Alias today announced the release of Maya Personal Learning Edition 5, a new version of its free, non-commerical 3D software package. Based on the latest release of Maya Complete, the personal-use version offers: a new hardware rendering option that takes advantage of next-generation graphics cards; a unified rendering workflow; animation enhancements to constraints, forward/inverse kinematics and ghosting; Maya Paint Effects polygon conversion; and an improved polygon reduction method. Maya Personal Learning Edition 5 is initially available as part of the Learning Maya Beginner’s Guide for US$19.99 on the Alias online store. A free download of Maya Personal Learning Edition 5 will begin this fall.