Apple keynote announcement: Maya Unlimited coming to Mac OS X

[Funk Ride]

For all you Mac users, it's out in late summer.

[SheepFactory]

Says who?


PLEASE POST LINKS , DO NOT POST RUMOURS UNDER CG NEWS!

[KreatorOvWorldz]

'Tis true folks! It was just announced about 10 minutes ago at WWDC. You can read a transcript of it at www.macrumors.com. :bounce: :buttrock:

[Funk Ride]

For Sheepfactory:

It's not a rumour, there are no links to this news since Alias' General Manager has just broadcasted it at the Apple WWDC conference. I'm sure a press release will pop up later. But, the news is true.

[saratoga]

Says who?


PLEASE POST LINKS , DO NOT POST RUMOURS UNDER CG NEWS!

Not a rumor.

We'll have more soon here: http://www.aliasusergroup.com

Cheers,

Rick

[alexentremont]

Here is a link:

http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/maya_unlimited/index_mac.shtml

[onlooker]

I'm dancin' You know it... I'm dancin' You know it. """ """ """ """ """ U know it. :D (http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/maya_unlimited/index_mac.shtml)

[ThePrintMaster]

I eagerly await all mac haters comments.

[Recursive]

I eagerly await all mac haters comments.
macs are like.. bad and stuff!

[chadtheartist]

Sweetness!

Definitely a good thing IMO. I bet this has to do with their new-found freedom. Let's just hope that they can utilize the G5 like it can be used.

[onlooker]

Absolutely. Check out Apples site, and OS X Tigers features. It looks awesome, and full 64-bit-ness is going be trick. Chameleon 64-bit/32-bit.

Check out XCode 2.0 while your at it. It's set up with a Ala-Shake-ish node interlinking interface

Write Chameleon Code


Tiger simplifies software distribution with support for Fat Binaries, an application that contains both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries within a single file. Using Fat Binaries, network administrators distribute a single version of an application to all users regardless of their system capabilities. Once installed on a user’s system, the Fat Binary automatically selects the appropriate code for the system without user intervention. This greatly simplifies administration, installation and distribution of applications.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/64bit.html

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/xcode.html

Core Image looks quite promising too.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/core.html

[HamsaPaksham]

I actually envy all the Mac users!!!
Mac is an experience, since I put my hands in one I could not stop thinking the day I´ll have the money to buy one :)
What a design!!!!
The interface is slick, the OS is animated, everything is much faster than Windows XP, and it works.
Ah, and it has Shake and Final Cut, wich became industry standards.

With Maya Unlimited now, and the supercomputer G5 on it, it will the "Animator´s Dream", like once it was for graphic designers.

The only tiny little problem: It´s too expensive compared to pc´s.

[moovieboy]

All I can think is... Amen!

It's been a serious thorn in many a Mac 3D user's side to be held back by "Maya Complete" only. It was like there was bouncer with a velvet rope saying, "Oh no. You don't get into the special fur and cloth room."

(Gee that DOES sound slightly pornographic, doesn't it?) :D

I hope those who have been saying they'd purchase it do so as soon as it's available to validate Alias' decision. :) Yippee!!

-Tom

[swardson]

oh yeah!!!! this is like the best news I have had all week. I cant wait. And checking out Tiger as well. Things are lookin good. :buttrock: :applause: :bounce:

[blacknoise]

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

yeah! yeah! yeah!

[agreenster]

I bet we see it at Siggraph...Apple is supposed to have a big presence there this year

[mummey]

I eagerly await all mac haters comments.
I early await 3d Studio Max for the Mac... :D :twisted:

[hmurchison]

Ahhhh this is very cool.

I really like the metadata they've added. It doesn't sound like a half-assed attempt by any stretch of the imagination. In 5 years we'll all have over a terabyte of storage, finding things will be difficult unless search functions are up to par.

64bit pointers. Bring on the 2GB dimms!! Also the kernel has synced with BSD 5.x which offers better SMP support w/fine grain locking. Hmmm maybe that portends a Quad Powermac eventually?

