OSNews

Andrew Pearce:It's exceedingly powerful 3D animation and visual effects software. Maya is like a graphical OS. And it's been called that by a lot of people. It's fully configurable, you can get right down modify the way it operates. Users can write their own shell scripts and alter what parts of the UI are exposed and so on. It's very flexible and very extensive.

2. Is Maya for OSX your first product for the Mac?

Andrew Pearce: It's our first full-fledged product on Mac. Previously we had launched Sketch for Mac. But that may have been too early. We have also built the PaintEffects plugin for AfterEffects.

3. Why did A | W decided to develop for OSX and not earlier?

Andrew Pearce: We have a lot of customers interested in the Mac platform. But with Mac OS9 and earlier Mac operating systems it wasn't feasible. It was a non-standard OS and there was no memory protection. These were things that Mac wasn't offering, and Maya uses a lot of memory. Maya makes a lot of memory addressing assumptions. It can eat up all the two Gigs it has access to. Old MacOS was very restrictive in what it allowed an application to take over. With OSX, Maya can work the way it was designed to.

We've been interested in the Mac platform for a while because that's where creative professionals are. You could say that it was a real convergence of timing and demand: the UNIX underpinnings in OSX and our customers' demonstrated desire to use Maya on Mac

4. How long did it take develop this new version?

Andrew Pearce: We were developing for a little over a year. We received OSX in early April or May last year. And we released a week before 10.1 was released.

5. And what was the initial reaction to working with OSX?

Andrew Pearce: It was an interesting process. I'd have to say that our experience was non-standard or isn't a typical example for those planning on working with OSX. For most of 2000 we were developing on top of a rapidly changing OS. It was pretty exciting. But, Apple was really impressive in their responsiveness. They were very quick to answer all of our needs and issues.

6. What sort of needs were you facing?

Andrew Pearce: Things like correcting problems with the developing OS. And proper information as well focusing on OpenGL. They applied a lot of rigor to making OpenGL work. Apple went to great lengths to make a world class OS and I think they succeeded. We were able to validate it's functions or say "Yes, this is working very well."

7. So, otherwise it was smooth transition to a new platform?

Andrew Pearce: Well we were porting from our standard code base of Maya that compiles on Irix, Linux and WindowsNT. There were millions of lines of UI code. So building for Cocoa was impossible, so it had to be Carbon.

We had the basic core of Maya working on OSX very early. After that it was a matter of conforming to the API and the Interface, which were both going through constant changes and development. With the release of 10.0 earlier this year it became stable and locked down so things became a lot smoother. It was easier to hit a target that was non-moving.

It was necessary to start when we did, but it also would have been nice to work with a stable OS the whole time.

8 And the initial response around the office to the new product?

Andrew Pearce: We really like the Mac. We thought Maya looked great when it was finally finished. Apple is known for its user interface, they make it gorgeous and easy to use.

9. What kind of community response has there been to Maya for OSX?

Andrew Pearce: The interest has been incredible. We're already receiving a lot of feedback from customers and incorporating suggested changes into an update that will be coming out soon.

We've sold single seat licenses to some shops that are obviously already Mac shops and they are looking to incorporate advanced 3D into their work flow. And we've sold groups of licenses to larger shops that seem to have special teams devoted to work on Macs / OSX or are evaluating a possible switch to the Mac platform.

10. Now that you've used it, how do you people feel about OSX?

Andrew Pearce: OSX has got the brilliant UI and Unix underneath. That's pretty much perfect for us. OSX is like Maya, it is visually oriented and computing intensive.

11. What do you think are the standout features of OSX?

Andrew Pearce: I think the standout is the integration with QuickTime. So we integrated it with our playback mechanism. Now our customers can output right to DVD or whatever. A customer can buy a Mac put it on their desk and you have an instant production studio all you need is a recording device for frame storage.

12. Would you recommend OSX to other developers?

Andrew Pearce: I think it's a fabulous platform. If I were to start developing right now I would want to start Mac OSX. But strategically I might have to develop for multiple OS in order to try and hit volume markets. OSX has the added comfort that it is a proven standard. We've been really happy with Apple. Maya has been highlighted in several keynotes. And we didn't have a "special" relationship with Apple, but they were very good to work with, very available.

13. And what are Maya's plans now that you have this done?

Andrew Pearce:The OSX version is 3.5, while out other versions are up to 4. We're working on version 3.51 and we want to get that out soon to resolve issues with version 10.1. We're also working to synchronize all the versions of Maya. We decided to go with 3.5 because it was stable. Otherwise, we plan to start showing the new Maya for OSX at trade fairs and roadshows.