Maya Unlimited 6 for Mac OS X Available for Purchase in Late Summer 2004

San Francisco, California - WWDC - June 28, 2004 - Alias announced today the impending availability of Maya Unlimited for the Mac OS X operating system, at the Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). Responding to increasing customer demand from the Mac community, Alias is porting the entire Maya Unlimited feature set for Mac OS X with all tools that are available to artists with Maya Unlimited 6. Maya 6 is the latest version of the award-winning Maya software. Maya Unlimited 6 for Mac OS X will be available to purchase by late summer 2004.

"Due to overwhelming, consistent demand from the Mac community we're thrilled to announce Maya Unlimited will soon be available for Mac OS X," says Bob Bennett, general manager, product management at Alias. "Combining Maya's most sophisticated 3D and special effects tools with Apple's advanced technology will allow Mac artists to integrate Maya Unlimited into their pipelines for endless creative possibilities."

"Our customers and Apple are thrilled about this widely anticipated release of Maya Unlimited for Mac OS X," says Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "Alias is bringing advanced 3D graphic tools to creative professionals, who rely on the stability, high performance and graphics engine of Mac OS X."

Alias Loves the Mac
Since Maya Complete was released for Mac OS X in 2001, the enthusiasm of the Mac community for 3D software, and its potential for their workflow, has continued to grow. Sales figures for Maya consistently show approximately 29% of Maya Complete sales in North America on the Mac platform and approximately 20% globally (quarterly figures vary).

Alias continues to provide updated versions of Maya Personal Learning Edition for the Mac platform and in early June 2004 another Alias product debuted on the Mac platform - Alias SketchBook Pro. Alias SketchBook Pro is a consumer priced sketching, presenting and annotation software that is now available for both Mac OS X and Windows platforms.

"Maya Unlimited 6 for Mac OS X now literally puts all my tools right at my fingertips. The integration of Maya 6's ability to read layered Photoshop files has to be seen to be believed and is already bringing about a paradigm shift to my workflow," says Rob Magiera, founder of Noumena Digital. "Maya Unlimited's Hair, Cloth, and Fluid Effects features add the last missing tools to my graphics arsenal, so now I'll be able to handle every part of a project without having to jump to another machine. Put all of that into a rock solid, stable environment and it's a dream come true."

Maya Leverages Apple's Advanced Technology
Maya Unlimited leverages Apple advanced technology to take full advantage of the benefits found with the latest Apple offerings. Features of Maya for Mac OS X include; recent conversion of Maya to a Mach-O application, allowing plug-in developers to use Xcode from the Apple Developers Tools, AppleScript support for Maya Embedded Language (MEL - the Maya scripting language), Quartz rendering for marketing menus and hotbox, QuickTime implementation throughout the entire package, from file reading to direct output from Maya renders to QuickTime and QuickTime output for Maya's playblast command.

Unlimited Opportunities
The availability of Maya Unlimited for the Mac offers unlimited opportunity for artists. Maya Unlimited presents special effects features not found in Maya Complete, including: Maya Hair, Maya Cloth, Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Fur and Maya Live.
" Maya Hair
The Maya innovative Hair toolset, features a dynamic curve simulation engine designed to enable long hair to be added to characters. The ability to braid, curl and style hair is perfectly integrated with the Maya dynamics engine, allowing for strikingly realistic hair movement with accurate collisions. In addition to long hair effects, the Maya Hair dynamic curves represent a major new entity that can be used anywhere NURBS curves are currently used; as well as lending themselves to other hair-like objects such as ropes, chains and wires, this allows such advanced animation effects as dynamic character rigs and surfaces to be easily achieved.

" Maya Cloth and Maya Fur
Maya Cloth allows animators to equip digital clothing to characters and Maya Fur provides creatures with realistic fur. Visual feedback of Cloth stress, stitching options, easy manipulation of Cloth Objects based on geometry, plus extensive caching functionality speed the creation and manipulation of realistic clothing and cloth effects. Artists using Maya Fur have the option to render Fur in mental ray for Maya - allowing them to achieve effects involving reflections, refractions, global illumination and caustics.

