A question for those who know Maya and Lightwave

#2

The very basic concepts of CG are the same in all packages. Ie Vertices and Polygons make meshes, and you can warp the mesh and deform them over time to make animations and add shading to them and render it out. So from that perspective it will help if you learn LW first

However, Lightwave is quite different to other packages such as Maya in that it doesnt allow modelling in the same environment as Animation, cameras, Lighting and rendering.
Whilst this might seem good if you just make models or if you just render stills, it can be very frustrating if you’re animating and rigging, as adjusting models is part of rigging and you have to ping pong between 2 programs. (in fact, having modelling separate hasn’t got any real advantage. Although psychologically it might seem neater having the 2 separate, in other packages the animation and rendering tools do not interfere at all, and you can actually use all the rigging tools to help you model and pose your character easily whereas in LW, you can’t (without ping ponging))
LW will probably merge into one app in the future though.

Ps… I dont use Maya I mainly use XSI and LW.

#3

I can think of one positive thing that was the natural consequence when going for separate modelingtool; separate scenefiles and objectfiles and a very good implementation for easy objectreplacement… even with rigged characters. :slight_smile:

Otherwise, I have to agree with Pooby. There are many things that ends up being hard or even impossible to achive without alot of workarounds (which in most cases means, a h*ll of alot more work to do); this is mostly in regards of rigging.

There are also very fundamental differences between how LightWave and Maya approaches rigging. All Maya-users I’ve met in person have a hard time working in LW because of all the differences. It seems to be easier to learn LW first and then learn Maya (I went that route myself). But I have to stress that it isn’t as trivial as some people make it sound like to learn new apps. When I learned Maya I pretty much had to try and forget what I had learned in LightWave in order to not try to solve problems the same way in both apps. The tools may be similar in many cases, but the workflow is very different.

With all this said; I love using both apps because they tend to compensate for eachother quite well. For anyone that may see him/herself working freelance at some point, LightWave will certanly be a great tool.

If you ever decides to learn LW, you should join the forums over at NT as well as SpinQuad. They are generally more busy than this place, and there are a ton of helpful LW-users over at NT/SpinQuad forums!

#4

LW sometmes get a lot of flack for being two different apps but maya and XSI all had to adopt an object replacement/load in “scene” type pipeline. Lightwave has always had the scene file and the models separate allowing for easy replacement.

#5

I’ve not used Maya but have had some time with Max and have some licences of other apps…

I started with Lightwave and I’ll probably stick with it for the foreseeable future but it has a lot of “quirks” that makes learning other apps a bit tricky. One of those quirks is that the modeler is so damn easy to use and there’s so many free plugins available to help you do almost anything. The animation tools aren’t as straight forward but they’re all there and do pretty much what the other packages do.

As a starter app, Lightwave is hard to beat but it might be difficult to ween yourself off if you need something different in the future.

#6

I think that learning multiple tools is a great way for an artist to figure out different ways to solve problems in CG. The transition may be ugly because you have to stop thinking about how you approached a problem in another app and digg into the nuts and bolts of the other program to understand why it works the way it does. For example if you learn Maya first and want to render a sphere you make it and then render it, in Lightwave you have to make it in the modeler app, push it to the Layout app and then render it. If you go from Maya to lightwave it may be frustrating that something so easy and intuitive in maya is so seemingly complicated in Lightwave, in the end though it’s just a different path.

I’ve used Lightwave for a long time now and when I started to work in groups that used Maya I had to pick it up to fit into the workflow. Lightwave is my main app, and I think learning Maya has made me a better overall animator and modeler. I really like the way Maya’s character animation pipeline works, it is very powerfull. However I prefer Lightwave in most every other respect. Maybe it’s because I have been using Lightwave a lot longer and I have a lightwave kind of way of doing things, I can’t say for sure.

I like modeling in Lightwave because I work in a very destructive manner, make a box, slice it up devide it, copy some polys and paste them back in, etc… never look back, it’s very fast. Maya is a pain for me to model in because it likes to keep track of all my little cuts and resizings, just in case I wanted to animate one of those things, but often I do not and am stuck with a giant history that bogs me down. Turn off the history and the extrude tool doesn’t have handles anymore? Also objects in maya are objects, not groups of polys like in Lightwave. I can break apart a model in Lightwave, then put it back together very quickly in Lightwave, not so fast in Maya.

