lightwave? I LOVE Lightwave. It is the first 3d app I learned to use, and think it is super cool.
Mitch,
I found it in a forum post by the editor of Architosh:
G4 machines are really fast when doing photshop or after effects work but NOT when 3d rendering….
You’re quite right. However, I have heard some great reports of Maya 4 on OSX. Apparently they’ve optimised it heavily for the G4 and it’s showing great promise. Not to mention the fact that people can still use their Linux render farms for projects they originated on a Mac.
I hope so. I’d posted render benchmarks before for the G4 vs. x86 and the results have always been rather disheartening for both Maya and Lightwave. Top of the line G4s always seem to come in at about 1/4 the speed of the top Pentium systems. If Apple is trying to push into SGI’s market as a creative workstation, they really need to get those render times down.
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