Core Image/Video. Very cool ...I must know more about this. Looks like Apple made it easier to tap into Quartz Extreme. I'm gathering it's like this. You write an app or plugin and you know you want to support x set of features. Core Image/video should allow you to simply call up whatever Image Units you need(Bread n Butter stuff) and let you focus on the unique stuff. Core Video was used to create Motion so it obviously works.

Automater just may be pretty cool. I'll have to see it in action but I love the concept.

Dashboards- I am not much of a fan of these little widgets. I think this may have best been left to Konfabulator or Stattoo.

Now Apple give us some fire breating 3D cards and we'll be happy campers.

[chadtheartist]

http://www.apple.com/displays/

Driving Force

The 30-inch Cinema HD Display is so big, it requires the next level of graphics technology. TheNVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL graphics card delivers, with the most advanced graphics engine available for Mac. This card, designed specifically to support the dual link DVI connection, delivers 2560 by 1600 resolution. Even better, it can drive two 30-inch displays, giving you the ultimate creative canvas. This $599 card will be available as a built to order option and as a standalone kit in August 2004.


I'm not too familiar with todays graphics cards, but is there a reason this is $600?

[Funk Ride]

I'm glad Maya Unlimited is being released, but this year's WWDC was a real letdown, IMO. Tiger seemed really lacklustre, albeit it's a very early release. Of not is the metadata indexing service, it's not in the same league as Longhorn's WinFS, but it is a start. The dashboard feature loked awful, I only eve used Konfabulator on occasions, but Apple's version is not oushing any boundariies, loks worse in fact. What irked me the most though, was the Longhorn jabs by Apple, seemed silly when they demonstrated virtually nothing that copares to what Longhorn is doing. We'll see though. It's not released till next year, and 10.4 wil be the version of OS X that will tackle Longhorn square on.

What I want in Tiger, is for SMB to be bloody working and reliable. Networking across the board to be consistently on par with what what one expects. Firewire devices that don't just freak out on me on a regular basis. Dynamically updating Finder windows. These are such basic things, but Apple seem to never fix them, and yet throw sparkly new gadgets our way. Not good in a production environment.

Other notes of contention. Hardware accelerated video and images. Hmm, Linux and Windows have had this for years. GUI consistency needs to be sorted too.

And to bring this all back to 3D, Apple, get more pro GFX cards out there.

There, lots of contention. :)

All in all, a fairly muted WWDC.

[hmurchison]

Funk I respect your post although I find it to be short sighted.

Apple only divulged %10 of what they consider a "feature". They provided what they felt was most salient at this time.

Metadata simply "means data about data" . Longhorn won't be out for over 2 years giving Apple a huge lead here once Tiger ships. I doubt that consumers really care about the technical challenges of metadata. They simply want to search and quickly find files. The only ? I see about Tiger's implementation is how well it will do moving across FS and platforms. We'll see I'm not going to fault Spotlight until I know more about it's inner workings.

Firewire issues, Finder issues, Networking. Those are all worked on but that's not something you highlight in a 2hr keynote. Panther fixed a lot of issues that didn't get any press either. There's no excitement in fixing bugs.

Other notes of contention. Hardware accelerated video and images. Hmm, Linux and Windows have had this for years. GUI consistency needs to be sorted too.

No you're mistaking the acceleration. 2D graphics has been HW accelerated for over a decade. What Core Image/Video allows developers to do is tap into the GPU to process images and video WITH other processing methods and plugins which normally require rendering. This isn't just accelerating video this is accelerating the video and the processing on the video using your GPU. The nice thing is by having a central and systemwide approach much less lines of code are needed. Expect to see small apps that do great things with images or video that increase with the speed of your GPU. Just like Motion Apple's motion graphics app. Windows won't be here until Longhorn and Linux ..who knows?

BSD 5.x revamped the kernel with better SMP support. Tiger is now synced with BSD 5.x. This is important. Say Apple is shipping Dual 3Ghz Powermacs next year with SMT or Dual Cores. That means our kernel now has to schedule the I/O of 4 or 8 logical CPUs as efficiently as possible. BSD 5.x has the features we need for this and it's coming faster than we all expect.

