Maya vs. LW Thread in Maya forum

[CTRL+X]

Voted the most useless thread ever



ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz

[-mindcache-]

Lmao, Yeah lots of utter trash stuffed in there. Some of the sheer idiocy made for a good laugh.

[Joril]

*Doesn't care*

[Nonproductive]

Fahim's comments and pig headedness turned me off of that thread. His logic is that Maya > All because XYZ studio(s) use it. No real logic behind his statments...just drival.

Some of the other comments are valid and make for interesting brain fodder.

[NanoGator]

Lightwave allows me to do exactly what I want to do. I do not yearn for more. If a studio hires me and says "Use Maya", I'll say "Yes sir/ma'am." Doesn't reallly bother me. I'm about the art, not the app.

[leigh]

Silly people :p

[ThirdEye]

he's only 15 folks ;)

[NanoGator]

Originally posted by Leigh
Silly people :p

Me? :cry:




:p

[twidup]

this whole thread is hmmm, both pointless and great.

at a previous job, I had little exp with Maya, and 5 years on LW. I was asked if using Maya was a problem and of course, I said no. Their reasoning for the question: EVERY LWer that he had interviewed prior to that had been:

"you're using Maya? Well, I will switch you to LW"

For that reason alone, they black flagged LW users almost entirely.
The point: not much really, just us LWers tend to have a very pig headed approach to what we use. BUT, I feel almost all package users are that way..I worked with a Max guy once who refused to seriously learn anything else.

I personnally dont give a flying monkey what package I use, as long as the project is cool, the team I work with great, and the studio is fun.

[leigh]

I couldn't agree more, Twidup :)

[NanoGator]

I think the community could do a better job of making it known what production environments are like. I think that people starting with Lightwave sometimes feel that LW should do pretty much everything without feeling like they need external tools. I'm not sure what other places are like, but where I'm at that's really not true. We've got a variety of tools that excel in various ways.

One thing that I really wish had been instilled into me early on as 'acceptable' was post production. I spent my early LW years thinking that everything needed to be PERFECT out of the renderer and that Photoshop and After Effects were like cheating. if I had known that some places do compositing and Post Production (like with final Fantasy, for example...) I would have had a very different view of how to use Lightwave. I would have considered it a tool and not a platform.

I honestly think that's where a lot of my LW bias came from.

[proton]

you will never win software wars....just smile and say hello :)

[leigh]

And don't forget to wave too! :wavey:

Oh yeah NanoGator - I hear you on that one! Post prod has saved my ass many times :p
The day I discovered I could really clean up my renders in Photoshop and AE really changed my way of working! These days, NO render of mine escapes some fiddling in PS :)

Oh yeah and I totally agree about the fact that people need to try out external tools as well :)
That is why I always preach to everyone about trying out as many apps as they can. You can never know too many programs, and there is certainly no harm in keeping up to date with all the packages appearing on the market. Keeping your options open, and keeping an open mind will ensure that you stay ahead of the game.

Although LW is certainly my app of choice for all my stuff, that is simply because it suits my style best of all the progs I have tried and because I actually have it at my disposal.
However, I certainly wouldn't turn down a job in a studio that used Max or XSI or Maya - using lots of programs gives the best toolset to create ANYTHING you want, since the areas that are lacking in some apps can be compensated for in others :)

And as I said before, (and I certainly don't mind saying it again), it's really about the artist. Just look at Brian Taylor and that cheapo app he made Rust Boy in...

[ThirdEye]

Lightwave sux :wavey: Don't blame on me, i put the wavey smile there :D Just kidding, i agree with you all, Lw is a really good program, nothing to say about that, but everybody should remember that artists are more important than programs. And don't say "hey we all know that" because if everybody (myself included) knew the artist's importance then you wouldn't hear "xprogram is better than yprogram" anymore. It may sound odd but I never heard anybody saying "hey Francisco Cortina is worse than Renè Morel!" ;)
just my 2 cents

[NanoGator]

Originally posted by Leigh
And don't forget to wave too! :wavey:

Oh yeah NanoGator - I hear you on that one! Post prod has saved my ass many times :p
The day I discovered I could really clean up my renders in Photoshop and AE really changed my way of working! These days, NO render of mine escapes some fiddling in PS :)



Leigh,

It's addictive, isn't it? You'd seriously love After Effects. It's like Photoshop with a timeline. Imagine being able to brighten or change the color of a light with real time feedback. :bowdown:

Once I started playing with that my entire workflow changed. Now, my overnight renders are only from an element of a scene. If it goes bad, just rerender that one element. Or, render an extra layer to clean it up. Once I added a GI layer to an object beacuse I found out I had just enough time to do it! Cool, eh? :)

If you ever have questions about compositing and workflow with LW, fire them off to me. I've been studying it for a couple of years now. I even know how to composite lens flares with the way Lightwave's alpha channel works. ;)

[twidup]

hey Nano,

hmm, I do agree, about letting everyone know what a prod. env. is actually like, but someplace, pipelines and workflows are actually covered under NDAs. Strange I know.

