I just got this in my email today and thought some people might be interested. Alias|Wavefront is giving away Maya!
I can’t use it cause i’m running 98 but for people running nt/2k/xp/ or mac os x you can get it. I think it’s a step in the right dirrection for these graphics companies. People can’t learn the software if the don’t have it and can’t afford it. <dream>Maybe discreet will follow suit and give everyone personal copies of max 4.</dream>
There are some very unsightly watermarks on the images. But the most annoying part is the overlays they have when you’re making the models. It almost makes it hard to concentrate.
But, still, it is free Maya. 
i’m sure theres ways to “fix” the watermarks and such they’ve added… there always is…
How bad are the watermarks?
stupid ME…
hey…
thanks alot for the tip on maya it will surely help me and my team out as well.
This free Maya has been on for months, in like late January, I think. This was initially an attempt to gain more people away for 3d Max. They called it the educational personal edition. Currently Alias Wavefront is in a lot of financial trouble primarily because their software was too expensive at first, but a couple of moths ago it went down, a lot. Right now, they are looking at prospective buyers for the Maya. The closest right now, is Apple Computer. They know Maya is a big asset if they get it, but it has something to do with their debt that makes it uninteresting.
Besides that, it is a great product, only available on industrial strength platforms (Mac OS X, Linux, w2000/XP)
From what I hear it is not that much different than 3d Max.
I am sure that someone has broke some code to get rid of the watermark.
Windows XP is sweet. I would definately pay the $90 to upgrade from Windows Me.
I have Windows XP and Windows 98 on two different partitions so that if I get some software that doesn’t work with Windows XP I can use it on Windows 98.
*Originally posted by Greg McCoy *
**I have Windows XP and Windows 98 on two different partitions so that if I get some software that doesn’t work with Windows XP I can use it on Windows 98. **
Have you tried XP’s compatibility features? You can actually have XP mimic any other 32-bit version of Windows(i.e. not WfW 3.11) for a program that doesn’t like running under XP natively. I haven’t seen something that won’t run this way yet, unless is uses direct disk or network/Winsock access(Norton Utils and a few others), and in 99% of those cases, there’s an updated version to make it work with XP…
*Originally posted by Nate Smith *
**
Have you tried XP’s compatibility features? You can actually have XP mimic any other 32-bit version of Windows(i.e. not WfW 3.11) for a program that doesn’t like running under XP natively. I haven’t seen something that won’t run this way yet, unless is uses direct disk or network/Winsock access(Norton Utils and a few others), and in 99% of those cases, there’s an updated version to make it work with XP… **
Not to get too off-topic, but I have heard from many people that upgrading to XP is a pain. I have heard many complaints off lost perhihal support, software not supported, and annoying features in Windows XP.
I remember in Rally in the Valley, the FIRST software kept failing because XP was keep on giving them errors.
But like all things this is a phase, which will make people mad because their old or semi old periphiables and software just won’t work.
But they will get new devices, and eventually the problem will fade away.
Its like with Mac OS X, a radically, almost completely different operating system, than OS 9. More than a year old now, and almost all of the primary software has been updated, except for old perheriables. So I think Win XP will follow the same path.
Many people will just have to wait for something to arrive for these industrial strength platforms.
*Originally posted by Kyle Fenton *
**
I remember in Rally in the Valley, the FIRST software kept failing because XP was keep on giving them errors.
**
As a co-developer of next year’s scoring software, and with quite a bit of experience with this year’s system, I’d be interested to know what problems they were running into. I’m not aware of any XP-specific issues with the code(I’ve actually been running it on XP here at home for testing, sans the PLC of course), but I do know of a couple issues with the SQL server that appear with any NT-based operating system(NT 4.0, Win2k, XP), as well as a couple any-OS issues related to how Windows handles timers within Access. If someone who knows what errors were appearing could PM or e-mail me with that information, I’ll look into it further.
Well for the specific errors you have to ask someone like Andy A. who was there trying to work it out. But the biggest problem was that there were many false starts in Rally.
Yeah, but I’ve had some trouble with getting them to work well. It could just be something about my system. I like having a Windows 98 partition anyway because I don’t have very much software installed on it so it runs very fast. I can use it to get really good game performance, since it has less processor and memory load then my Windows XP partition.
If you have fairly new hardware, like I would guess within the past 2 years, and get the latest drivers, you shouldn’t have an upgrade problem. Windows XP warns you about out-of-date drivers also, and by now I think that most companies have revisions of their drivers on their websites. I had to download a driver compatible with Windows XP from Logitech for my joystick, but that was the only problem that I really had.
Anyway, about Maya. I uninstalled it right away after seeing the watermarks. They cover up what ever you are working on all the time, and are very annoying to me. It also ran very slowly on my system (Pentium 4 1.5 GHz, 128 MB RAM), which was annoying also. I thought this was odd, because I often have no problem doing CAD modeling in Inventor, listening to MP3’s on Winamp and downloading stuff all at the same time 
Upgrading from XP does suck. I’ve tried it from ME - XP, and 98 - XP. Better off just reformatting your whole system and putting a fresh install of XP on it. I’ve used XP home, pro, and enterprise, and there’s big diff from home and the others. If you can afford it, i’d suggest going with pro ed. I got ahold of ent. from a friend, that’s what i’m using when not using linux, hehehe.