64bit processes are huge. To most of us that may mean running Maya in 8GB of RAM. To those running apps like Mathematica that may mean processing data in chunks twice the size of todays app. More speed.

Automater may sound "ho hum" but to those who important say photo files from a camera and want to batch process them and then apply another action Automater will have them grinning from ear to ear. All these technologies have APIs that allow for developers to tap in and create some awesome apps.

Also let us not forget that OSX Tiger Server is being previewed as well. Access Control Lists, iChat Server, Mobile Home Dir, Software update Server and Xgrid.

Apple put the Developer back into WWDC. In order to understand the benefits it's going to take reading between the lines and seeing the potential of these new technologies.

This is a great move forward for Apple and I'm sure most of the niggling little problems that Panther has will be addressed either in future Panther updates or when Tiger ships.

[UrbanFuturistic]

Also let us not forget that OSX Tiger Server is being previewed as well. Access Control Lists, iChat Server, Mobile Home Dir, Software update Server and Xgrid.Now, why do I feel an OSX for hillbillies joke comin' on :D

Seriously, Funk Ride, when they say better SMP support with fine grain locking, they mean more stable and reliable SMP. Did you just not read the posts before replying?

There is substantially more on it here (http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/unix.html) just in case you missed it the first time 'round.

As for firewire, well, that's also the job of the kernel so the update may well fix those problems as well.

C'Mon people, let's not judge this system before it's actually released eh?

Besides, if Sun do another XFS on us, Linux'll be kicking WinFS's arse! :buttrock: Of course, out of Apple and MS, Apple seems to have the better approach where the world and their dog won't have to rewrite all their software just to deal with a new file management system.

regards, Paul

[Funk Ride]

Of course, Apple did only highlight a very few points of a very early developer release. But going on past experiences, the same issues kep coming up, mixed with the same promises.

Metadata: 10.4's isn't the same widespread core implementation as WinFS in Longhorn, it's a metadata-like indexing service, very different. To the end users it might seem trabsparent, but it holds a number of problems for future releases which would be better served by a metadata driven file-system. That's the major differnce here. Tiger's implementation is nowhere near what Longhorn's is, they are vastly different beasts, ie, network based WinFS.

The hardware accelerarion is already available on Windows/Linux systems, has been since Win2K's GDI+. Apple is playing catch up here.

SMB support: It doesn't matter what they choose to implement, it's how they try to achieve it. Networking in Panther is a joke, it really is, especially in a mixed environment. They might decide to follow the BSD 5.x route, but that in itself holds several problems as experienced by BSD systems as they are just now. Apple claimed in Panther that there would be seamless sdupport for SMB, but it doesn't bear much on reality when in use. I've sen far too many issues here. What they claim to be fixed hasn't transpired so far. I heard all this with jaguar, then Panther. SMB is now fixed, uh huh.

Firewire: Again, this is still one major hasssle. Acessing external FW drives brings the system down to a crawl more times than not.

Although Apple only showed a fraction of what wil be, that is not to say what wil come is resolution to these basic issues.
Finder: Again, no dynamically updating windows, it's a pain. The numerous GUI issues that ake OS X sem half-hearted. These are things that should be addessed before lumping in something like Dashboard. Yes, we could say that they are just highlighting some of the main new features, but I bet tgose I listed abovce won;'t be resolved. Why? I've heard the same things in the past, but when it comes to release, none of them are addressed.

In fact. I found the whole Longhorn jibes by Apple to be quite funny. It seems |Apple are playing catch-up here, and what they should is what is either in XP, or wil be longhorn, but better. Look at that Finder window, a direct rip from Longhorn's search functions in Window views.

[Funk Ride]

Here's a good discussion disecting what has been shown so far.

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=48409524&m=225009094631

The Mac thread

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?q=Y&a=tpc&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=885006094631&p=1

[leuey]

As a long time pc user (and former sgi and amiga user) I've been waiting a long time for the Mac to finally catch up in a few areas. And I have to say I'm extremely impressed by the direction Apple has taken in the last couple of years. They are pursuing this industry aggressively, and they have come a long way. OS X continues to build upon itself much more rapidly than the windows equivalent and is becoming very impressive. The pro. software has followed as well as the 3rd party hardware industry.


