Looks like were finally going to see the light of day with Mental Ray!
Toronto (Oct. 29, 2001) -- Alias|Wavefront(tm), an SGI (NYSE: SGI) company, announced that its recently unveiled mental ray(r) for Maya(r) technology will be available as an optional plug-in renderer for Maya before the end of the year. mental ray for Maya, a tightly integrated rendering solution that maximizes the strengths of both award-winning products, is currently in the beta stage of its development. In addition to this new integrated rendering option, Alias|Wavefront will also offer mental ray Stand Alone rendering licenses for increased interactive rendering speed within Maya as well as for use in batch rendering.
"mental ray users have been anxiously awaiting Maya integration and we are pleased to announce that we will soon deliver a solution that thoroughly meets their production needs," states Alias|Wavefront General Manager, Bob Bennett. "mental ray for Maya is not merely a "tacked on" translator that forces artists to jump back and forth between applications to achieve their desired look and feel. It is fully-integrated with Maya, allowing artists to remain in the Maya environment at all times so there is no need to re-learn a new texturing, shading, or lighting workflow."
mental ray for Maya is an optional and fully integrated plug-in renderer for Maya that offers all the features and tools available in mental images' renowned mental ray renderer version 3.0. It will be available to customers in either node locked or floating license configurations.
"mental ray for Maya is not a third-party add-on product," states Thomas Driemeyer, Director of Engineering at mental images. "It is an Alias|Wavefront product, thoroughly integrated with Maya and therefore does not require scenes to be exported to a separate standalone renderer - thus avoiding very expensive double translation and huge intermediate scene files. Being fully integrated, it hooks into various parts of Maya and adds all the necessary buttons, menus, options, etc. to the Maya GUI. Plus, it is also fully integrated with Maya's shader networks by way of mental ray's Phenomenon(tm) Graph Facility. Now mental ray is fully integrated with Maya as an interactive renderer - with no program boundaries to cross. Maya users can work the way they are accustomed to."
Pricing and Availability
Alias|Wavefront will make mental ray for Maya and the mental ray Stand Alone renderer available in December 2001. The products, which may be purchased through all authorized Alias|Wavefront sales offices and resellers, can be purchased in the following configurations:
· mental ray for Maya node locked (dual CPU) - $3995 per license
· mental ray for Maya floating (dual CPU) - $4795 per license
· mental ray Stand Alone floating (1-7 CPUs) - $1950 per CPU
· mental ray Stand Alone floating (8 - 47 CPUs) - $1250 per CPU
· mental ray Stand Alone floating (over 47 CPUs) - $1000 per CPU
Prices are indicated in US funds and may vary outside the US. Some shipping fees may apply. Annual maintenance is available for purchase.
About Alias|Wavefront
As the world's leading innovator of 3D graphics technology, Alias|Wavefront develops software for the film and video, games, web, interactive media, industrial design, and visualization markets.
Entertainment customers include Blue Sky, Cinesite, CNN, Digital Domain, Disney's The Secret Lab, Electronic Arts, Industrial Light & Magic, Midway Games, Nintendo, Pacific Data Images (PDI), Pixar, Sega, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Square Co., Ltd., Warner Feature Animation and Weta Ltd.
Alias|Wavefront is a wholly owned, independent software company of SGI(tm) with headquarters in Toronto and technical centers in Seattle and Santa Barbara. Please visit the Alias|Wavefront website at
http://www.aliaswavefront.com or call 1-800-447-2542 in North America. Readers in Europe can call +800 4125 4125 or 800 791 174 in the Middle East and Africa and 81 3 3470 8285 in Asia-Pacific for the nearest sales office or authorized reseller in their area.
