MAYA - SGI

[super80]

Hey all you Maya people out there - anyone use it on SGI??
The reason I ask is beacuse, I, long time soft user just got XSI on my Octane MXE (r12x2, 1gb) and ...IT FUCKING SUCKS!
MY GOD! -"SOME ONE DUN MADE MY IRIX BOX INTO NT"-....I pop open my long awaited XSI and ...it didnt run ! when I backed down to Irix 6.5.5 (4 months ago's release...) it worked but to my dismay it looked like some Irix programmer made a (poor) port of windows widgits to Irix - yuk!
All of my horrors will be surmized in an article I am writting....

Soooo - I figure, if A) Im gonna learn a new interface and I run on Irix - maybe its time to look around.

I dont want to jump ship only to find the boat I hopped on is headed down the same course. It is amazing that Soft has completely neglected SGI - its slower on IRIX than NT - and that just plain takes effort!

THE GRAND ? TO MY RAMBLINGS ARE:

?Is Maya solid on Irix?
?What are the prospects IYHO of the same in the near future?

I am commited to Irix - I mean, for me as a small biz, I HAVE to rely on my machines. My Octane has always been the best boxes I have ever had. Irix is fast and stable, even when you throw ridiculous amounts of tasks at it. If Mac OS X ever becomes 1/3 of what they dream it will be - you'd have Irix. Irix is OSX five years from now. I just don't get Soft ignoring this base that built them. I use Irix frankly because it is the ONLY thing I can run piranhaHD on (uncompressed HD)...I like having 3D on same box also when needed. I dont like NT (no offesnse, just not industrial) and time is money.

Hopefully Maya will continue a trend of support and commitment to Irix/SGI that Soft has clearly demonstrated that it cannot.

sorry for the ramblings, I appreaciate hearing from any SGI Maya users.

-sin
Matt
mattnx@hotmail.com

[clem]

I use maya on both NT and irix, the NT box is a sgi 320 dual with 512megs and the Irix box is an octane R10 384megs ram irix6.5, I love the octane it realy sings I come from an irix background and was very standoffish about NT, the NT performs better in some situations but so does the octane I had heard thst XSI had done a strange NT port to IRIX don't no why? as far as irix goes I think AW are commited to it as most big shops run and will run it for a very long time so I would'nt worry about Maya and Irix it is it's native platform and will be part of it's development for the forseeable future I think, plus you have an octane so I would'nt think of jumping ship my NT box is obsolete after only a yaer Irix Has much more longevity in the market as they were before there time in the first place
stick with the octane the perform consistantly and are very stable and last a lot longer.

just my thoughts

[jpdoc]

I was advised by Softimage UK not to install XSI on Irix machines as there is a huge bug in the implementation that is currently waiting for SGI to provide a patch for. This apparently is what is causing the slow performance. One wonders how long SGI (a/w) will take . . .

[bvocal]

Call me a hooligan, but I would (as a one man shop, granted) never bother with irix anymore. For the price of a barebones octain (I am assuming 20,000$us) I can build 5 ripping NT boxes. I have not seen any computer hold any resale value whatsoever, so I don't know about the other responders notion that SGI boxes hold their value better. One of best pals, and an excellent 3d artist, has a museum full of old, nice colored SGI boxes... that are not even worthy as render slaves. I have 3 old NT boxes that still do their part...
Considering that ANY computer you buy will be old and slow in a year... why put 20,000 into a box that is not even as fast as a 4,000 NT machine??
I just don't understand the obsession. Same with MAC's. I just don't see it. But, please don't get wrong and think that I love Microsoft or think that NT is perfect, far from it, I just don't see where it is damaging my working in any software I use. But I do, when using my mac for print work, get to stop throughout a day/week to do plenty of disk maintenance...
In any event, I just don't see the obsession with irix/sgi machines when seen through the haze of economics.

Fish Bone Lodge
Animation...
5 Star Cuisine, Cocktails and Dancing Nightly

[dan-mcfarland]

I have been told that this is a common problem with Soft Image. When Microsoft bought SoftImage they switched all of the internals ie. open GL to Microsoft stuff. So to run XSI on Irix it runs in an emulation mode. This is why it will only run on an R10000 or higher. XSI users are living with the legacy of the previous owner Microsoft. Alias waverfront is owned by SGI. A unix type os is much more suited for large production houses, so there is little chance that Irix Maya will self destruct.

Dan

[topgunmodeler]

I'm beginning to wonder about A|W's dedication to Irix. Maya is being ported to Linux(Red Hat distro).
There is your Unix stability right there. A few years ago I was curious about Linux but I wasn't ready for Linux at the time and Linux wasn't ready for me. The improvements and interface possibilities are amazing.
And... if your going to be on Linux(or Unix/Irix) Gimp is better than Photoshop 3 any day(it's also free).
I've started with Red Hat and by the time Maya is out next spring for Linux I'll be ready.

The only thing that bugs is having to purchase an OpenGL driver from 3rd party companies that charge 10-25% the value of the card for drivers.

Matthew Taylor
Lead Animator
Factory Digital Studios

[geoffcrowther]

shake is on there...

were waitin fer what...a 3d paint and a non linear editor on there (or is there one already?).

a year ago i never would of beleived enough apps would of made it to lx for me to even consider the idea.

[actarus]

What 3d support is there on linux??
Like none!
I think probably the new sgi boxes will be the best
bet for linux.

-Tomi A.D.
Tomi@tad3d.com
http://www.tad3d.comhttp://www.tad3d.com