Maya 6 was available for Mac OS X in the Complete version. This meant you could everything, except create fur, hair, fluids, cloth, and matchmoving scenes. Maya 6.0.1 is available in Unlimited version, which means you can spend a small fortune and have access to all this creative power on a Mac OS X machine.

The reason why Alias postponed the Unlimited release on Mac OS X will always remain a mistery to me: the Power Mac G5 dual 1.8 GHz that beautifies my working room has no problems with rendering even the most furry of balls. And the dual 1.8 GHz isn’t even Apple’s top-of-the-line desktop machine --it has never been.

But undoubtedly, Alias had good reason not to; reasons that will perhaps one day surface, but not now, as the company’s spokespeople stay silent on the subject. The only thing that they do say is: “We have Unlimited on the Mac OS X platform, and you can have it now.” And frankly, after having seen those extra features in action, that’s enough for me.

Fluid Effects [new window]

I have tested a few of the Unlimited features already, and I must admit it takes 3D really to the next level. In the back of my head, there kept nagging a tiny voice asking why you should need these extra features anyway, except perhaps for the most exotic use, like making a Hollywood film. But a glance at Alias’ own web site tells a whole different story: by Alias’s own account, Maya is used as a visualisation tool like for medical, scientific and simulation purposes. It is not difficult to see why you would need hair and fluids for those usages. Apparently, Maya is also gaining new grounds in the art world.

So, there you are: Unlimited Maya. What you definitely need to get past the introductory lessons, is the basic knowledge of working with Maya’s interface. I must admit that I still have to think before I remember specific features’ or actions’ whereabouts, but that is because I don’t work on a daily basis with Maya.

Surprising to me was the fact that, except for hair, working with the Unlimited features isn’t harder than with the normal elements. Hair is a little different in that it creates an animation by default, enabling you to apply gravity and things like that before you end up with a model that has natural-looking hair on her head. The animation part is sort of disorientating as I started out making a static model.

The additional manual “Getting Started with Maya Unlimited 6” makes up for the problems you might encounter. The manual really is a crash course into these power features. Fur was the easiest to create, together with fluid. Honesty forces me to inform you that, in order to obtain really spectacular results, you will have to program a bit with MEL, Maya’s own scripting language. If you aren’t fluid with MEL, your fluids will look good but not as good as they might look.

Fluid out-of-the-box indeed looks alright, but if you want to create an ocean that has a less oily look, then you will have to dive into MEL. I didn’t do that, instead focusing on how an ocean could be made more dynamic with breaking waves and foam and nive things like that. I succeeded without MEL, in making a gale six swell easily (trust me when I say gale six; I’ve a family history of deck officers and as such have sailed myself as a passenger on board a cargo ship --been there, done heavier stuff).

A cube floating in an ocean - QuickTime movie at 7 MB and 24 frames- Rendered using Maya Software, medium quality, 320x240 px. [new window]

A real gale six swell would look a bit less oily, though. Especially the waves that are closest to the viewer seem to be somewhat irrealistic because of this slick characteristic… Undoubtedly, though, some tweaking with MEL can fix all of that.

Rendering those Unlimited features is another story. The Maya Software Renderer set up to deliver mdeium quality, takes a reasonable time to render an animation of 72 frames at 640x480 px of seasickness-inducing ocean with a cube moving into and out of the waves. It took about a day to render. Unwilling to lose more than a day’s worth of time on my production machine, I cancelled mental Ray rendering which seemed to be going to take a lot nore time than a day.

Unlimited Maya suddenly makes painfully clear why it is a good idea to have a rendering server farm…