Contemplating a switch

[thedaemon]

I havent gotten to use the Maya animation tools, seeing as how I am a max user. But I was wondering how different they are? I was interested in the switch, mainly price.. :) And modeling is groovah in maya :airguitar I have rendered just a little thing in Maya, and it was slower than max. No lights, just a model. took a few more seconds than max. :|

[stunndman]

if you are heading for Maya 4.5 you might have heard that mental ray (3.1) will be included beside the integrated renderer at no additional costs - it right now is available as a beta download

[Houkah]

I personally don't think the renderers as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It's just slow as hell. Especially with raytracing. You'll get good results if you tweak it enough. If you just gotta have GI there's scripts and of course mental ray. Modelling is great, but i think modelling in Max is pretty good for it too. Maya's dynamics/particles and animation tools are fantastic though.

[DimitrisLiatsos]

:wavey: Hi lildragon ..if it helps i was using Max (still am) from version1.0.

Now from Version 2 i use mostly Maya, So the basic stuff that u have to take with u when u start learning Maya ..is patience..lol

A Max(er) waits a software like Maya to do stuff like max but better ..but what no one will make u understand is that things in Maya have to many parameters to tweak in order to get the wonderfull result u want...also it's renderer needs adjustments that u never did in Max...and yes it's a little bit slower but with much...much better quality...(trust me i work in a post production studio) every body here dislikes the antialiasing methods of max in renderings with mask(to many jagged edges), Maya doesn't have this problem. i know i can't help u in one message so feel free to ask anything 'cuase i had all the problems of a traveler from MAX to MAYA.

Best way to start alone is "MASTERING MAYA 3" by John Kumdert-Gibbs & Peter Lee


hope i helped!!!

[Isrithe]

Maya has very powerful modeling tools, animation tools and other great things! Moving to Maya is a good idea, but its also a good idea to keep using max too. Dont just leave it behind in the dust, you may need the tools of max one day. Although you could do everything in maya that you can do in max, but lets say you want to model in maya and animate in max....its a possibility. I moved to Maya from lightwave and I still use lightwave from time to time. What I do notice though, maya is perfect for the challenges I have been faced with in lightwave, some I couldnt quite see the results, but in maya, the results are very clear and my workflow is fast and efficient. Maya is wierd to learn at first, but you will get the hang of it.

[DimitrisLiatsos]

:thumbsup: Agreed withIsrithe

[JasonA]

I would tend to agree. I too just recently came from Max4, and Maya has some cool advantages.

Its a hard transition to make though IMO. My productivity has definitely taken a hit (temporarily). Thinking like max will make it challenging cause the workflow is so different. Also, many of max's "convienience" tools don't exist in maya natively, but you can get many of them by using scripts available at highend3d.

And yes the renderer is definitely slower. much slower. But after tweaking the AA, you can still get awesome images out of it. My only complaint is its speed.

But hey, it also has a very cool material editor (hypershade), rigid/soft body dynamics are much easier to work with, Animation tools look really good(haven't worked with them much yet) The NURBS implementation is MUCH better....blah, blah, blah

I'm glad I switched ;)

[mushroomgod]

i love almost everything about maya.....but not the renderer :(

im sure alot of people will disagree with me but i do have my resons for saying that....

firstly, its very slow, slower than any of the other apps built in renderers.

Secondly, it tends to use far to much ram, iv had files that it was unable to render and iv got a gig of ram. Having to resort to rendering in layers can somtimes be a real pain....+ iv never had this problem when rendering in max....maxes renderer is a real powerhorse, it can render anything.

You can of course still get very high quality renders out of maya, but that isent realy much of a selling point as its posible to get quality renders out of any renderer today.

Luckly though ....Mental ray seems to be quite good :)...kinda makes up for alot of mayas shortcomings...though somtimes it seems a bit slow also, theres alot of things that are posible with it ......just gota figer them out :rolleyes:

[lildragon]

Thx much guys, I'm pretty much sold on Maya's animation tools, it brings back the pleasure of animating characters, (I remember those days fondly in A:M) So the renderer is a bit slow huh? hmm thing is I won't leave Max completely, I'm very quick with the modeling tools in Max, but Maya does have some nifty stuff on it's own, either case I think they'll work nicely together... Now all I have to do is figure out a way to get my Kar characters over to Maya :)

I'm about to try Kaydara..

salud and thx again

[m0ck]

May you can convince Keith Lango to let us all
to have a look at his tools :) hiehiehiehie...

