The latest news surrounding Alias Maya involves a new agreement with BOXX Technologies whereby Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited software are bundled with Box professional workstations. Alias also recently introduced Maya Unlimited for the Mac OS X operating system. Now available and priced at $6999, Maya Unlimited combines Maya Complete software with Maya Hair, Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Fur, Maya Cloth, and Maya Live for advanced special effects. This support maintenance, and education to Maya and Maya Personal Learning Edition customers. Newel has announced its intention to port its Emmy Award-winning Light Wave 3D application, now in Version 8, to the Intel EM64T and AMD64 platforms. With this news, Newel becomes the first company to publicly reveal its plans to port a professional 3D graphics application to the 64-bit format. The 64-bit version of Light Wave will reap the benefits of 64-bit technology, including increases in both processing power and memory. For the production of complex motion graphics and visual effects, this higher-performance version of Light Wave will benefit users with time-savings, increased efficiency. The 64-bit edition of Light Wave 3D will become available when the 64-bit Windows operating system is released commercially. Discreet has begun shipping Version 7 of its 3ds max professional 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software package. Version 7 benefits not only from an update to Mental Images Mental Ray Version 3, but also from the full integration of the companies own Character Studio. Helping streamline film production, Version 7 also incorporates normal mapping, a technology designed for game development in which detail is added to low-polygon models with high-resolution maps. 3ds max 7 is priced at $3495. Upgrades from Versions 5 and 6 are priced at $1295 and $795, respectively. In other news, Discreet revealed that 3ds max enjoys an installed base of more than 280,000 registered customers, including 3D artists and designers in film, television, games, and visualization. Maxon Computer has unveiled the ninth incarnation of its Cinema 4D software solution. Release 9 offers a re-engineered modeling core, new modeling tools, an enhanced user interface, and more than 100 new features. Eovia has introduced an upgraded version of its Carrara 3D animation, modeling, and rendering application. Version 4 is available now in Standard and Professional versions, priced at $579 and $279, respectively. Softimages new pricing structure for all versions of its XSI Foundation for $495, Essentials for $1995, and Advanced for $6995continues to be a topic of conversation among industry professionals. Yet, Softimage has been extending XSI functionality through key partnerships. The company has announced a strategic alliance agreement with Criterion Software, a provider of middleware for the gaming industry, that offers Criterion Render Ware users access to plug-ins and import/export tools that enable the integration of 3D content created in XSI. Also, Softimage has entered into a technology alliance with Virtuous, maker of interactive 3D authoring tools. As a result, characters, scenes, objects, and animations created with XSI software can be exported directly into the Virtuous Dev 3 environment, thanks to a new Virtuous exporter for XSI software. Caligari has announced TrueSpace 6, with roughly 24 general enhancements and more than 120 fixes to various tools and functionality. UV editing is improved by UV vertex welding, whereas the built-in particle system now provides interaction with TrueSpace physics, environments, and objects. Particles also have real geometry, enabling them to reflect and cast shadows. A new Viewer frees users to preview scenes and objects in Windows Explorer. And Version 6 boasts performance gains: Real-time preview of an animation is reportedly 300 times faster. Also, electric rain has introduced Mac OS X versions of its recently upgraded Swift 3D 4 stand-alone applications and Swift 3D Xpress plug-in. Swift 3D Version 4 aids designers in creating and exporting vector and raster 3D animations to Macromedia Flash or another format. Designed for advanced and beginner animators and priced at $299, Animation master from hash is newly available in Version 11 for the Windows platform and Version 10 for Mac OS X and 9. The program offers spine-based modeling, animation, and rendering, as well as IK, UV decal mapping, lip-sync key framing, motion libraries, and skeletal, morphing, and bending actions. It also provides channel-based motion control, patch-based animation, rot scoping, onion skinning, and other features. Having acquired Kaydara, Alias has unveiled Motion Builder 6, an upgraded version of its character animation software. Alias Motion Builder 6 incorporates hundreds of enhancements. Also, it includes improvements to key frame animation and character animation capabilities, the story timeline, scene management tools, and a simplified user interface. Motion Builder 6 Standard is priced at $995, whereas the Pro version includes 12 months of support and upgrades at a cost of $4195. Curious Labs has released its Poser 5 figure design and animation solution for the Mac OS X operating system. The OS X version of Poser 5 sports displacement mapping, collision detection, procedural textures, photo-based facial mapping, new 3D human figures, Dynamic Hair, Dynamic Cloth. The company also introduced Shade 7, a 3D graphics suite for designers, illustrators, and architects that encompasses modeling, rendering, and animation tools. For the creation of 3D imagery and animations, Shade offers Bezier curve/ surface modeling, integrated plug-ins, and a global illumination renderer.