Maya has been used on everything from Star Wars: Episode 1 and Mission: Impossible 2 to a whole bevy of kids series and television commercials and the Silicon Graphics-owned company has served notice that it is not about to relinquish its leading position gently. In mid-May, the third complete version of Maya was previewed at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, where it was announced that the system would be henceforth offered on the Apple Mac OS X platform.

Hitherto available only on Windows NT and IRIX-based workstations, the addition of Mac OS not only broadens the Maya customer base, but enables Apple to continue its triumphant return to the graphics arena it once dominated.

"Alias|Wavefront received overwhelming requests from the Macintosh community to make our software available for the Mac," said Richard Kerris, director of Maya technology at Alias|Wavefront. "With the G4, Apple is delivering a veryimpressive, powerful graphics platform, and providing an excellent fit for our world-leading Maya 3D technology. Together, Maya on Macintosh will give Mac artists and animators an unbeatable combination of creative freedom, performance and productivity."

"We couldn't be happier that Alias|Wavefront is bringing Maya to the Mac," agrees original Silicon Valley pioneer and reinvigorated Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. "Maya for Mac OS X will be our premiere 3D application."

Users point to the system's ability to cut the time it takes to do pre-visualization shots, and the speed perks of combining th eMac Maya with the rendering power of SGI Servers.

The Mac version of Maya will be ready in 2001.