Alias/Wavefront and mental images Form Strategic Alliance; Companies Look Towards the Creation of a Mental Ray Rendering Option for Maya.Business & High-Tech Editors TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 21, 2001 Alias/Wavefront(TM), an SGI (SGI, Sunnyvale, CA, www.sgi.com) A manufacturer of workstations and servers, founded in 1982 by Jim Clark. The company was founded as Silicon Graphics, Inc., but changed to its acronym in 1999. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :SGI) company, today announced that it has entered into a strategic alliance with mental images(R), makers of the world-renowned, mental ray(R) renderer. The two companies will work together to develop a mental ray rendering option for Alias/Wavefront's award-winning 3D animation and effects software, Maya(R). "Image quality is a top priority to CG industry professionals," explains Peter Mehlstaeubler, Vice President of Product Development at Alias/Wavefront. "With this priority in mind, Alias/Wavefront has pursued an aggressive rendering development path, one which will soon be expanded to encompass a mental ray solution. Our alliance with mental images will not only provide an attractive solution for current users of mental ray, it will also result in a valuable new rendering option for Maya customers." mental ray is a high-performance, interactive, rendering software product widely acknowledged as one of the leading solutions in the Digital Content Creation The development of newsworthy, educational and entertainment material for distribution over the Internet or other electronic media. See DAMS. and CAD/CAM CAD/CAM in full computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing. Integration of design and manufacturing into a system under direct control of digital computers. markets. It is also the only commercially available rendering software that combines the physically correct simulation of the behaviour of light with full programmability for the creation of photorealistic Having the image quality of a photograph. imagery. With its fully scalable parallel rendering Parallel rendering (or Distributed rendering) is a method used to improve the performance of computer graphics creation software. The rendering of graphics requires massive computational resources for complex objects like medical visualization, iso-surface generation, and capabilities supporting both multiprocessor platforms and networks of machines, mental ray can be used for near real-time interactive rendering sessions as well as for complex, high throughput batch mode rendering. "We are excited to have Alias/Wavefront added to the list of companies supporting mental ray," states Rolf Herken, President and Director R&D, mental images. "A technology union combining Maya, the renowned 3D animation and effects software, and mental ray -- our programmable, photorealistic, rendering software -- will greatly benefit the computer graphics industry as a whole." "We have been using mental ray for quite some time and have had great results," states Stefen Fangmeier, a two time Academy Award nominated visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic. "Likewise, Maya has in recent years become an indispensable part of our production pipeline and the marriage of these two technologies will no doubt greatly enhance our productivity. It is something we're all looking forward to." Pierre Buffin, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of BUF Compagnie, Paris, adds: "For years our entire proprietary production pipeline has been established around mental ray -- it is the only rendering software that enables us to achieve the photorealistic visual effects that film directors expect of us. The integration of mental ray with Maya, today's most widely used professional high-end 3D animation system, will allow us to continue to meet the demand for the kind of sophisticated imagery that we specialize in." About Alias/Wavefront As the world's leading innovator of 3D graphics technology, Alias/Wavefront develops software for the film and video, games, interactive media, industrial design, and visualization markets. Entertainment customers include Blue Sky, Cinesite, CNN CNN or Cable News Network Subsidiary company of Turner Broadcasting Systems. It was created by Ted Turner in 1980 to present 24-hour live news broadcasts, using satellites to transmit reports from news bureaus around the world. , Digital Domain, Disney's The Secret Lab, Electronic Arts, Industrial Light & Magic, Midway Games, Nintendo, Pacific Data Images Pacific Data Images was a computer animation production company that was bought by DreamWorks SKG. It is now known as PDI/DreamWorks and is half of DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc., the public company formed by merging PDI and the feature animation division of DreamWorks. (PDI PDI Protein Disulfide Isomerase PDI Personal Docente e Investigador (Spanish: Personal Educational and Investigating) PDI Pre Delivery Inspection PDI Professional Development Institute ), Pixar, Sega, Sony Pictures Imageworks Sony Pictures Imageworks, Inc. is an Academy Award-winning, state-of-the-art visual effects and character animation company. Individuals at the company have been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with Oscars for their work on Spider-Man 2 , Square Co., Ltd., Warner Feature Animation and Weta Ltd. Alias/Wavefront is a wholly owned, independent software company of SGI(TM) with headquarters in Toronto and technical centers in Seattle and Santa Barbara. Please visit the Alias/Wavefront website at www.aliaswavefront.com or call 1-800-447-2542 in North America. Readers in Europe can call +800 4125 4125 or 800 791 174 in the Middle East and Africa; 81 3 3470 8285 in Asia-Pacific; and 525 203 0030 in Latin America for the nearest sales office or authorized reseller in their area. About mental images mental images GmbH & Co. KG, founded in 1986, is a recognized leader in providing next generation rendering and modeling software technology to the entertainment, CAD, and visualization markets and to other industries where sophisticated images are required. Customers of mental images include major original software developers as well as select key industrial end-users. Users of mental ray include most of the leading visual effects and digital film studios, game development companies, and companies in the automotive and aerospace industries. mental images is a privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. based in Berlin, Germany. For more information please visit the mental images website at www.mentalimages.com. mental ray and mental images are registered trademarks of mental images GmbH & Co.KG Alias/Wavefront and the Alias/Wavefront logo are trademarks of Alias/Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited. SGI is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. Maya is a registered trademark and the Maya logo are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., exclusively used by Alias/Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited. All other products or companies mentioned are trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Alias/Wavefront, 210 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5A 1J7, Tel: 416-362-9181, FAX: 416-369-6140. for screenshot See screen shot. and press images: http://www.aliaswavefront.com/entertainment/press Note to Editors: There should be a pipe symbol between "Alias" and "Wavefront Noun 1. wavefront - (physics) an imaginary surface joining all points in space that are reached at the same instant by a wave propagating through a medium wave front " -- the pipe symbol was changed to a forward slash ("/") for transmission purposes only. |
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