mental ray for Maya Now Free

Toronto, Canada - Alias|Wavefront, an SGI (NYSE: SGI) company,announced today the strengthening of its alliance with mental images.Alias|Wavefront is now offering the mental ray for Maya plug-in at noextra charge to all Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited customers. Themental ray for Maya plug-in, previously priced at $3,995*, is availablefree to all Maya customers beginning with Maya 4.5 and mental ray forMaya 1.5. Maya 4.5 customers can now download mental ray for Maya 1.5public beta at http://www.aliaswavefront.com/maya/getmental.

Strong Alliance Brings Outstanding Offering to CGIndustry

With the announcement of this strengthened alliance, Alias|Wavefrontand mental images are committing to develop and integrate mental rayfor Maya as a standard rendering feature in future versions ofMaya.

"The decision to provide mental ray for Maya to each licensed Maya4.5 customer demonstrates the joint commitment of Alias|Wavefront andmental images to put the power of mental ray for Maya in the hands ofall Maya customers," says Rolf Herken, President and Director R&D,mental images. "This is a spectacular offering. We encourage everyonewith an interest in 3D content creation to evaluate the combination ofmental ray with Maya and to explore the resulting limitlesspossibilities for the effortless creation of amazing imagery ofunprecedented quality and visual richness."

Empowering the Maya Community

"It is the natural evolution of our products, combining the bestwith the best," says Shai Hinitz, Maya Product Manager atAlias|Wavefront. "Our customers have been asking us to merge Maya'sintuitive workflow and productive feature-set with the power andprogrammability of mental image's renderer. In doing so, we'reinjecting $3,995 worth of value into Maya 4.5 for free. Due to theadvanced integrated workflow, Maya 4.5 users will instantly benefitfrom the photo-realistic rendering effects mental ray for Maya has tooffer, in addition to the stunning imagery already possible with thenative Maya renderer. From now on Maya customers will get to choosebetween two of the industry's most powerful renderers."

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 and games customers include: Acclaim Entertainment, Inc.,CNN, Core Design Limited, Digital Domain, Disney, Electronic Arts,Industrial Light & Magic, Factor 5 LLC, Midway Games, Nintendo,Pacific Data Images (PDI), Pixar, Sega, Sony Pictures Imageworks,Square Co., Ltd., Warner Feature Animation and Weta Ltd.

Alias|Wavefront is a wholly owned, independent software company ofSGI with headquarters in Toronto and custom development center in SantaBarbara. Please visit the Alias|Wavefront web site athttp://www.aliaswavefront.com or call 1-800-447-2542 in North America.International contact numbers include: Northern Europe, Middle East andAfrica, +44 (0) 1494 441273; Germany, East & Southeast Europe, 004989 31 70 20; France, Spain and Portugal, +33 1 44 92 81 60; Japan, 0120764 088; other parts of Asia Pacific, 81 3 3470 8282 and Latin America,770 393 1881.

* All prices quoted are in U.S. dollars. International pricing mayvary.