Anyway, some of the places I have worked have had teams for just modeling, texturing, etc, while others, you are assinged a shot and you do EVERYTHING. While others, I personnally did everything from concept art to output on characters.
Where I am at now, the nameless one, we have teams broken up for matte painting, creatures, modelings, enviro, comp, etc.

I know a few friends in LA are at shops where they get a shot, and do everything from building the new models for it, to texturing, animating and comping the results together.

Overall, I think the 2 biggest things people should realise:

Post prod. is your friend.

AND:::

there is no harm in using more than one application. Model in what you like and has a good interface for you, animate in what provides you with the best tools, texture/shade/render in what you like and know, and composite the end results, dont be afraid to break up a shot and do multiple passes.

oh yeah, forgot this:

:)

[Remi]

/Remi says he doesn't care

[NanoGator]

Originally posted by twidup
hey Nano,

hmm, I do agree, about letting everyone know what a prod. env. is actually like, but someplace, pipelines and workflows are actually covered under NDAs. Strange I know.



That's a real bummer because right now I want to get a 3D job in L.A. (or the vicinity). Unfortunately, I'm not at a studio right now, I'm at a software company. It's hard to explain that I've pursued the more advanced 3D stuff independently so I try to learn what I can to fit in. (Maybe it's not so hard, I dunno. I haven't fired off demo reels yet.)

Every time I get a snippet of info from somebody in the FX industry, I get overwhelmed and discouraged about how naieve I am. I honestly think that I'll impress anybody who hires me, but I worry that my lack of knowledge about how those places operate will leave me in a vulnerable position.

Think I'm overreacting a bit?

[proton]

There is Zoic, Omation, Area 51, Digital Threashold, Digital Domain, S4, and many other LW shops in LA always looking for great artists....go join the LA LW users group and network.....u haveone of teh best users groups in ur area that you should take advantage of!

[leigh]

NanoGator - of course I know After Effects! :D
I actually used to be an After Effects lecturer at a local college ;)
It TOTALLY RULES!!!
At the last studio where I worked, we had a Combustion suite, and After Effects. While the rest of the animators opted for the vaster toolset of Combustion, I always rather After Effects because it is so quick and easy to use, and you get great results.

:xtreme:

[NanoGator]

Originally posted by proton
There is Zoic, Omation, Area 51, Digital Threashold, Digital Domain, S4, and many other LW shops in LA always looking for great artists....go join the LA LW users group and network.....u haveone of teh best users groups in ur area that you should take advantage of!

Whoah, I never thought of that. Can you point me in the rough direction of where to go to find them?

[NanoGator]

Originally posted by Leigh
NanoGator - of course I know After Effects! :D
I actually used to be an After Effects lecturer at a local college ;)
It TOTALLY RULES!!!
At the last studio where I worked, we had a Combustion suite, and After Effects. While the rest of the animators opted for the vaster toolset of Combustion, I always rather After Effects because it is so quick and easy to use, and you get great results.

:xtreme:

Oops. I misinterpreted your post!

What's embarrasing is that I think I remember you saying that before.

Sorry, I've been writing Use Cases all day. My brain no workie.

[leigh]

LOL

It's okay Nanogator, I have had plenty of braindead moments myself :D

[twidup]

hey Leigh, can you point me to any good after effects sites with tuts for noobs at comping?

and Nano, check you PM.
as for the studio jobs, know the studio you are applying with, know what they are looking for, know what they want to see on reels, etc....all this is easily done thru networking....hell, thats how I got my current and last job.