[JamesDeschenes]

How often do you use the max chamfer tool? :p

Just wondering :beer:

[lildragon]

Originally posted by James Deschenes
How often do you use the max chamfer tool? :p

Just wondering :beer:

Use it quite often actually why? :curious:

OK brought Kar, Nemoui and Roku into maya, and let me just say I'm floored by the viewport speed :eek: one character in the Max viewport was sluggish on my comp, and my comp isn't exactly a door stop, but in Maya I had them all in the same scene smoothed and it still ran faster, aye!

back to it

salud

[Ibanezhead]

I use Max to Model in at work, and Character Studio to animate with. I also use LW at home. But I was very frustrated with LWs animation tools, so I got Maya for home use. It is really great. Although, I agree the renderer is very very slow, and I just haven't gotten use modeling in it, yet. So I model in LW still, at home, and am exporting over to Maya. The Rigging, and animation tools are a must, but I would choose to model in Max, with Meshtools, any day over Maya, or LW, for now.

Vic

[JamesDeschenes]

Originally posted by lildragon
Use it quite often actually why? :curious:




Well in maya there is no real decent equivelent of it.. these people will tell ya to use the 'bevel' too becuase its the exact same thing.. but it really does not feel the same at all :D plus it creates a lot more of a mess then you would want to have :thumbsdow

I only have a few other gripes with maya (renderer, ways of setting up stuff) but other then that its great :)

[mushroomgod]

how does maxes chamfer tool work then???


cuz in maya when you extrude a face/edge there are also controls to scale the new faces....ie to creating a chamfer?

[jbradford]

Maya doesn't have soft selection, chamfer, or the ability to save selected faces/edges/vertexes when your switching between them. Right now I model in max then rig and animate in Maya, the process seems to work out but I would eventually like to become all max - Maya's default renderer is too slow.

[m0ck]

What do you exactly mean with saving selcted vertex/faces/edges?

Do you mean "a kind of grouping selection" which have the desired
components so you can select it quickly?

Have you tried the Quick Select Set?

Soft Selection... well you have a poor implemented "derivate" tool,
the Proportional Modification Tool but for a more accurate Soft Selection I suggest you clay_dough

http://macvizion.com/Claydough/scripts/clay-dough_1.3.zip
or
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/mel/?section=modeling#1097

I don´t know exactly what does dthe chamfer but I think that in the free game tools you have exactly that.

The render well it's slow but not sooooooo slow, things like displacement are really slooooooooooowwwwwww or maybe raytrace but it´s not so bad as many people think.

[Ed Lee]

What are your reasons for the switch?...Affordability?..Toolset?...Work related? Just curious. Well, I'm one of those guyz that pay for their soft so I've to use them...sittt. I started out with LW, then did a switch to Max (even tho at the time everyone griped about the UI like peeps griping about Maya renderer). Then I recently switched to Maya partly because of work as I was comfortable with Max.

However, having gone to Maya I asked myself was it the end of the road for me as far as choices of soft goes?..No, I still use Max and LW mostly for modeling, LW for organic and Max for architectural and mechanical as it's derived somewhat from CAD program of yonder days. Maya does have some limitations as far as poly-modeling goes, but animation is a must as I'm able to animate things w/o spending too much time. I didn't care for CS for its limitations. Lightwave has weird "t" for pan and "y" for rotation in the Layout. They should have it like the Modeler with Ctrl/shift/alt to manip perspective/camera (like Max). I like Max but I prefer Maya as going back to Max seems like taking a step back...just my opinion.

I have yet to do more things with Mirai but it's just another tool to get the job done...although it's a good tool.

So, finally...if you're going to switch it's good idea but former poster said don't just shut out other soft because of it.

Good luck,

Ed--

www.edleeart.com

[Grayson]

I have been a die hard max fan for the longest time. But now while I'm at school I'm having to learn Maya; and I'm actually enjoying it.

Things I like:
I really love the animation tool set; it makes animation a pleasure.
The Hypershade is crazy powerful once you spend enough time with it. (I haven't yet) :D
UV tools are nice
The whole rigging pipeline is nice and powerful
The constraints rock mostly just because there on/off is key based.