The only thing really lacking are faster processors - I would have liked to see Opterons, but it seems the IBM PowerPC's are just a generation from really taking off. I'm sure NVidia will make Quadros available if Maya Unlimited sells well. I'm not too far off from switching over methinks (and I mean everything - X-SAN, XServes for rendering, G5 for workstations) - just wainting for the next generation of processors before I do a cost analysis vs. the Opteron.

I really think Apple has taken up where SGI vacated. Assuming they don't make the same mistakes I think it will benefit us all.

So I have to say "Go Apple" - I'm impressed.

-Greg

[Funk Ride]

Seriously, Funk Ride, when they say better SMP support with fine grain locking, they mean more stable and reliable SMP. Did you just not read the posts before replying?

There is substantially more on it here (http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/unix.html) just in case you missed it the first time 'round.

It's just words, and not much in that page points to solving those issues. I'll be getting my WWDC disc this week so wil have time to see how it develops.

[dmeyer]

http://www.apple.com/displays/




I'm not too familiar with todays graphics cards, but is there a reason this is $600?

All the GeForce 6800 Ultras are in that range.

[Funk Ride]

The only thing really lacking are faster processors - I would have liked to see Opterons, but it seems the IBM PowerPC's are just a generation from really taking off. I'm sure NVidia will make Quadros available if Maya Unlimited sells well. I'm not too far off from switching over methinks (and I mean everything - X-SAN, XServes for rendering, G5 for workstations) - just wainting for the next generation of processors before I do a cost analysis vs. the Opteron.

It does seem that way which is good (I'm also an SGI user and ex-Amiga guy).

Several problems in this situation though. The hardware is still expensive compared to others. It's one of the reasons why most of us switched from SGI to Linux/Windows. Mac hardware also suffering froim lack options, ie. 3D GFX boards.
Software. Put Combustion, or Maya complete side by side withg those running on Windows, bang, the Mac versions run terribly in coparrison. It doesn;t matter how sweet the hardware is, or how modern the OS is. If the software underperforms on more expensive hardwarem they are screwed. Very few sales of Macs for 3D work are going to non-Mac studios, it's mostly pre-existing Mac post houses.

OS X is great, I use it next to Windows and Irix, but I'm under no illusions as to what is actually being offered.

[Funk Ride]

Besides, if Sun do another XFS on us, Linux'll be kicking WinFS's arse! :buttrock: Of course, out of Apple and MS, Apple seems to have the better approach where the world and their dog won't have to rewrite all their software just to deal with a new file management system.

regards, Paul
SGI created XFS and you can have it on Linux already. WinFS is a very powerful beast. What Apple have shown today is a metadata indexing service, not a new file system. It's basically the current indexing service with more options to ssearch through any piece of data on your Mac all via a GUI.

In fact, XP already has this capability via 3rd party filters (IFilter) which does exactly what this new Apple system does.

[hmurchison]

The hardware accelerarion is already available on Windows/Linux systems, has been since Win2K's GDI+. Apple is playing catch up here.
No I'm sorry you are confused. Quartz Extreme uses the GPU to accelerate and display vectors. Now with Core Image and Video Apple has gone one extra step and applied processing to data within the GPU as well. Linux and Windows do not have this in fact Longhorn will be the first Windows OS to support accerlation of vectors with GPU. Linux...who knows?

I'm not too worried about Metadata in the FS. OSX should easily accomodate a new FS when they're ready. I think it's important though to get consumers on board with learning how to utilize metadata. What potentially may happen is 10.4 eases us into retrieving files by using metadata and then eventually Apple will initiate a new FS that replaces the need for indexing. Longhorn is a ways away perhaps 3 years. Apple has quite a bit of time to get end users accustomed before making larger FS changes.

I'd bet money that OSX networking has improved. Tiger Server sounds pretty good to me and I think they'll get Samba right this time. Panther is so much smoother than Jaguar and I'm expecting no less than an equal amount of improvement in fluidity from Tiger.