[leigh]

Twidup, you know I actually have NO idea where to get After Effects tuts....
It's actually SUCH an easy program to learn, there really is little necessity for tutorials ;)

If you want, I can email you the notes I made for my students on the program, from when I used to teach it? They are pretty extensive notes :)

If you can get me a job at Weta (even as a janitor, that would be fine - I will personally licked the floors of those hallowed grounds with my own tongue until they are spotless), then I will personally tutor you in After Effects! :D:D:D

[NanoGator]

Originally posted by twidup
hey Leigh, can you point me to any good after effects sites with tuts for noobs at comping?

and Nano, check you PM.
as for the studio jobs, know the studio you are applying with, know what they are looking for, know what they want to see on reels, etc....all this is easily done thru networking....hell, thats how I got my current and last job.

Thanks Twidup.! I replied to the PM.

Also, if you have any questions about After Efffects, feel free to fire them off to me. I think I owe ya one here. ;)

[twidup]

congrad to leigh on the keyframe board of advisors thing....its good to see some of those people on there.

[proton]

Leigh is going to be a great member on the board!

[JMarc]

Hope you guys don't mind me jumping in here but Creative Cow is certainly one of the best resources for After Effects on the web. Check it out here:

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/aftereffects.html

There are some good tips at Adobe's website too:

http://www.adobe.com/products/tips/aftereffects.html

That should get you started in the right direction.

Personally, I use After Effects with LightWave on almost every project. At our studio we have, Inferno, Flame, Combustion and Quantel IQ but After Effects is the workhorse! Its ease of use and resolution-independance coupled with its speed and power make it a no-brainer.

[Chewey]

For After Effects tutes I'd highly recommend looking into one of my former work mate's and his wife's books. Check out Chris and Trish Meyer's books on using Adobe After Effects at Amazon.com

[leigh]

Originally posted by twidup
congrad to leigh on the keyframe board of advisors thing....its good to see some of those people on there.

Thanks! :D:D
It's going to be SUCH fun!!!!

[NanoGator]

Woo congrats Leigh! :)

[leigh]

Thanks :)

There are a couple of other people here who should be congratulated too - Proton, Deuce, Policarpo... :)

[twidup]

I am just glad to see Charles and Alice keeping the magazine alive.

[NanoGator]

Originally posted by Leigh
Thanks :)

There are a couple of other people here who should be congratulated too - Proton, Deuce, Policarpo... :)



What she said! heh

I'm sorry, I'm not really aware of what is being referred to. It's just nice to see somebody as talented as Leigh get recognized. I mean no disrespect to other people, just ill-informed!

[leigh]

It's the advisory board for Keyframe magazine, Nanogator :)

Read all about it! (http://www.keyframemag.com/main_board.htm)

[NanoGator]

Ah I getcha!

Congrats to all!


"we will be advancing the community through the sharing of techniques and experiences, which will further career growth and education" -- Might I suggest some insight on what the day in the lives of professionals is like? :)

Doh I'm in the wrong thread for this heh. Sorry, didnt mean to drag it OT.

[Kaiser_Sose]

Originally posted by NanoGator




Make a short / long tutorial showing how you would use ae to enhance your lw renders

nothing like brightness / contrast adjustment but maybe something that adds to the effect

that would be cool

[dark_lotus]

Natalie from Goldeneye "Stop it. Both of you, your like boys with toys"

nuff said. I stopped caring about this arguement long ago.

[NanoGator]

Originally posted by Kaiser_Sose
Make a short / long tutorial showing how you would use ae to enhance your lw renders

nothing like brightness / contrast adjustment but maybe something that adds to the effect

that would be cool

I can give you a quick one right now.

Check out this image, it shows how to render lights into seperate layers for compositing later.

http://www.nanogator.com/multipass.jpg

The neat thing about layering lights like this is that is that it really changes your workflow. It's very simple really. Just use 'Screen Transparency'. :)

[faulknermano]

i thought threads like these were no longer allowed.. or is it allowed because it's under the maya forums??:hmm:

[wgreenlee1]

What a waste of webspace and bandwidth!
:thumbsdow

[Meshbuilder]

Originally posted by faulknermano
i thought threads like these were no longer allowed.. or is it allowed because it's under the maya forums??:hmm:

It seems to be ok talking about the subject "people talking about Maya vs Lightwave" but not about Maya vs Lightwave :rolleyes:

[leigh]

Threads like that are fine as long as they are in the appropriate forum, and not the General Discussions forum.

[wgreenlee1]

Originally posted by Leigh
Threads like that are fine as long as they are in the appropriate forum, and not the General Discussions forum.


:shrug:

[dark_lotus]

I have no problem with civil logical debate. But because people have to get emotionally attached to their software this does not happen often.

