memory lane: old maya promo videos

It is always fun to look back. To that end I have collected a trip down memory lane with some of the sample animations used to promote alias power animator and the first inclination of maya, back when the company just merged to form alias|wavefront. The videos demonstrate wildly new technologies at the time, weighted skinning, deformers, particle dynamics, softbodies, set driven keys and the like. These videos amazed me at the time, and were entirely responsible for me getting into higher end 3D. Of course looking at them now, I chuckle thinking that the office practically stopped for days huddled around a 17″ crt monitor with our jaws dropped to the floor, watching them over and over again.