Canadian special effects and animation technology companies will be dressing their booths to the nines at NAB2000, each boasting new products and updated systems.

Softimage, a division of Avid, will be offering updates on existing systems such as Softimage 3D, Softimage ds and Sumatra.

Montreal-based Toon Boom will showcase a new version of USAnimation 5.0, one highlight of which, according to Toon Boom director of marketing Karina Bessoudo, is the new multi-format rendering option which includes hdtv.

Bessoudo adds Toon Boom will also display two new modules for the USAnimation product – the still untitled drawing module, which allows animators to draw directly into the system with a sensitivity pressure pen, and a line test module. Bessoudo also hints at some news brewing, which may be officially announced in Las Vegas.

Alias|Wavefront’s product manager Chris Ford estimates his trip to this year’s nab will be his fifteenth appearance at the convention. In Vegas, the folks who brought us Maya will be displaying version five, Maya 3. Ford says several innovations and enhancements make the newest Maya model more user-friendly than ever.

‘We had a reasonable amount of customer feedback and input, which has given us a sense of where we had to make small alterations that will have a big benefit in terms of user speed and productivity,’ says Ford.

Another focus for a|w engineers, according to Ford, was to make sure Maya 3 could ‘talk’ with other members of the Maya family more effectively.

Another Maya product to be demonstrated will be the sequel to Maya Fusion, aptly named Maya Fusion 2. Ford says Fusion 2 will have a Maya-style user interface for greater consistency when using the interactive tool menus.

Ford is looking forward to his fifteenth nab. ‘It hits the markets we want to target – digital content creatives, post houses, users of all types,’ he says.

‘Any show that has more than 100,000 people going will give us a lot of coverage. It is one of the biggest shows of the year for us and has been throughout the entire history of our company, which goes back to 1983.’

Toon Boom’s Bessoudo concurs. ‘It is a good opportunity to present the products to existing clients and also potential ones,’ she says. She adds it is the ideal time to gauge market trends and ‘see what projects are in the pipeline.’

As far as what products animation and effects houses – those ‘potential clients’ – will be seeking out at nab, those reached by Playback were reluctant to reveal their plans, except to say they will be happy to ‘just go and look around.’