Alias Systems today released , a fully functioning version of Maya Complete software for non-commercial use. Maya Personal Learning Edition, first launched in February 2002, has more than 1 million registered users. It features a new hardware rendering option for dramatically faster speed, a unified rendering workflow, animation enhancements to constraints, forward/inverse kinematics and ghosting, Maya Paint Effect to polygon conversion , and an improved polygon reduction method.

In addition to the Learning MayaBeginner's Guide, Alias also has improved the resources available to Maya PLE users. Improvements have been made to numerous online help features including: an improved Maya 5 online help search engine, that supports both phrase and Boolean searching; and a new guide titled, Extra Learning Resources, that presents a series of recommended steps to learning Maya and suggests self-paced Learning Tools and resources.



Japanese documentation is available for Maya Personal Learning Edition on both the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms. The experience of learning Maya is multi-lingual as Alias presents the Learning Maya | Beginner's Guide, containing a one hour instructional DVD, an introduction to Maya booklet and a Maya Personal Learning Edition 5 CD with English, French, German, Japanese and Korean language tracks. Also new in this version of Maya Personal Learning Edition, is a one-step documentation installation in either English or Japanese.




Maya Personal Learning Edition 5 is initially available as part of the Learning Maya Beginner's Guide for $20. A no charge download of Maya Personal Learning Edition 5 will begin in Fall 2003.

by MacNN Staff