LW domination...

[ToddD]

Stop worrying about it and start modeling:thumbsup: :beer:

[erilaz]

Originally posted by lukx
Looking at # of posts and LW is taking first place. I don't know how about you but I feel sad. Is that 3ds max going on third track in this bussines? Maybe it's time to start learning LW?!:banghead:

Have you considered that there are more posts there because people are having problems with it?
Most application specific forum sections are to deal with issues and to clear up confusion. Maybe max has less of that.:D

Or maybe it doesn't matter!!!

[Dave Black]

Actually, the LW community at CGTalk got a head-start.

One could also say, that LW requires more questions to be asked...

It really does'nt matter. LW is really big in asia too, so there are alot of users over there.

I really would'nt worry. Max is doing just fine.

-3DZ

:D

[todd4cgi]

I've been using 3dsmax for just a couple months now. And while it may cost more then others, it's well worth every penny. I've demo'd every other major 3D app out there, and for myself 3dsmax has by far the best interface and workflow I've seen.

At least in my experience 3dsmax is as powerful as any of the others. But, I find it's interface makes much more sense to me. Especially compared to LW. LW is a fine program, but, until you learn all the keystrokes and tab meanings, you're left flapping in the wind not knowing where to go.

3dsmax, on the otherhand, I find to have the most intuitive layout and interface. I've been capable of much more in Max in the short time I've been using it then the others. You can see what I've done so far in Max at my Renderosity gallery under my name "amapitodd". The name came from my first experience with 3D, Amapi 3D 5.15 by Eovia. I fine modeler. But shy on texturing.

If I thought for one minute I would not find work in visual effects using 3dsmax, you can bet I'd switch in a heart beat. Even if it meant a steeper learning curve. But, visual effects is where I want to go, and I'm pretty confident 3dsmax will get me there.

[Linus Ericson]

To me it look like there is a lot of low quality posts in LW forum..

[todd4cgi]

Really? I'll have to check that out. It wouldn't surprise me.

LW is very hard to learn. LW's dialog boxes are well designed. But, it's getting to them that's difficult. LW is all about keystrokes and tabs. For many artists, like myself, that's not an intuitive way for a graphics program to be designed. It's more like what you'd expect in an accounting or IT type program...in my opinion, of course.

[Bobo]

Originally posted by lukx
Looking at # of posts and LW is taking first place. I don't know how about you but I feel sad. Is that 3ds max going on third track in this bussines? Maybe it's time to start learning LW?!:banghead:

It is a known fact there are way too many MAX forums on the Web, and most people cannot visit all of them. This one isn't even the primary one (although it is fine!). So don't take this place as a representation of the Max user base!

Probably because LW is an application with a very long history, way before the WWW became popular, the comp.graphics.apps.lightwave newsgroup was one of the primary places to talk about the software for many years. I haven't looked for other LW web boards out there, but perhaps this one is just one of their favorites? That would explain the numbers...

[JayCMiller]

my personel experiance with LW is that it's native renderer is great, inbuilt GI. I like the mat'l editer, the way you can place procedural textures on top of each other without having to set up anything. and with morphing all the targets are in the one model. but in the end I found that with a 3rd party plug to render, I can get the same results, and max is much more open with playing around with your models and scene. though this causes max files to get big where as LW the file sizes are so small.

[Pyro2301]

There is a lot of useless post in there. Also I'm sure you can link the increase in the number of threads in the LW forum with Proton joining as a member.

Most the programmers for LW went to Luxology, including the two LW founders (Allen and Stewert). I personally think LW is going nowhere fast and whatever Luxology is cooking up is going to (unofficially) be the next gen LW...or at least that's how people are going to view it.

-Victor

[Xilica]

Originally posted by Tbonz816
Stop worrying about it and start modeling:thumbsup: :beer:

that would make a sweet signature in my opinion :bowdown:

[amos_chid]

I wonder why discreet never interview their artists :D (like what the neighbor did),

& their galley is pretty much the same since max 5 come out :scream:

[Taoizm]

Originally posted by amos_chid
I wonder why discreet never interview their artists :D (like what the neighbor did),

& their galley is pretty much the same since max 5 come out :scream:

cuz "discreet" is hush-hush... the program of choice for covert ops. ;)

Seriously though I wish they would do a bit more advertising. Newtek and Alias are brilliant at marketing, and discreet is the quiet kid in the back of the class doodling. Amazing stuff, but unless you look for it it's not really out there.

