Datasheet

Part I ✦ Getting Started with Maya 4.5

Maya for Windows opened up a new world of possibilities for the every day animator.

My own personal history serves as an example of the difficulties in working with

costly 3D animation packages and equipment. When I started using 3D animation

software, the price of a SGI workstation and 3D software started at well over $60,000.

And according to a friend of Don’s, who started using Alias software at version 1.5,

the software cost about $150,000. And the computer cost just as much as the soft-

ware. Despite the hefty price tag, the results were limited — we could only create fly-

ing text and primitives.

Meanwhile, very few schools had a computer animation curriculum, let alone the

SGI computers and 3D software needed, which are shown in Figure 1-2. I had to

land a job at one of the few places that owned the equipment and software to cut

my teeth as a 3D character animator. Creating dancing Campbells soup cans and

flying MasterCard logos by day, enabled me to practice creating characters by

night. Many people who entered the industry at that time had to follow similar

paths because of the equipment’s prohibitive cost. In addition, training was all

but nonexistent.

Figure 1-2: Picture of Silicon Graphics Octane machines, which were the only

computers in the past that were capable of running Maya properly. They are still

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