I guess my point is that it is possible to learn multiple programs, and I think it is usefull. The order that you learn them in may not matter so much, and some apps may be easier for you to pick up. I picked up XSI much faster than I did Maya, but then maybe in learning Maya it made my brain a little more flexable so that when I tried out XSI I did much better.

#7

Firstly, I agree with everything uncon says there… Great overview! :applause:

It really is a case of learning another ‘approach’ to doing the same thing. People tend to stick to doing things the way they know, or expect. When it doesn’t work the same way, they get frustrated and blame the software for being ‘worse’ because its not operating the same way. :curious:

However… To get back to the original question:

I teach both LW and Maya. LW’s my main work tool (as I have the most experience with it)

Personally, I find students get more done faster and better with LW, and the reason being that they spend less time with technical overhead. Maya has loads of options, its very powerful, but in a way that’s kinda a downfall for a new user learning 3D imho.

I describe it as two ‘cars’.

Learn to drive the LightWave car, you hop in, turn the key, release the brake and just drive it.

Learn to drive the Maya car, you hop in and you’re presented with options to adjust all the parameters of the engine, the settings of the steering wheel and how hard the tension is on the clutch,brake and accelerator pedals as well. All these buttons and switches are on your dashboard… First thing you do is??? Yikes!

In essence, its not that Maya is harder, its a case of it just throws up too many options and gives you way too much to deal with when all you wanted to do initially was drive the car. While many options can be left as-is, you can imagine just how hard it looks for a newbie…

In the end, 3D is 3D, no matter what 3D application you decide to learn - I say if you’re initially learning, LightWave is a good app to really pick up the essential concepts, techniques and master ‘3D’ per-se. If after that you really want to learn Maya as well, the concepts all look and work in a similiar fashion. The workflow in some areas is more convoluted (such as modelling) for my tastes, but its not hard to learn another 3D application once you know the core techniques and concepts…

Good luck. :smiley:

#8

One of the big problems with lightwave is that they tend to make up terrms for their tools (MetaNurbs anyone) and others are just plain wrong (what they call bevel is really an extrude with inset and doesn’t actually bevel anything). There are problems like this all over the place in the program and when you move to a different program (max/Maya/XSI, etc.) you will get very confused. I think this is a big part in why there is such a negative view on other programs by LW users. If you learn something wrong, everything that is right will look wrong to you after that. I had to unlearn a lot of things from LW when I switched to XSI. I found a clean break to be the best method because of the messed up concepts used in LW. I can still remember the feelign I had going through the first XSI tutorials… It all seemed so weird, but now it feels so right,

So, to answer your question, I would not recommend learning LW first, I would learn something like XSI first because it’s got a fairly simple learning curve, and if you need to use maya or max afterwards, you will be much more prepared for it that if you learned LW first. You will also be much more likely to find a job.

Also, unless things have really changed with LW9, the manuals and tutorials are horrible with LW making it even harder to learn.

#9

A very interesting YouTube video Rigging Tools in Maya and Lightwave comparing the two apps was recently posted on the Newtek forums. Quite an eye opener.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LxVuJ7Dryaw

OT: Regarding Mr Bowling’s comments. Lightwave and XSI Foundation actually make a very good combination: Lightwave’s value, ease of use, intuitive renderer and nodal surfacing tools + unlimited nodes matched with XSI’s sophisticated class animation toolset. Personally although I appreciate the power of XSI I’ve not found the surfacing or rendering tools so intuitive to use despite their evident sophistication (and I’m speaking as a happy ZBrush user). Maybe it’s encroaching old age.

The holy grail for those of us who also animate in Lightwave is point manipulation in Layout which Newtek have hinted at is coming in the updating of the animation tools and fusion of Modeler and Layout.

In the meantime despite the the issues it’s perfectly possible to produce professional character animation directly in Lightwave. The biggest cliche / myth often bandied about is “you can’t do character animation”. Of course there is the small matter of talent :slight_smile:

William Vaughan and Dave School
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3vct…mbie.com/movie

Sudac
http://sudac.tv/home.html

Nads
http://www.comedybox.tv/comic-video-Adam+Sharp-10152

#10

The biggest drawback I found with Lightwave was the lack of undos - it completely inhibits experimentation. You can’t just fiddle with settings to find what you like.

My last experience was with v8, so don’t know if it’s got multiple undos now (not just for transforms).

#11

LW9.x have the same limited undo system as LW8.x.