There are still far more questions now than answers. Persusing the WWDC conference list I know there have been plenty of changes that Apple couldn't or wouldn't go into in the Keynote.

[UrbanFuturistic]

SGI created XFS and you can have it on Linux already. Ah yes, for the Altix 3000s, damn, I know what I'm talking about :p

On the issue of GDI+, from what I've read it doesn't actually accelerate the display of vectors, text and bitmaps but provide a common language interface for all types of communication from programs to screens and printers.

Now, I'll be damn surprised if someone can contradict me on this but I'm very tired so I may be talking moonshine but, many graphics cards may include GDI+ extensions but how does this provide any great deal more functionality than native postscript support in hardware? This is hardly on the level of OpenGL/Direct3D accelerated interfaces now is it?

I mean, if GDI+ is so bloody brilliant then why do Microsoft continue to develop DirectShow which, surely, must be redundant?

Read the specs folks (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/gdicpp/GDIPlus/GDIPlus.asp), we're talking hardware accelerated splines and still images at the most.

regards, Paul

[t-man152]

I have been wanting to switch to Apple for a while and this Maya Unlimited is exactly what I was waiting for. Now the last peice of the puzzle that will make me switch is professional graphics cards.

[nelsig]

Endly we will enjoy it on OSx, that's a great news

Thanks Alias :bounce:

[maxx10]

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

Unlimited on OSX and CoreImage/Video :buttrock:

[Funk Ride]

No I'm sorry you are confused. Quartz Extreme uses the GPU to accelerate and display vectors. Now with Core Image and Video Apple has gone one extra step and applied processing to data within the GPU as well. Linux and Windows do not have this in fact Longhorn will be the first Windows OS to support accerlation of vectors with GPU. Linux...who knows?
Ah, you're right. I just read a bit more about the core image/video stuff. My apologies.


I'm not too worried about Metadata in the FS. OSX should easily accomodate a new FS when they're ready. I think it's important though to get consumers on board with learning how to utilize metadata. What potentially may happen is 10.4 eases us into retrieving files by using metadata and then eventually Apple will initiate a new FS that replaces the need for indexing. Longhorn is a ways away perhaps 3 years. Apple has quite a bit of time to get end users accustomed before making larger FS changes.


To be honest, the search tools aren't that amazing in the grand scheme of things, even in Longhorn. Personally I'm quite organised and very occasionally have to search for anything. It wil come handy for document searches and the like, but hardly that big a deal.


I'd bet money that OSX networking has improved. Tiger Server sounds pretty good to me and I think they'll get Samba right this time. Panther is so much smoother than Jaguar and I'm expecting no less than an equal amount of improvement in fluidity from Tiger.
I hope so, because networking just now is just so unpredictable.


There are still far more questions now than answers. Persusing the WWDC conference list I know there have been plenty of changes that Apple couldn't or wouldn't go into in the Keynote.

Oh definitely. It's really a question of what will be there.

My beef in all this was the Longhorn jabs by Apple. I know MS do it too, but that bothers me when I use both OS' and like them both equally based on their strengths. So when I see a poster from Apple saying, 'Redmond... Get your Photocopies ready'. I had to laugh when Apple showed pretty much nothing that compares to Longhorn, or even to take the shine off of it.

[onlooker]

Funk Ride, being that Tiger is not being released until mid 2005 I think Apple will have plenty of time to accomplish all the things that you have quibbles over. It's pretty darn early, and you know Apple is very well aware of all that stuff. If you have watched the keynote (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc04/) you may agree that Tiger doesn't look too bad even now in this extremely early state of being. Again it is still pretty far off from being released. Some of why Apple releases those SDK's every year at WWDC is so a lot of great programmers, and tech heads out there that have these issues, or understand these issues can pool resources together to accomplish the best possible solutions.

