*Maya 3 ships with new animation editing tool

Alias|Wavefront has announced the release of a new version of its Maya 3 with nonlinear animation editing capabilities.

The new animation tool, called Trax, allows for the editing of large amounts of motion-capture data or the mixing together of multiple animation sequences of the same character in a non-destructive, hierarchical and time-independent manner, says a|w.

This will be of particular benefit to games artists who often need to manipulate and blend extensive amounts of animation, the company says.

‘The benefits of Maya 3 software with nonlinear animation are equally relevant to both film and video and games users,’ says Maya product manager Chris Ford. ‘It will greatly simplify the production of complex animation sequences in the broader community of digital content creators.’

Maya 3 also includes such additional features as subdivision surface modeling tools and a completely new polygonal architecture.

*Fast Forward moves new removable hard drive

Irvine, California-based Fast Forward Video, manufacturer of pro-quality digital video recorders, has announced the introduction of a removable hard-drive version of its popular Omega DeckTM. The option will allow operators easy access to remove and replace the unit’s hard drive through a front-door panel, the company says.

‘We believe this new option is just one more step in the evolution of the Omega Deck,’ says company president Paul DeKeyser. ‘With the removable hard drive, users will no longer have to send a deck back to their respective studios to add additional recording capacity.’

The hard drive runs on a ‘hot swappable’ 9 or 18 gb Seagate Ultra scsi low-voltage differential which permits vast amounts of storage.

The deck includes standard features such as jog/shuttle knob, dynamic tracking, instant cueing, slow motion, r-g-b switch and composite video in and out.

The removable hard drive Omega Decktm is shipping for under us$7,000 ($10,160), DeKeyser says.

*Matrox ships its RT2000 card

Montreal-based Matrox Video Products has begun shipping the production version of its RT2000 card which provides an array of professional realtime editing features.

Thanks to its Flex 3D architecture, the RT2000 exploits the 3D graphics performance of the company’s Millennium G400 accelerator card to provide realtime broadcast-quality 3D dve and 32-bit, uncompressed, animated graphics in a dual-stream, native dv editing environment.

The RT2000 is shipping for about us$1,295 ($1,880).

*Newsworld introduces ‘News On Demand’

CBC Newsworld Online has introduced ‘News On Demand,’ the option of watching hourly Newsworld newscasts around the clock within seconds of their airing live.

Web users can access the newscasts using RealMedia Player or QuickTime Player software, the national news network has announced.