Maya 7 Personal Learning Edition (PLE) and MotionBuilder 7 Personal Learning Edition are now available for download through the Alias website. These special versions of Maya Complete and Alias MotionBuilder Standard provide free access to the software for non-commercial use and are designed to allow novice to advanced animators to learn and refine new skills.
With the Personal Learning Editions, industry professionals and those interested in breaking into the world of 3D have an opportunity to learn with the same industry-leading tools found in professional production studios around the world. Demand for skilled artists remains high and the Maya and MotionBuilder Personal Learning Editions allow anyone to develop sought-after 3D skills.
MotionBuilder 7 PLE almost every feature found in the commercial version, including advanced real-time animation tools, a unique story timeline performance environment, auto rigging, motion editing, motion layering and storytelling tools. Artists can also use any commercial 3D software that supports the FBX file format to open files in PLE for evaluation of compatibility with existing content.
Maya 7 PLE offers Alias MotionBuilder full-body IK technology, new polygonal modeling and UV tools, specialized visual effects tools such as a new Toon Shader, advanced render layers technology and faster, more seamless connections between Maya and other key production software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Maya 7 PLE users can also take advantage of four separate renderers: Maya software, hardware, vector and the award-winning mental ray for Maya renderer.
New this year to the PLE versions is the ability to import and export files between the Alias MotionBuilder 7 real-time 3D character animation productivity and the Maya 7 modeling, animation, visual effects and rendering software. This allows artists to evaluate a simulated production pipeline.
Tutorials, how-to projects, movies and more than 800 free downloads are offered through the Alias user community online. Located at www.alias.com/community, the community is an interactive hub that offers, peer-to-peer discussions, image galleries, modifiable data files, stories and more. Also supporting the learning process is the recently released Learning Maya? 7 | Foundation book, which provides step-by-step lessons that teach readers about storyboarding and planning while they explore modeling with NURBS and polygons, animation, texture maps, visual effects and scene rendering. Learning MotionBuilder 7 | Foundation and Alias MotionBuilder 7 Beginner’s Guide DVDs will be released next month.
Maya 7 PLE is now available for Windows 2000/XP Professional and Mac OS X operating systems. MotionBuilder 7 PLE is out for Windows XP Professional and Mac OS X. They can be downloaded at www.alias.com/mayaple and www.alias.com/motionbuilderple respectively.
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