On a side note... Did anyone see the water-drop effect in dashboard? When you launch a new app window in Tiger when the window pops out of the screen it appears to be coming out of a pool of water, and it ripples the screen around the area of the window. It was really cool stuff. It made the genie effect from the dock look pale in comparison. :D

[Marc Andreoli]

To be honest, the search tools aren't that amazing in the grand scheme of things, even in Longhorn. Personally I'm quite organised and very occasionally have to search for anything. It wil come handy for document searches and the like, but hardly that big a deal.
I wasn't too thrilled about the search tools either, until I saw Jobs demo of the birthdays in the calendar app: do a search for birthdays in the next seven days, create a 'dynamic' shortcut for that search and you get an updated list every day of birthdays to come... the cool thing being if this is integrated into the OS, then it is not just a nifty feature of a single app, it is giving you new ways to stay organized (for example, create a 'backup' folder with all your work since your last backup etc...).

[CourtJester]

Tiger simplifies software distribution with support for Fat Binaries, an application that contains both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries within a single file.Erm, forgive my ignorance of matters Mac, but why is the issue of 32-bit (680x0) code still relevant? There haven't been any new 680x0 Macs for years. Are there still enough of those old Quadras around to warrant support?

[onlooker]

Erm, forgive my ignorance of matters Mac, but why is the issue of 32-bit (680x0) code still relevant? There haven't been any new 680x0 Macs for years. Are there still enough of those old Quadras around to warrant support?


Common 32 bit Processors = Intel Pentium 4, Intel XEON. AMD Athlon™ XP-M Processor, MD Athlon™ XP Processor Model l 3200+, IBM, and Motorola G4, G3.

Common 64 Bit Processors IBM G5, AMD Athlon™ 64 & AMD Opteron™


Unless your writing this from 5 years from now 32 bit code is still not only common, but most apps are 32-bit.

Photoshop CS, Maya 6, XSI, Lightwave, ZBrush, C4D. Office 2004. Whatever- just about everything is 32-bit.

[CourtJester]

Unless your writing this from 5 years from now 32 bit code is still not only common, but most apps are 32-bit.
Damn, busted! I hope the Time Continuity Enforcement guys aren't listening! :D

I was only thinking of past Apple 32-bit CPU's, i.e. 680x0. I had no idea what the state of the art was for x86 emulation on the Mac. Veddy eenteresting!

[onlooker]

Damn, busted! I hope the Time Continuity Enforcement guys aren't listening! :D

I was only thinking of past Apple 32-bit CPU's, i.e. 680x0. I had no idea what the state of the art was for x86 emulation on the Mac. Veddy eenteresting!

You know I've been looking at your past 2 posts for days now, and I have no idea what you are talking about.

What the h3LL does emulating x86 on a Mac have to with any of this?

[UrbanFuturistic]

I think it should be pointed out at this moment that all PPC chips previous to the G5 are 32Bit, not 64Bit as CourtJester seems to think.

regards, Paul

[roger3d]

I have been wanting to switch to Apple for a while and this Maya Unlimited is exactly what I was waiting for. Now the last peice of the puzzle that will make me switch is professional graphics cards.
I have been cheking Maya's certified video cards:
http://www.alias.com/eng/support/maya/qualified_hardware/QUAL/maya_60_osx.html

Check the G5. It doesn't have "pro" cards, but it's all certified to run in OSX.
And Apple is selling that new card GeForce 68000 from nvidia, which will probably be supported as well, because if Macs don't have "pro" cards, Alias must make Maya compatible with the cards Macs has.

And isn't "pro" just a name they give to the cards just to say something like "it will run in your computer without problem with your pro software"?

I have a 3D Labs VP 560 and I'm sure the GeForce 68000 is waaayy faster than my entry level "pro" card.

