SGI: Computer Graphics

including irix version

I can't believe this......
I haven't even started reading the books from Maya 5 yet!!!!

I have heard of and seen a "Personal learning Edition" for Mac OS X, is this available for the IRIX version as well?

From the "what's new in Maya 6" page:

I wonder if this is just a marketing bullet item or if the whole application has really been sped up. I'm looking forward to hearing Maya 6 vs Maya 5 (or even Maya 4.5 and 4.0) performance reports from IRIX users. In theory, Alias could have used the latest MIPSpro compilers and gotten a lot of performance help and advice from SGI...

I doubt they'll make an IRIX version of the Personal Learning Edition... but I suppose its worth asking for.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

They have to keep up with discreet (max is now at version 6 as well) and actually doing a really good job at that. The loser will be XSI since its price, supported platforms, update frequency, and tech support fees are ludicrous. Even though I am using a lot of their products (Media Illusion, 3D) I will be glad once they are gone.

well... imho, they and discreet have turned their apps into bloated, monolithic monsters that are no longer really structured and "to the point" but instead confusing and inconsistent. also, whenever you have made your self comfortable with it, adopted to the new scripting and compatibility issues, next version arrives. same procedure as every year...

i'd say XSI is the clear winner so far. it's gaining marketshare, they have lowered the price, adressed a lot of issues and started to offer crossgrades - and 4.0 is soon to be released.

colin: the older maya is the better it will likey run. 4.0 maybe is a good compromise between features, script-compatibility and performance.
when alias speaks of performance improvements in release 6 they probably adress only those functions, users had complained about. this is not an indicator for a general speed-up of the whole app.

There really isn't a giant improvement in anything, it looks like more of a v5.5 than anything else.

The only thing I saw was a tighter intergreation of MentalRay in to Maya and and improvements to the MentalRay renderer it's self. There is supposed to be better calucations of caustics and other numerous effects, and it's "supposed" to be faster then it was before.

It's possible there could be other things that are going on under the hood, but that's just from what I have read about so far.

On another note, I have been doing some looking into another renderer for Maya that is totally blowing away MR, IMHO. Turtle is extremely fast and with a few clicks allows you to setup and configure all the cool effects.

Turtle looks pretty slick. If only there was an IRIX version.

I noticed it says Maya 6 doesn't support hardware rendering under IRIX. Is this something new or is that the case with 5.5 as well?

BTW -- SGI owned Alias while 6 was being developed so what gives?

i guess it belongs to the hardware render feature from within the render options window.
the hardware render buffer should be there as always.



afaik there never was a v5.5.

Nope, there never was a 5.5, that was just a snide coment from me.

There is an IRIX, Linux, Mac and Windows release of Maya 6. It looks as though it's still just Maya Complete for Mac, too. I can't see any reason why OSX and the hardware it runs on being good enough to run all the bells and whistles from the Unlimited variety.

As far as hardware rendering, that wasn't available in verson 4, 4.5 or 5 either. That's one thing that left me confised as well. It seems as though the sgi hardware was meant for this sort of thing, so why not exploit it?

Go figure...

For new things in 6, there are a some controls in Mental Ray that allow for better use of HDRI and they finally unhid a few options that control settings in your Final Gather. I also noticed that they niow have thier own Hair system built in. No idea how it stacks up to Shave, but it still better than just a plain shader or Paint Effects that are difficult to animate.

One thing I did find frustating is that the bonus tools for 6 doesn't have any of the shaders that are available in the bonus tools for 5. So if you have anything that you used the default shaders and want to import, it could be incomplete.

I was happy learning Blender on my O2 until the subject of lighting reared its head. The wheels came of my bike at that point.

Can anyone give some general advice on lighting a small room with some people in it. Pointing in the right direction would be useful.

What sort of look are you going for?
I'd probably start off with some 3 point lighting; a key, fill, and back light, See how that goes, play around with the intensities, and so on, give one of the lights a slightly yellowish hue if you're going after daylight. Use the key light for the people.

Let us know how you get on, hey, post a pic too.

Thanks
Found lots or tutorials on 3 point lighting. Will post a link to the scene when I finish. Its going to be a small movie with Lego people doing the scene from the unemployment office in the Full Monty.

Brilliant, there's a ton of stuff on the web, great resource. It'd be cool to see what you create. Let me know if you need anymore help.

hello,

where did you get the bonustools?
did you test maya6 on irix?

Bous tools can be found here .

Shave is no longer sold for IRIX.

Hey everyone

i do 3D graphics and stuff, ive been playing abit around with exporting formats to Opengl performer to show in realtime.

with opengl performer comes a few scenes in lsa format and
in the docs it supports lsa and lsb as it says.

lsa: Lightscape radiosity solutions (ASCII)
lsb: Lightscape radiosity solutions (binary)

so, my quistion is, ive installed a lightscape 3.2 on my windows and talked to a few lightscape users, however
in lightscape i an save as ls but nothing about lsa or lsb

can anyone then tell me how to make an lsa or lsb
if its not direct from lightscape somehow

or whats happning

where do they come from

MIS