The design world was clamoring. Professional Mac users were demanding that Alias|Wavefront port Maya (their premier 3D animation package) to Apple's new OS X operating system.

According to Richard Kerris, director of Maya Technologies for Alias|Wavefront, the catalyst for this marriage was OS X itself. As information about Mac's new UNIX-based operating system filtered out in late 1999, a groundswell developed. "Our business decision was based on the people that have been coming to us in droves saying, 'I want to start using 3D, my clients are asking for it.' We were getting 20-30 e-mails a week, almost 8,000 e-mails asking us to bring Maya to OS X. It became like a mantra from the community," says Kerris.

Despite the apparent mania, Kerris and Alias are keeping their projections calm: "We don't expect that every ad agency is going to wake up one day and be a 3D facility." What they do expect is that the legions of loyal professional Mac users who have been running Illustrator and Photoshop forever will now embrace the chance to add high-end 3D to their arsenal. "3D is a natural extension of their workflow," says Kerris. "We consciously made Maya for OS X a Mac application, an Aqua-based user interface, so ideally the artist who has been using Photoshop and Illustrator can start to bring 3D into their workflow at a pace that's comfortable for them."

One year after Alias and Apple decided to get hitched, Maya for Mac is now in a beta release, a testing phase with select clients.

One such group is Reality Check, a young, Los Angeles-based design and animation studio whose recent work includes spots for JCPenney through DDB Chicago, Charter Communications through Simmons Durham and Kraft through Mendoza, Dillon & Asociados. They are one of six beta test sites for Maya on the Mac. According to partner Kory Jones, "People gravitate towards the simplest solutions. It's long been known that as designers everyone's favorite platform is Mac. But there was a hole in our capabilities not having a high-end 3D program like Maya. The result was a lot of people who preferred Mac have been forced to use NT because that was the only place you could get this powerful tool." Justin Nardone, one of the studio's animators concurs: "I felt very limited on Mac until OS X and Maya. It seems like a whole other world. It gives us a new level for design elements."

Meanwhile over at Apple, Chris Bourdon, product market manager for OS X says his company is delighted to be able to offer a respected product like Maya, but assures us it is just the beginning: "We want to support any UNIX-based applications that people want to see on the Mac."

As for their part, Alias' Kerris says this project is not just one guy with a Mac in the back room pulling out his hair: "It is actually a full-up, fully staffed project. That means we are making a big commitment to it."

Alias and Apple have spent a lot of time and energy in bed together on this project. Says Kerris, "[At the beginning,] we were very hesitant because OS X was not even in beta at that time. Of course, there is risk with an operating system that is brand new. But Apple's support has been so dedicated to porting apps such as ours that we felt comfortable even though it wasn't all the way there."

Is Maya on Mac a blip in the animation/design world or is this something that will fundamentally change the way things get done? Jones has no doubt: "I do believe that over time this will absolutely change the effects industry. We've held off investing in an NT platform so we could make this jump when it happened. We've brought in the work, we just bought a new building and we're ready to explode to the next level. And these are the tools we want to explode with."

Maya for the Mac will be shipped sometime during the second quarter of 2001, and will cost US$7,500.