 | |
| Formerly |
|
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Founded | 1983 in Toronto, Ontario |
| Founders |
|
| Defunct | 2006 |
| Fate | Acquired by Autodesk |
Alias Systems Corporation (formerly Alias Research, Alias/Wavefront), headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was a software company that produced high-end 3D graphics software. Alias was eventually bought by Autodesk.
Alias Systems Corporation was founded by Stephen Bingham, Nigel McGrath, Susan McKenna, and David Springer in 1983. The company was initially funded by a $61,000 grant from the National Research Council, scientific research tax credits, and the founders personal funds. [1]
In 1984, while sitting in a Detroit restaurant during the SIGGRAPH conference, the founders decided to name the company Alias because its only revenue came from Springer's work on an anti-aliasing program for Silicon Graphics, Inc. [1] In 1985, at SIGGRAPH the company released Alias 1, which used cardinal splines instead of polygon meshes with straight lines. [1] In 1989, Alias 2 was used to produce The Abyss which would later win the 1990 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. [1] In 1990, Alias raised about $35 million (equivalent to $63.21 million in 2021) through an initial public offering. That year, Alias also released new products named Studio, PowerAnimator, UpFront and purchased Spacemaker, separate and distinct to Spacemaker AI, which was purchased by Autodesk in 2020. [2] PowerAnimator was used to produce Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), which won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. [1]
In October 1990, the company purchase Full Color Computing, Inc., a provider of high-end photo retouch and color prepress software.
In 1995, Alias began developing Maya. Maya would become the world's premier 3D animation software. [1]
On February 7, 1995, Wavefront, SGI, and Alias merged to become Alias|Wavefront as a division of SGI. [1] In 1998, Alias|Wavefront released Maya. [1]
On March 1, 2003, the company was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an Academy Award (Oscar) for scientific and technical achievement for their development of Maya software. Wavefront Technologies founders Bill Kovacs and Roy A. Hall received a 1997 Academy Award for the creative leadership (Kovacs) and the principal engineering (Hall) efforts that led to the Wavefront Advanced Visualizer computer graphics system.
Later in 2003, the company's name was changed from Alias|Wavefront to Alias. [3] In June 2004, Silicon Graphics sold Alias to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity investment firm, for US$57.1 million. [4]
In September 2004, Alias acquired Kaydara, adding the company's character animation and motion editing products to Alias' line of software.
On October 4, 2005, Autodesk, announced plans to acquire Alias. [5] [6] On January 10, 2006, Autodesk completed the acquisition for US$197 million in cash. [7]
Alias' best-known product, the 3D modeling and animation package Maya, was delivered in 1998 and has released a major upgrade every 9–12 months. The last release made by Alias was Maya 7.0. Since the purchase by Autodesk all versions after 8.5 use a year-based naming convention, such as Maya2008.
Other products include; the industrial design package StudioTools (formerly known as Studio, or just "Alias"), which is used extensively in the automotive, aerospace and industrial design industries, a 2D drawing and sketching application called SketchBook Pro, and in 1992, an early Macintosh based 3D modelling and rendering package called Sketch! [8] which was the precursor of Alias Maya. Sketch provided the basis of the core non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) editing tools, which in turn was based on a product that the company bought, and its key developer went to work for Alias.
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and software. Founded in Mountain View, California in November 1981 by James Clark, its initial market was 3D graphics computer workstations, but its products, strategies and market positions developed significantly over time.
Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya, is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for interactive 3D applications, animated films, TV series, and visual effects.
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has offices worldwide. Its U.S. offices are located in the states of California, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, Michigan, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Its Canada offices are located in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta.
Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capabilities and a flexible plugin architecture and must be used on the Microsoft Windows platform. It is frequently used by video game developers, many TV commercial studios, and architectural visualization studios. It is also used for movie effects and movie pre-visualization. 3ds Max features shaders, dynamic simulation, particle systems, radiosity, normal map creation and rendering, global illumination, a customizable user interface, and its own scripting language.
Cinema 4D is a 3D software suite developed by the German company Maxon.
Autodesk Alias is a family of computer-aided industrial design (CAID) software predominantly used in automotive design and industrial design for generating class A surfaces using Bézier surface and non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) modeling method.
