Many folks have had trouble getting in touch with Pixels, the makers of Studio 3.7/ShaderMaker Pro. Their Web site, e-mail and telephone are not in service, and we were unable to find any information about what happened to their company or their products.
However, Andrew Bryant, president and CEO of Pixels, tells MacCentral their alive and well. Their Web site was down because their router died.
“I moved the site to my personal server at home, which is connected to the Internet via a cable modem, but it proved to be too much traffic for a cable modem to handle,” Bryant said. “I am currently setting up a new site which will be up and running this week — along with an explanation.” (As of this update, the site is up and running again).
The message board is also back up and working again, if you go to it via the direct link. And Bryant said that they’re “hard at work on PiXELS 3D, version 4.”
Founded in 1991, Pixels developed “artist-friendly” software for content creators in fields such as video, film, interactive game and CD-ROM production. The company touted Pixels 3D as the first product to bring workstation (and beyond) level software to the Power Mac. Pixel’s entertainment products also included ShaderMaker Pro 1.0, Virtuoso, PixelsTime and Particles.
The company provided a variety of tools designed to let animators and visual effect artists bring together and manipulate 3D data with 2D live-action. Pixel’s Imaging Technologies included applications for compositing, visual effect creation and video capture and playback for the computer graphics production markets.
Originally an animation studio, Pixels first wrote Pixels 3D as an in-house tool. Pixels purportedly worked with animators from studios such as Industrial Light & Magic, Digital Domain, Disney, Odd World Inhabitants, Santa Barbara Studios, Boss Films, (Colosal) Pictures and Tippet Studios.