" Maya Fluid Effects
Maya Fluid Effects includes a true 3D solver and a highly interactive 2D solver that allows 2D fluid motion to be simulated in near real-time. As well as creating natural phenomena, artists can use the fluids as an animated texture to give a unique look to a logo and many other typical studio projects. The effects that can be achieved include clouds, smoke, steam, fog, open water, fire, explosions, space effects, viscous liquids, molten solids and many more.

" Maya Live
Maya Live provides sophisticated matchmoving combining 2D live-action with 3D elements. It provides greater flexibility, a fast, integrated 2D tracker and an interactive root frame solver. Maya Live also allows users to reconstruct live-action elements as 3D geometry plus output to external applications.

Pricing and Availability
Maya Unlimited 6 for all platforms is priced at $6,999* and includes modeling, rendering, animation, dynamics, Maya Artisan, Maya Paint Effects, mental ray for Maya, MEL, along with Maya Unlimited specific features; Maya Hair, Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Fur, Maya Cloth and Maya Live. Maya Unlimited is also available for the Windows, Linux and IRIX operating systems. Maya Unlimited for Mac OS X will begin shipping in late summer 2004.

Maya Complete 6 for the Windows, IRIX, Linux and Mac OS X operating systems, is priced at $1,999* and, is available to purchase through the Alias network of authorized resellers or online at: http://www.alias.com.

* Prices are list prices for node-locked licenses. Floating licenses for Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited are available at an additional fee. All prices quoted are in U.S. dollars. International pricing may vary.

About Alias
As the world's leading innovator of 3D graphics technology, Alias develops award-winning software, custom development and training solutions for the film and video, games, web, interactive media, automotive, industrial design, education and visualization markets. On March 1, 2003, for the awards year 2002, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Alias|Wavefront™ an Oscar® for scientific and technical achievement for the development of Maya software, the professional 3D animation and effects package. Alias also offers a powerful range of services for new to advanced users in the most demanding environments. Learning Tools and training, support, and professional services help meet rigorous production deadlines.

Entertainment customers include: Acclaim Entertainment, Inc., CNN, Digital Domain, Disney, DreamWorks, Electronic Arts, Industrial Light & Magic, Factor 5 LLC, Midway Games, Nintendo, Pacific Data Images (PDI), Pixar, Sega, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Square Co., Ltd., Warner Feature Animation and Weta Ltd. Design customers include AT&T, BMW, Boeing, Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Italdesign, Kodak, Kwikset, Mattel, Price Pfister, Renault, Rollerblade, Sharp, Trek Bicycle, Teague and Timex.

Alias is headquartered in Toronto with a Custom Development Center in Santa Barbara. Please visit the Alias website at http://www.alias.com or call 1-800-447-2542 in North America. International contact numbers include: Northern Europe, Middle East and Africa, +44 (0) 1494 441273; Germany, East & Southeast Europe, 0049 89 31 70 20; France, Spain and Portugal, +33 1 44 92 81 60; Italy, 39 039 6340011; Japan and other parts of Asia Pacific, 81 3 5797 3500- and Latin America, 770 393 1881.
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© Copyright 2004 Alias Systems Corp. ("Alias"). All rights reserved. Alias and Maya are registered trademarks and the swirl logo, the Maya logo, MEL, SketchBook and Alias|Wavefront are trademarks of Alias in the United States and/or other countries. IRIX is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. mental ray is a registered trademark of mental images GmbH & Co. KG in the United States and/or other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Windows is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Apple, AppleScript, Macintosh, Mac, Mac OS, Quartz and QuickTime are registered trademarks and Xcode is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. registered in the U.S. and other countries. Oscar is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All other products or companies mentioned are trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

Alias, 210 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5A 1J7, Tel: 416-362-9181, Fax: 416-369-6140.

For more information, contact:

Lynn Lim
Marketing Manager
Alias, South Asia Pacific
Tel: +65 6236 2545
Email: llim@alias.com