So, if Alias support 6800, no problem at all to switch to Mac!:thumbsup:

[onlooker]

I don't think alias has to go through any trouble making Nvidia cards compatible with Maya. I'm pretty sure Nvidia takes care of that on their own. But Apple does update the nvidia drivers now, and then through software update which has on a few occasions made My video card perform better in Maya, and it was also noted in the software update panel that better performance in Maya should be expected. Not those exact words, but they listed what would be improved. I was happily pleased. :)

[KreatorOvWorldz]

I think the major sticky point with mac cards vs. pro cards is that pro card have an overlay plane that is used in the Maya UI, so without it, Mac Maya suffers from certain artifacts using tools like Paint Effects. It doesnt effect the rendered result, but it has to be an annoyance while working. I would imagine that Alias could fix this, maybe taking advantage of some of the mac os x core tech, now that its a Mach App. This would have been a big pain before hand, but not so much now. Tiger's Core Image can layer multiple filters on top of each other nondestructively using the GPU, Alias could take advantage of such tech to fix said glitches in Mac Maya.

I think there is hardware rendering issues with ATI cards as well, not to mention the various tweaks and stability ehancements pro cards get. But I dont believe that should necessarily be a barrier to using Macs for 3D

[Matt]

I eagerly await all mac haters comments.

"Say Hello to Slow."

:thumbsup:

[alexentremont]

The real difference between my Quadro FX500 (P4 3 Ghz) and my Geforce 4Ti (dual 1.25 G4) is that the Hardware Renderer actually works with my QuadroFX 500 (it crashes with the Geforce card even with scenes containing only 100k polygons).

Of course the Quadro card is faster (but not that much), and the brushes' display is rock solid, but the lack of such a "pro" card on the mac side doesn't make it a useless 3D platform. And I'm eagerly awaiting the Geforce 6800 for Mac: I may still have issues with brushes and the hardware renderer, but at least I'll have a really fast graphics card.

[KreatorOvWorldz]

If Alias has gone to the trouble of porting Unlimited then they must have over come the technical hurdles that they cited when Mac users complained there was no Unlimited through the last two Maya versions. Pretty sure, they were given a heads up or clue on the upcoming advancements from the Apple camp, I just dont buy that consumer demand was the ONLY factor in their decision to port, when they were talking up lack of hardware support for two years. It probably was a motivating factor, but technical hurdles are such that solving them requires investment. Then again I know nothing about the internal politics at Alias.

Maybe there will be some snazzy pro card introductions at SIGGRAPH, or maybe Maya Unlimited Mac has optimizations in software that circumvent problems introduced by Mac specific hardware. Or maybe Apple and Alias know something about the Apple hardware roadmap that we dont.

[dmeyer]

If Alias has gone to the trouble of porting Unlimited then they must have over come the technical hurdles that they cited when Mac users complained there was no Unlimited through the last two Maya versions. Pretty sure, they were given a heads up or clue on the upcoming advancements from the Apple camp, I just dont buy that consumer demand was the ONLY factor in their decision to port, when they were talking up lack of hardware support for two years. It probably was a motivating factor, but technical hurdles are such that solving them requires investment. Then again I know nothing about the internal politics at Alias.

Maybe there will be some snazzy pro card introductions at SIGGRAPH, or maybe Maya Unlimited Mac has optimizations in software that circumvent problems introduced by Mac specific hardware. Or maybe Apple and Alias know something about the Apple hardware roadmap that we dont.

Just out of curiosity...what technical hurdles does Unlimited present over and above that of Complete?

[KreatorOvWorldz]

I dont actually know what they would be, but when Mac users originally started requesting a port of Maya Unlimited, Alias cited a lack of workstation class graphics cards as the reason they was no port. That was their official position until WWDC. You can search the Alias forums for confirmation. Of course, noone outside of Alias actually knows if their reason was legitimate or if it was a reasonable sounding deflection. Noone else but someone familiar with the Maya code would be able to tell you what the hold up was, whether it was really a technical problem to overcome, or if there need to be enough financial motivation to merit the port, or both.

[dmeyer]

In every article I've read and in conversations with Alias they've always maintained that if the market became viable, they would do it...not that anything was technically holding them back. And considering that the features in Unlimited aren't any more graphics-card intensive than the ones in Complete, I believe em.

Guess the market became viable.

[chadtheartist]

I still think it has to do with Alias becoming their own company. IMO, it's too much of a coincidence that this has happen around the same time. Granted they would have had to start working on Unlimited for OS X awhile ago, but I'm sure this is a decision that the folks at Alias wanted to make for awhile.

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