Alias|Wavefront Announces Free Public Beta of mental ray for Maya version 1.5
version 1.5 to simplify usability and incorporate additional Maya feature support; mental images and Alia|Wavefront focus on tighter integration of their technologies

San Antonio - Siggraph (booth 13085) - July 22, 2002 - Alias|Wavefrontª , an SGI (NYSE: SGI) company, today announced that it will release a free public beta version of its new mental ray® for Maya® version 1.5 rendering solution in late summer, 2002. mental ray for Maya 1.5, conjointly developed by Alias|Wavefront and mental images®, will provide Maya 4.5 software users on all supported platforms with a tightly integrated rendering solution that maximizes the strength of both products. Version 1.5 will advance the first iteration of the technology with further simplified usability and additional support for Maya features new to Maya 4.5.

"Our strategic alliance with mental images is changing the face of CG," states Alias|Wavefront, VP of Product Development, Peter Mehlstaeubler. "The majority of our large film customers are either using or evaluating this product at present. Working side-by-side with mental images, we will astound our users with the production-proven, tightly integrated, rendering solution that mental ray for Maya 1.5 provides. Particularly exciting is the fact that we will be delivering the first mental ray rendering solution, with GUI, to the Macintosh community."

"mental images shares Alias|Wavefront's vision to make high quality 3D graphics content creation tools much more widely accessible," states mental images President and Director R&D, Rolf Herken. "As part of that same vision, we continue to be 100% committed to meeting the demands of those visual effects and film production facilities, such as ESC Entertainment, who are breaking new ground in the visual effects arena. Our expanding partnership with Alias allows us to innovate faster to satisfy the needs of the world's leading film directors, visual effects artists and technology specialists."

mental ray for Maya
mental ray for Maya version 1.5 is an optional and fully integrated plug-in renderer for Maya 4.5 that offers the features and tools available in mental images' new mental ray renderer, mental ray 3.1. The technology, developed to satisfy numerous customer requests, first became available in December 2001 bringing advanced effects such as global illumination and motion-blurred reflections to Maya users. The second iteration of the product will support functionality new to the soon-to-be-released Maya 4.5, including volume lighting and rendering, particle instancing and the Maya Fluid Effects™ Ocean Shader feature.

"The integration of Maya and mental ray is a milestone development that has combined the world's most powerful 3D modeling and animation application with the world's most advanced 3D renderer," states George Borshukov, VFX technology supervisor for ESC Entertainment. "This combination is essential in allowing us to create massive, fully computer generated sequences that are completely photorealistic and could stand up side to side with live action footage. True virtual cinematography is on its way!"

Pricing and Availability
mental ray for Maya version 1.5, will be available to licensed Maya 4.5 users as a free, public beta version plug-in for the Windows®, IRIX® and Linux® operating systems, late this summer. The Mac® OS X version will become available shortly thereafter. The beta offering, will be downloadable from http://www.aliaswavefront.com.

About Alias|Wavefront
As the world's leading innovator of 3D graphics technology, Alias|Wavefront develops software for the film and video, games, web, interactive media, industrial design, and visualization markets.

Entertainment customers include BlueSky Studios, Cinesite, CNN, Disney, Dreamworks Electronic Arts, ESC Entertainment, Industrial Light & Magic, Midway Games, Nintendo, Pacific Data Images (PDI), Sega, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Square Co., Ltd., Warner Feature Animation and Weta Ltd.

Alias|Wavefront is a wholly owned, independent software company of SGI® with headquarters in Toronto, Canada. Please visit the Alias|Wavefront website at www.aliaswavefront.com or call 1-800-447-2542 in North America. International contact numbers include: Northern Europe, Middle East and Africa, +44 (0) 1494 441273; Germany, East & Southeast Europe, 0049 89 31 70 20; France, Spain and Portugal, +33 1 44 92 81 60; Italy, 39 039 6340011; Japan, 0120 764 088; and other parts of Asia Pacific, 81 3 3470 8282.

The Alias|Wavefront logo is a registered trademark and Alias|Wavefront is a trademark of Alias|Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited in the United States and/or other countries. Maya is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc., exclusively used by Alias|Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited, and the Maya logo, and Maya Fluid Effects, are trademarks of Alias|Wavefront, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited. IRIX and SGI are registered trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc. mental images and mental ray are registered trademarks of mental images GmbH & Co. KG. Linux is a registered trademark of William R. Della Croce, Jr. Windows is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation, in the United States and/or other countries. Mac is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. registered in the US and other countries. All other products or companies mentioned are trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Alias|Wavefront, 210 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5A 1J7, Tel: 416-362-9181, FAX: 416-369-6140.

Alias|Wavefront Press Contacts:
Donna Teggart
416-874-8592
dteggart@aw.sgi.com

Lisa Stanley
416-874-8288
lstanley@aw.sgi.com

for screenshots and press images:
http://www.aliaswavefront.com/entertainment/press