Personally, as long as I keep seeing great work, and one day be able to do that stuff, I couldn't care less who uses what software.

I'd really be interested in actuall professionals who have used multiple programs for years and years, giving us their opinion.

[Ed Lee]

The thread where this thread borne out of got closed...maybe this thread will get closed too, soon.

Ed--

[faulknermano]

Originally posted by Meshbuilder
It seems to be ok talking about the subject "people talking about Maya vs Lightwave" but not about Maya vs Lightwave :rolleyes:

ah. (i think i get it).

i'm at the end of my limit at any rate. i couldnt finish the whole thread. kind of tiring. it's like i wanted to post against some illogic, but really, what's the use?

[Meshbuilder]

Originally posted by Leigh
Threads like that are fine as long as they are in the appropriate forum, and not the General Discussions forum.

Ok.. But I think endless and often stupid discussions like (that program vs some other program) belongs more to General Discussion than in the 3D Applications Specific Forums..

:shrug:

[leigh]

Originally posted by Meshbuilder
Ok.. But I think endless and often stupid discussions like (that program vs some other program) belongs more to General Discussion than in the 3D Applications Specific Forums..


Well, the reason that they are fine in the app specific forums, is because one would ideally hope that in those particular forums, people would actually know what they are talking about...

When app comparison threads pop up in General Discussions, they ALWAYS turn into really nasty and pathetic flame wars, whereas one like this particular one are just a bit silly, not really vicious.

The fact is that people do have the right to compare apps, and the right place to do that is in the apps appropriate forum.

[NanoGator]

Can't say I've seen or participated in these threads here on CGTalk, but speaking from a "It looks good on Paper!" point of view I'd venture that somebody who has neither of those apps could benefit from the debate. (Especially now that LW and Maya aren't too far apart in price.)

However, I can also imagine that's the chief concern of people posting there. "How do I make somebody buy another copy of Lightwave instead of that godawful Maya?" (Note: That was hypothetical, I don't feel that about Maya.)

I have no trouble imagining that Leigh is right. I've watched LW vs. MAX arguments before on other forums and never really seen anything fruitful from them. I've never seen somebody say "Oh, I see what you're saying. Maybe my opinion of that App needs some retuning."

I have a question though, is it possible to guide these threads towards something more productive? I think the big problem here is just about everybody takes the point of view of "You can have either/or, not both." What would it take to point the thread in the direction of "For this type of project, you may have better luck with Maya..." instead of "Maya's just plain better"?

Anybody ever tried that?

[leigh]

Well NanoGator, I think the main thing here is that these things would exist in an ideal society.
Unfortunately, past experience has led me to realise that some people will just not co-operate, and will simply state their opinions as fact, and will refuse to hear otherwise.

That thread I posted in te General Discussions forum (the "what app?" sticky) was the result of us mods getting SICK AND TIRED of pointless software flame wars.

As I said before, it is a persons right to know the ins and out of apps when wanting to make a choice, but since people are inclined to become so emotional about their choice of software, there is just never a decent conversation... They always degenerate into lame pissing contests with nothing of any worth being said.

No matter how much the few people who do have something of worth to say try and give some good facts, their efforts are swamped in by the mindless chirpings of fools.

Sad but true :shrug:

[V_Shane]

I jsut think it comes down to those that feel inadequate about thier given skill WITH a particular software and feel they ahve to defend themselves rather than showing what they are made of artistically or technically, blaming thier faults on some abandoned software that exceeded thier own ability to integrate.

It does come down to emotion, and thats a powerful motivator for quality work, Energy In motion, so not so much to waste your time whipping a dead horse, but spend your (thier) time creating something that will make me say "WOW you did THAT in Maya/LW?" Intention=motivation=Application=Demonstrated Action. If the end result is just words and bickering, then thats kinda defeating the inspiration of the software in the first place.

[NanoGator]

heh. What really devastated this debate with me is that I know a guy who does interiors of sets from Star Trek (bridges etc) that seriously pass for photographs.

He works with TrueSpace 4. (I think it's 4...) It has limitations that make lighting really hard, like you can't set how far away the falloff is. Yet he makes it work.

After I ran across that guy, I stopped worrying about which app and resumed worrying on "how do I make myself useful with whatever I'm using?"


Still love Lightwave though. :airguitar

[dark_lotus]

Well the main reason I chose Lightwave was mainly because of the guy that got me into cg. I knew about Maya, but Lightwave was much more accessable for me as a student.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.