[lukx]

well...I also love max interface and workflow so switching to other soft would be quite painful. I was trying Maya and LW... and was quite worried that I didn't know at start and even after 30minutes later how does it work. My firs thought was "man you're to old for this (I'm 23) =)" The most scary was that in LW I din't know how to move from Modeler to normal Layout to render something. I'm quite new to CG and have to admit I've found this forum few weeks ago and fall in love since. I'm architecture student so for few years I was doing rather visualization than CG work. But I've always admired CG in film and games and until I've found this forum I've never thought about CG so seriously. Right now I'm preparing for my first demoreel and just worring if in this bussines I have chance to get job (in some CG company or as freelancer) as 3ds max user and not LW or MAYA one.

[todd4cgi]

That's the beauty of CG in film, Lukx. In most cases, several 3D applications are used in one film. Each 3D app has its own strengths. Like Maya is used mostly for character animation. Where 3dsmax gets a lot of use in 3D settings and animation.
So, you win either way.

The nice thing about becoming familiar with one 3D program, it helps you if you have to learn a new one. It was my previous experience with Amapi 3D and Strata 3Dpro that prepared me for 3dsmax. Plus, since 3dsmax's interface makes sense to me, I am learning it faster thanks to my previous experience with the other applications.

And yes, I have to chime in on the point about advertising. I wish I saw ads for 3dsmax as much as I do for the others. I think 3dsmax is the best, and I'd love to see that reflected in the outside world.

[Joebount]

We just have less problem, so, we post less ! :p

[S_3D_A]

Originally coming from Lightwave I found 3dstudio max UI to be to jumbled together compared to the two program interface of Lightwave. I would have to agree with a prior poster on this one that 3dstudio max by far is easier to use and get a handle over.

Thinking back when I started using Lightwave had I of known about max I think I would've started using it earlier. Lightwave is just so unappealing. It is a really kick arse program. But if you ask me I just think it has to be the ugliest. Well almost as ugly as Softimage before it went Sumatra.

Oh yeah one thing that also irked the hell out of me about lightwave is that when ur in the layout view you were only allowed one undo. Now I'm not sure if it is different now but I really hated that. Way back in 5.0 the ui had its own weird feel and look. Newtek has finally started to head towards the windows style of panels and buttons.

Other than that not much I can say about lightwave I haven't used it in awhile. I hear project messiah is pretty good. I would have to say the one thing that stood out the most for me was screamer net and screamer net II.

Other than the forum posts. I just like to think all of us max users are on top of game and really don't have as much ?'s as the rest of them. Hey you have to remember over 95% of the games on the market today are done using 3dstudio max. So that little notion that max is in a decline is usage is moot!

[mouj]

Sorry to me this relates to yet another "is X better than Y" kind of thread. As stated by many, i don't think that number of posting here or there has anything to do with how well or not is a software doing.

So you'd want to start learning Lightwave because it seems there are more posts in the LW forum ? Imagine there would be a Bryce forum with that many posts, would you feel like it's time to start using Bryce ?

I think it's time for practicing :hmm:

mouj

[Bobo]

Originally posted by mouj

So you'd want to start learning Lightwave because it seems there are more posts in the LW forum ? Imagine there would be a Bryce forum with that many posts, would you feel like it's time to start using Bryce ?



This is actually very interesting. It shows that 3D software has a Status Symbol role nowadays. People are not using what they feel comfortable with but what most people use?
This must be interesting for social scientists as a research topic...

To freely quote Brandon D., I would rather use software nobody uses and feel special :)
Unfortunately, Max still has the largest user base and I feel very unspecial ;)

[mouj]

> People are not using what they feel comfortable with but what most people use?

Indeed; i have not been in the cgi industry for that long, but hasn't it somehow always been this way ?
Cgi has its heroes : )

mouj

[Ryno]

Well, I work in games, and Max probably has 70% of the marketshare with game shops. Maya would be second place, then XSI which seems to be coming on a little, and Lightwave would be right down there at the bottom with Houdini. Motionbuilder seems to be a common supplement to any package, as it is useful for dealing with mocap data.