Things I hate:
No chamfer
No "real" soft selection tool. (Makes creating morph targets really unnecessarily difficult)
No easy way to select edge loops or rings. (I do all my modeling in Max)
Rendering engine blows goats (I wish Keith L. would let us know how he's getting his stuff back into Max to render)

So like everyone else said; just abuse the advantages of any software package you know to get the job done and get the result you’re looking for; if it looks good in the end that's all that matters. ;)

[lildragon]

Ed Lee: that's the thing, I wouldn't want to spread myself so thin when it comes to software, one or two at most, also I never said I was dumping max completely, but I'll be doing most of my work in Maya from here on in, and maybe just keep on modeling in Max. I really like the Maya toolset, the animation toolset brings back the pleasure of animating, reminds me alot of my A:M days, rigging in Max is a b*tch, and it bores you very quickly.

I'm a diehard max user I even shun away Maya for months now just because I didn't want to listen to the "hype", I finally decided to give it a solid run and low and behold I loved it. The UI annoyed me for a bit, but once over that hurdle it made alot of sense, the modeling in Maya isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, I mean with MJPolyTools my meshtool blues where cured.

There's many reasons I like Maya, but I'm not totally dismissing Max.

Honestly what I find amazing is how peeps get all edgy over a software switch, I'm not tied down to any app, if it proves it can work for my needs I'm using it.

Grayson: You said it all :D exactly ;)

salud

[Gentle Fury]

well as far as mayas renderer......if you know what you are doing you can get some incredible results.....its just not a quick point and click, make cool button way of working....it takes some tweeking and knowledge of how the utility nodes and expressions work ( a lot like how renderman is) Once it clicks though............you will get some amazing results and the rendertimes will be dramatically faster (once you know how to efficiently manage your scenes!)

Think of it this way.....if it rendered in real time, when would you have time to go get a beer!??!??!?!?!?!?

now you know the reason i say :

Happy Rendering!!!!!!

[Kabab]

I don't understand the problem you have with the rendering tools i mean you get mental ray for free now what more can you ask for ?

[lildragon]

Originally posted by Kabab
I don't understand the problem you have with the rendering tools i mean you get mental ray for free now what more can you ask for ?

:D

[noisewar]

so many complaints about Maya's poly modeling tools, but I thik the real secret is to use Maya's ridiculously good Nurbs tools to rough it all out, turn on Live Magnet/Snap to Curves, and poly model into the level detail you want. Convert Nurbs to Polys also works great. I think the difference is not such much the modeling convenience, but what you are modeling. Maya was originally designed to model cars and industrial things, so if you adjust your workflow to that instead of Max Boxmodeling, you'll get better, cleaner results, and faster.

And yeah the renderer is butt ass slow and eat tremendous RAM, but usually there are plenty of settings to turn down ass well. AA does not need to be HIGHEST =P

[lildragon]

Originally posted by HellRender
max seems to have better poly tools, but there are few scripts and ways to emulate max'es tools that are floating around. :D

Such as?.... there's something more than meshtools?

I'm not a nurbs man, but it does look nifty in Maya

salud

[graphiouz]

i dont understand the 'max has better polytools' talk, i dont use max.
does it have a magic make perfect poly button?, or is it blasignly fast?
all i know you can echive the exact same result, but in a different ways, maya is a teen when it comes to polys everybody knows that,

and about maya being made for industrial nurbs stuff arent exacly the reason, all i know, it was made for film and for animation (characters etc) and to take over where PA left,
AW Studio was made for industrial stuff!

anyway, you should use the tools you are most comfortable with,
and yes the maya render is a hard nut to crack
:)

[Houkah]

I don't understand that either. I've used max quite a bit, was using 3dstudio since it was dos v. 4. Learned maya in school and never looked back. While it's true that the built in toolset doesn't have everything max does (it really bugged me that you can't work on a low poly and have a smoothed v. update in realtime. Connect poly shape script fixed that. Lots of people say to use the built in smooth proxy but i like the CPS toolset. You already got MJPolyTools. Those 2 scripts give you the important modelling tools i think. What i loved about maya was the interface. Max's always felt a little clunky to me personally. That's all just personal preference though.

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