Ha, you nailed it. That's exactly what it was. Thanks for jogging my memory.

Back then Maya seemed like this unobtainable, magical machine for producing impossible imagery. When I finally got my hands on it, I was so disappointed to realize I still needed skills to make it do the cool things. I was ~16 and pretty clueless. I just knew Maya was used for the crazy stuff I was seeing in cut scenes from games or special effects in movies.