Softimage, Co. was a company located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that produced 3D animation software. A subsidiary of Microsoft in the 1990s, it was sold to Avid Technology, who would eventually sell the name and assets of Softimage's 3D-animation business to Autodesk.
Autodesk Media and Entertainment is a division of Autodesk which offers animation and visual effects products, and was formed by the combination of multiple acquisitions. In 2018, the company began operating as a single operating segment and reporting unit.
The Advanced Visualizer (TAV), a 3D graphics software package, was the flagship product of Wavefront Technologies from the 1980s until the 1990s.
Dynamation was a 3D computer graphics particle generator program sold by Wavefront to run on SGI's IRIX operating system as part of The Advanced Visualizer. The core software was originally developed by Jim Hourihan while at Santa Barbara Studios, a visual effects company owned by effects pioneer John Grower. The software was licensed to Wavefront Technologies in 1992, and passed through to the merged company Alias/Wavefront. It was introduced as a product at SIGGRAPH in 1993. In 1996, Jim Hourihan received a Scientific and Engineering Award for the primary design and development of Dynamation.
Sketchbook is a raster graphics software app intended for expressive drawing and concept sketching also for making animations. The software was first developed by Alias Systems Corporation as StudioPaint, before being acquired by Autodesk and then being spun out into an independent company, Sketchbook, Inc. Originally developed as commercial software, it evolved into a subscription model before eventually being made freeware for personal use. In 2021, Sketchbook Pro, the desktop version of the app available on Microsoft Windows and macOS, became a paid software available through the Microsoft Store and Mac App Store.
Wavefront Technologies was a computer graphics company that developed and sold animation software used in Hollywood motion pictures and other industries. It was founded in 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, by Bill Kovacs, Larry Barels, Mark Sylvester. They started the company to produce computer graphics for movies and television commercials, and to market their own software, as there were no off-the-shelf computer animation tools available at the time. In 1995, Wavefront Technologies was acquired by Silicon Graphics, and merged with Alias Research to form Alias|Wavefront.
Jos Stam is a researcher in the field of computer graphics, focusing on the simulation of natural physical phenomena for 3D-computer animation. He achieved technical breakthroughs with the simulation of fluids and gases, new rendering algorithms and subdivision surfaces, which are a mix between two previously incompatible worlds of Nurbs- and polygon-modeling in 3D.
Rob Burgess is a Canadian executive in the technology industry. He was the chief executive officer of Macromedia Inc. from 1996 to 2005 and chairman from 1997 to 2005. Prior to that, he was CEO of Alias Research from 1991 to 1995.
Softimage|3D was a high-end 3D graphics application developed by Softimage, Co., which was used predominantly in the film, broadcasting, gaming, and advertising industries for the production of 3D animation. It was superseded by Softimage XSI in 2000.
MotionBuilder is a 3D character animation software produced by Autodesk. It is used for virtual cinematography, motion capture, and traditional keyframe animation. It was originally named Filmbox when it was first created by Canadian company Kaydara, later acquired by Alias and renamed to MotionBuilder. Alias in turn was acquired by Autodesk.
The history of computer animation began as early as the 1940s and 1950s, when people began to experiment with computer graphics – most notably by John Whitney. It was only by the early 1960s when digital computers had become widely established, that new avenues for innovative computer graphics blossomed. Initially, uses were mainly for scientific, engineering and other research purposes, but artistic experimentation began to make its appearance by the mid-1960s – most notably by Dr. Thomas Calvert. By the mid-1970s, many such efforts were beginning to enter into public media. Much computer graphics at this time involved 2-D imagery, though increasingly as computer power improved, efforts to achieve 3-D realism became the emphasis. By the late 1980s, photo-realistic 3-D was beginning to appear in film movies, and by mid-1990s had developed to the point where 3-D animation could be used for entire feature film production.
Duncan Brinsmead is a Canadian software programmer and developer of simulations of natural environments in 3D computer graphics (CGI). He created the Maya Paint Effects for digitally painting instances like plants or hair in a virtual 3D environment. In 2008, together with Jos Stam, Julia Pakalns and Martin Werner he received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement for the design and implementation of the Maya Fluid Effects system. Fluid Effects are based on the simulation of fluid mechanics in software and used for simulating natural phenomena such as fog, steam or smoke.
Faceware Technologies is a facial animation and motion capture development company in America. The company was established under Image Metrics and became its own company at the beginning of 2012.
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