Revolutionary New Paint Technology Simplifies the Creation of Realistic Special Effects and Natural Detail in Maya’s 3D Environments

LAS VEGAS - Alias|Wavefront, an SGI (NYSE:SGI) company, announced Maya Paint Effects, a groundbreaking new brush-based software technology that will be included with a future version of Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited. When integrated fully into the Maya 3D user environment, Paint Effects is a unique artist’s tool for the instantaneous creation of organic elements such as plants, hair, lightning and fire. It provides complete interaction with the lighting, shadows, depth values and animation within Maya scenes and boasts a myriad of preset brushes to create countless forms of real and surreal nature.

Maya Paint Effects extends Alias|Wavefront’s tradition of artistic innovation by raising the standard for aesthetic beauty and natural realism in computer generated imagery. It uses familiar, painterly metaphors to redefine the way artists add beauty and complexity to 3D scenes, providing users with the tools to create captivating scenes in a matter of minutes.

Paint Effects is designed to be similar to a traditional paint package, with the added benefit that Paint Effects strokes actually understand 3D space; artists can paint on 2D, and on or between 3D objects within Maya. Paint Effects strokes can be rapidly "brushed in" to construct visually stunning, fully rendered scenes in minutes. A single Paint Effects stroke can create anything—from a field of wheat blowing in the wind, to fully animated lightning bolt effects, or a plate full of curled spaghetti pasta. The real-time Paint Effects brushes can be virtually unlimited in number and variety, and fully animated and customized by the user.

Paint Effects reinforces Alias|Wavefront’s position as an industry leader in 3D animation and visual effects software innovation. "Maya Paint Effects is truly a breakthrough product," says Jill Jacob, Paint Effects product manager for Alias|Wavefront. "It ushers in a new era for creating realistic detail in synthetic computer imagery, without compromising artistic values. Artists will wonder how they ever got along without these capabilities."

"I am incredibly impressed with how quickly I was able to create and render complex and interesting effects with Paint Effects," says Loren Olson of Rhonda Graphics, who used Paint Effects in early testing. "Immediately after installing the software, I was able to easily make images that previously would have been very difficult or impossible to create. Paint Effects’ speed in rendering these large scenes is phenomenal."

Paint Effects Features Include:

• Parameter Based Strokes – Paint strokes are based on parameters that can be animated and changed over time. Many of the preset brushstrokes have built-in dynamics settings such as turbulence and gravity for automatic animation. Settings can also be keyframed for additional control.
• Resolution Independent – Brushstrokes are resolution independent and can be rendered to arbitrary final image sizes.
• Real-Time Rendering – Paint Effects’ strokes are immediately visible in rendered form as they are drawn, providing immediate feedback to the user.
• Versatile Strokes—Paint Effects’ strokes can be used with 3D objects and planes in Maya, or on 2D canvases and image files. Strokes can also be selected and removed in a nonlinear fashion within 3D scenes.
• Brush Wrap – Paint Effects’ automatic wrapping ability makes it ideal for the creation of repeating textures of any size for games and interactive applications.
• Preset Library – A large library of preset brushes includes everything from simple oil and wet brushes, chalks, pencils and markers to complex "natural phenomena" effects brushes, such as glows, plasmas, trees, plants, hair, and fur. Favorite brush presets can easily be saved to create customized libraries.

Pricing And Availability
Paint Effects will be an integral part of Maya and will be included with Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited in a subsequent release later this year. Maya Complete has a SRP of $7,500 (US) and includes modeling, rendering, animation, dynamics, Artisan and MEL, an open interface for programming and scripting Maya. Maya Unlimited, has a SRP of $16,000 (US) and includes Maya™ Live, Maya™ Fur, Maya™ Cloth and additional rendering licenses. [Prices are indicated in US funds and will vary outside the US.]

About Alias|Wavefront
Alias|Wavefront provides artists with open workflow solutions for creative advantage. As the world’s leading innovator of 2D and 3D graphics technology, Alias|Wavefront develops software for the film and video, games, interactive media, industrial design, and visualization markets. Alias|Wavefront’s film and video customers include Blue Sky, Cinesite, CNN, Digital Anvil, Digital Domain, Dream Quest Images, Industrial Light & Magic, Pacific Data Images (PDI), Pixar, Santa Barbara Studios, Sony Pictures Imageworks, The Walt Disney Company, and Warner Feature Animation. Games/Interactive customers include CAPCOM, Electronic Arts, Iguana Entertainment, Interplay, Kronos Digital Entertainment, NAMCO, Naughty Dog, Nintendo, Rare, SEGA, 989 Studios, Square, Virtual Worlds Entertainment, and Williams/Bally Midway.