Maya free for personal use.

The learning edition at least...

Slashdot on the issue
Alias official site w/ info

Hasn't there been a free version for quite some time now?

Yeah, they used to offer a 30 day temporarily liscensed version, which you could either download, or have sent to you by mail. That version was completely save disabled, and wasn't good for much more than very casual messing around. This version doesn't say anything about save or export features being disabled, or anything about watermarking that would esentially be a way to prevent you from selling work product, but would be just fine for learning.

I think that about 4 years ago, Alias was the program to have for 3D animation, but now, they're not the only ones in the game. In fact, maya has become almost synonymous with game animation, rather than formerly being the standard for hollywood special effects, a title now held by Shake 3, and some others.

actually the ple has been around for some time, this is just the new release of the software (version 5). and you're a bit mistaken on your other info, maya is considered the most widely used 3d software for visual effects and animation, shake is one of the top compositing packages, and 3ds max is the game industry standard.

chris

I didn't know that.
Thanx Chris

glad to help. didn't mean to come off as know-it-all-ish, sorry if i did. this is just stuff i follow a lot and have several friends who work in visual effects and animation so i stay up to date

chris

We understand know-it-all, Chris. :p