Architosh News: Alias/Wavefront: Studio and Maya for Mac OS X

	Architosh News Reports
	Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

Alias/Wavefront: Studio and Maya for Mac OS X - Second Report Cont.

4 Apr 00

Disney, Pixar, Jobs and Maya on OS X

One of our informed readers had much to say about the trajectory of the 'Maya on Mac OS X campaign' -- most of which is quoted in full below and will make sense and seem appropriate given the details on BSD Unix development and Apple.

Speaking to a question about history:

"...as you know, many software companies explore new revenue sources with new projects. They investigate and put experimental teams on some jobs, which was the case of Maya for MacOS X.

Myself as well as many other animators and designers which are current A|W clients, have been making heavy lobbying to get Maya for MacOS X and that initial effort was a direct consequence of that. A|W contacted Apple when Steve Jobs came into the show but was very cautious about Jobs' and Apple's OS strategy. It was only until MacOS X Server got released and serious work began on the OpenGL front when the effort started to pick up."

Apple shipped Mac OS X Server about a year ago. This reader commented that from that early experiment, Alias/Wavefront has went through a 'wait-and-see' phase and is now probably in full preparation. Several items have helped this along -- none of them being the iMac's raging success, but this can't hurt either. What really helped was this, according to our source:

"Apple got seriously into OpenGL, bought Raycer and is cooking something that I even don't know about. Then, three major players in the industry joined our little party of lobbying for the MacOS X version of Maya once X started to shape up as the winner it is now. Namely: Pixar, Disney and Lucasfilm, in that order.

First Pixar, who in case you have not noticed it, has pledged full support to Maya as its primary modeling and animation tool (of course, this is because of Maya's ability to serve as an engine for their plug-ins). If you think Steve Jobs makes this kind of commitment for free, you are not from this planet.

Disney is a heavy Mac user on the 2D front and they are frantically looking for an Irix alternative, now that SGI has lost its north, on the high end 3D front. Disney techs think MacOS X is a real alternative and a serious, stable, UNIX-OpenGL platform for their custom development. More important, they have a solid hardware to depend on.

Finally Lucasfilm. It is no mystery that John Knoll is not only a Mac partisan: He IS one of the reasons for the existence of the Mac (in case you don't know, he and his brother created the embryo for Photoshop and he alone has used the Mac to build some of the most awesome SFX on the history of movie making)."

If Maya, why not StudioTools?

Based on the logic of this information (and yes! we do hope its all true) it appears that Maya for OS X has some good steam behind it. Clearly Pixar would support Maya on OS X. The ability for Jobs to say "Made on a Mac" for a Oscar, award-winning Pixar movie is a great PR piece for Apple. If you don't think this type of persuasion is seen as important marketing for Apple's wares then you haven't spent any time in the Creative section (formerly Design & Publishing) of Apple's Web site.

Just as Jobs uses Mac events to plug Pixar, so too could Pixar plug the new Mac OS X and Apple's forthcoming multiprocessor G4's (and then G5's). And if animation is to continue to play a larger role in serious films by such companies as Pixar, Disney, and Dream Works -- and many others -- then this means Apple needs to have to the right tools available in order for the Mac OS to maintain its favorite platform status for video production, effects and editing and bringing movie-making to the masses at both the consumer and pro-sumer level.

Since the movie-making market is set to mushroom at both the consumer and professional levels, Apple has a good proposition to offer Alias/Wavefront for Maya on OS X. It's a product that could do well in movie-production houses, animation studios and film and technology schools who are devoted to Apple's technologies.

The tougher sell is StudioTools for OS X. Engineers, in particular, in just about all fields, are already well suited to their increasingly NT-based world. NT and Win2000 offer a plethora of engineering, design and CAD/CAM applications. The more likely professional in the automotive/aero design industries to go for A/W StudioTools for Mac OS X is the industrial designer. Jonathan Ive-types. People who create with real passion and consider themselves (rightly) artists.

As a reader said: "Alias|Wavefront needs a reason to port Studio to MacOS X. That reason would be new sales. Incremental sales. They do not need customers to say 'we would switch our licenses from IRIX or NT.' That doesn't generate new revenue. They need to see a business opportunity."

So if you are an industrial designer or design engineer working with Studio already and want to see it on Mac OS X, just telling Alias doesn't necessarily help much. Telling them you would buy more seats will. The question is: how does that happen without new customers? Or how can Apple generate new customers for Alias/Wavefront?

Conclusion

Thanks much to the individuals who offered up this information, you know who you are. As experienced A/W users and Mac users, your knowledge and insight is valuable. Clearly, the case has been made for Maya on OS X. Let's hope that those major customers move 'forward' toward OS X as soon as it comes out, and that Apple makes continued critical progress with both OpenGL and the Raycer buy. And of course, the PowerPC processor plays a huge role in the success of Apple in the high-end markets as well.

If you have any comments or questions (except who our mystery contributors are) please forward them to us. Thanks!

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