“Ever wanted to animate your own movie or website? Firms that
make the computer equipment you’ll need are displaying their latest
gizmos this week – and the artists behind the latest Star Wars
movie will even show you how it’s done….”
“One of the major attractions is Alias Wavefront’s Maya 2.5, an
upgrade to the high-end 3D imaging package which will be shown in
the UK for the first time. Alias Wavefront has also committed
itself to producing Linux versions of two of its rendering engines
– the software used to create the finished 3D versions of images
created in the package – and audiences are hoping to be shown sneak
previews of the technology. This move to embrace Linux, the popular
free version of Unix which has had a great deal of press attention
during the past year, is not confined to one company, though.
SGI, which has a considerable presence at the show, is also moving
to Linux for new hardware, rather than its own IRIX Unix-based
operating system.”