Friday, February 8, 2008

The Microsoft Cabinet of Caligari

Todays announcement that Microsoft purchased Caligari Corporation and their 3D animation package Truespace gave us an old feeling of Deja Vu. This is not the first time Microsoft has purchased a 3D company, they tried this in 1996 when they acquired SoftImage. Blame it on the French if you want but that marriage only lasted for two years before Microsoft sold SoftImage at a loss.

Like a silent movie remake who knows if this latest release will be good or bad for the industry. Last time around SGI was so afraid of the SoftImage purchase that they bought Alias and Wavefront and merged them into what later became Maya. Life has a funny way of doing unexpected things like that. How will this affect Aladdin 4D? It won't, we will keep pushing forward and yes the Windows version will still be lowest on our list. But like a old horror movie you will not know the end of this story until we are further into the plot.

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2 comments:

Cesar said...

I have been out of the Amiga community for more than 5 years but am now considering becoming active again. This means reviving my Amiga 2000 and dusting it off from my cabinet.

I have been an amateur user of Aladdin during the late 1990s and have always been fascinated by the power of the application compared to the more expensive Windows-only programs at that time. Aladdin is one of the more intuitive 3D programs I have seen in the market, a strength that other programs do not have.

I am thinking of using Aladdin again but am not sure how. I am now living in a Windows-only world and I'm afraid I may have to settle with a program I can use on an Amiga emulator like winuae until such time that Amiga hardware becomes available again for me to upgrade my Amiga 2000.

Is there a way for me to use Aladdin 4D without my Amiga 2000? I don't mind using an older version of Aladdin 4D until I can purchase a licensed version of the latest version.

Thanks.

A loyal amiga fan

Aladdin 4D said...

The CD-ROM version of Aladdin 4D works fine with Amiga emulators like Amiga Forever. In fact it's the fastest way to render scenes.