Also, keep it in mind that Discreet products are used in the making of 90% of all movies, TV shows, etc. Now this is probably flint, flame, inferno, smoke, combustion, or cleaner, but Discreet is definitely in touch with this portion of the high-end industry. With this in mind, don't you think that they will try to strengthen Max's position at this end? Damn straight the will! It is just a matter of time and marketing. (As Alias Wavefront proved with their marketing of Maya, which gained ground against Soft 3d.)

[hendris]

....I wonder why discreet never interview their artists (like what the neighbor did),....


You mean like these interviews...

http://www.discreet.com/products/3dsmax/
choose showcase on the left side panel. They come out with 3 or so a month.

[Linus Ericson]

I hate discreet site, I cant belive they cant do a bater and more user friendly...

[Taoizm]

Originally posted by Bobo
Unfortunately, Max still has the largest user base and I feel very unspecial ;)

Don't worry Bobo... to us long time MAX users you will always be special. :thumbsup:

[Mazer]

Just my too cents:

The main reasons because Max is sutch a popular program is not, it's quality but some of these factors:
- the fact that it whas the first 3d software to run on the affordable pc, wen the highend apps only runed on sgi workstations and costed a fortune.This was great for warez since you could copy the software but you could't clone an Sgi workstation...
- The fact that every warezkidie in the world as it on a disk somewere, even if e never uses-it. Those kidies probably dont know what Lw or Xsi or Maya are, wile max is very popurar in warez sites.
- The fact that, even if nobody admits it, the biggest market in the worl for Cg is the boring architectural visualization, not movies, games or other cool stuff, its very dificult to find clients for that kind of work outside very specific areas of the globe.
- The fact that Autodesk is conected to Max/VIz, making it the most obvious choice to complement Autocad.
- The fact that you can find a 3dmax introduction course of 30h everywere.... Schools didn't had money for sgi, highend software, and higly paied tutors , so max was also the most obvious choice...
-The fact that people who dont know anithing about 3D have for all the above reasons already heard about "3d studio".
-The fact that until the recent Ple's 90% of us have started with a warez vertion... and most probably of Max.

Also, you can easily find people who have moved from max to Lw or Xsi or Maya, and if you ask most of them never looked back...
Can you point me anyone dumping maya for max?....

[robioto]

Bobo,

where is the primary 3dsmax forum? Are you talking about the discreet web board?

hoping it's something new to me...

-r

<one can find posts of people that switched from maya to max, but ultimately who really cares as long as our favored developers can continue to sell and create the tools we like to use?>

[lukx]

Originally posted by mouj
Sorry to me this relates to yet another "is X better than Y" kind of thread. As stated by many, i don't think that number of posting here or there has anything to do with how well or not is a software doing.

So you'd want to start learning Lightwave because it seems there are more posts in the LW forum ? Imagine there would be a Bryce forum with that many posts, would you feel like it's time to start using Bryce ?

I think it's time for practicing :hmm:

mouj

I didn't want my posty to be another "x is better than Y" just wanted to know what to learn to use so in future have easier way to find good job. Hope someone understand what I mean.

[todd4cgi]

Well, to be honest I went to Max instead of Maya for the very fact that it's interface was the easiest to understand and learn from. At least for me.

Plus, my company is successful so the price difference wasn't really a factor. It's more important that I work with an app that makes sense to me, then struggle with one that doesn't. Max is in use for major films and TV, so that's not a factor.

I'm sure one day I will learn Maya or even Softimage XSI. Like any industry it's always good to know several tools. I really liked the interface for Softimage. But, at the time it was still priced above what I could get for Max through Resellers. I just got Combustion from DV411 for $849. That's $150 less then most other places, and $50 less then any other reseller I came across.

I personally love Discreet's products. Both Combustion and Max's interfaces and workflows make sense to me.

[Bobo]

Originally posted by robioto
Bobo,

where is the primary 3dsmax forum? Are you talking about the discreet web board?


What else? ;)
I have been serving there for 4 1/2 years as FA and in my very subjective and humble opinion it rocks.

[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.