But I have to ask you what you did in LW? I do ALOT of experimenting and find myself not needing to undo things the same way I need it in Maya, with the exception of Graph Editor.

#12

It was mainly in areas like surfacing. I’d have settings I liked, but would tend to start changing things and then have no way of getting back to what I had - other than reloading.

#13

Ahh…yeah… that could be an issue, yes. I always save my surfaces to disk when I find something I’m happy with. That way I can have a huge “library” of different settings for a single surface and only have to load the surfacefile if I screw up. :slight_smile:

Someone mentioned that having the Preset window open allows for a drag n’ drop and store it that way as well if/when playing around with the settings. But I do agree that it would be alot smoother to just hit ctrl+z to undo a numeric input for any value in Surface Editor.

Oh well… :slight_smile:

#14

You forgot those neat Transformers-animations a Dan DeEntremont made!

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=5&t=607155&highlight=transformers

#15

If you’re planning to do just modeling, Lightwave is very nice. But if you’re also want to do animation, I’d start with XSI of Maya. Animation and rigging can be very frustrating in Lightwave, because it’s very limited in that department. I have been a lightwave user for over 10 years, and now I’m sorry I did not switch to XSI sooner.

XSI Foundation is very cheap, there’s even a free version called XSI Mod Tool you can use for non commercial stuff. The biggest disadvantage of XSI is you get a limited amount of render nodes. So if you ever need to set up a Mental Ray renderfarm you pay through the nose. With Lightwave you practically get unlimited rendernodes.
The nice thing about Lighwave compared to XSI is also that is has a very big and active online user base, XSI users seem to be spread very thin.

It might also be worth considering what you’re aiming for, if there’s a specific company or industry you’d like to work in, check out what app they are using.

#16

learn as many as you can! I was stubborn sticking with LW for 10+ years and deeply regret being so narrowminded, now that Ive learned Maya, Im ready to play with anything and its actually great to do this… keeps the 'just learned 3D when I was 20 yrs old spirit" alive! :wink:

if you want a decent TV job, stick with LW, if you want a film job, learn Maya, games - MAX…not really sure how many studios use XSI these days…

#17

not really sure how many studios use XSI these days…

More than ever before.

#18

It’s all in the mindset really :twisted:

More than likely if you learned LW first you might find it difficult to learn the next big app like Maya, etc as quickly as you may like. It’s not that one is more difficult to use/learn than the other but it’s how you have to approach the workflow for each toolset.

Newtek did a helluva job making Lightwave feel like a artistic tool versus a complex software application used to create CG. For this fact alone I believe most people are apt to dismiss the application as simple or second rate. I’m mean if your not struggling and if it’s not hard then the application must be a toy app right?

The real waver’s know how powerful Lightwave is and this just reflects in some cases “good design” on Newteks part. If you dont have to think about what your doing and you can just do it, then your that much faster both in learning and in production.

On the other hand, Maya is simply a “beast” period. Although, these day’s I do tend to prefer it for personal reasons. Regardless, it is still nothing more than a tool that does the same thing in the end. Getting back to this thread, yes it takes a while to adjust to the Maya workflow and you will have to unlearn some Lightwave workflow habits…a lot of them.

All in all, if you have the patience and desire to bump your head while learning then you will get up to speed eventually with any app. But if you your impatient and your focus is ease of use and speed. There is a large possibility that you may curse the name of (insert well known app here) whenever you attempt to learn them if coming from Lightwave first.

Just my two cents :cool:

#19

I started out in LW and moved to Maya a year or 2 later and actually found it pretty easy to swap over…

My advice would be if you are into modeling/lighting/rendering then LW is fine but if you plan on ANY character animation then avoid LW at all costs.

im no LW basher and wish it would improve its CA tools but at this moment in time LW is very limited in the animation/rigging department. I dont enjoy my job (animating) when im using LW and when im using Maya it just feels right.

#20

I agree, it is all mindset - once you learn a package, the GUI dissapears and you just go on autopilot.

Even though LW is one hell of an artist tool, i still some things are clunky (sometimes too many clicks or repeat clicks and not being able to keep all Tabs open, or allowing multiple Tabs is a pain and slows down workflow) I agree Maya is a beast and hard to learn, but once you know it, you just flow. And yes Maya isnt as pretty and is more techy, but it works well and is actually designed better than LW (IMO) once you know it.

So if you want to learn maya, remember all you know about 3D but almost forget how you work in LW, and have fun starting over… it actually is fun! :slight_smile:

#21

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