considering a divorce after 10 years with Maya, if 2009 isn't spectacular

#241

Well after 3 years of work i still don’t have any positive piece to show any one.
still trying to learn the ins and outs of the software! which unfortunately sometimes frustrates me so much that i feel like quitting the industry.

and coming to the topic, i am still learning the software and to some extent have no as such wish list! and am happy with the Maya 2008 despite frequent crashes. but am pretty sure there will be many out there that are going through the same process as me and have no such intention of getting a divorce!

#242

its not a divorce I want…because I see it as a tool that many people are using for different things…I just think people at autodesk need some serious get your feet on the ground counseling when it comes to maya.

the software is great because of mel/python and the way people make tools with it…and if you are animating and rigging then you are pretty well off.

I like hypreshade…but I loath hypergraph…I am too used to houdini’s elegance.

what I dislike is the bugs…

I really dont care about ncloth(even though it is WAAAY) better than the old cloth system…

I just care about using it to get my work done and having a life outside the computer/job.

the only way that happens is to make a release dedicated to fixing bugs…not finding fanboys.

I got a project and in product design you can have lots of revisions and lots of remakes…also you are working with other people and you can get a fuggly file…

geometry is there…but there are dirty surfaces.

maya will crash if you try and render them…and it will also crash if you have untrimmed curves on surfaces…

so with the bone crushin deadline I took the majority of the day finding these surfaces…it was about ~80—100

and the tools were there to find them and fix them…but jeezus I could have been lighting

I am not whining about it…I just want a release dedicated to stability.

save the bellz and whistle for the people who have unlimited.

JUST MAKE MAYA COMPLETE COMPLETELY STABLE.

#243

crashed again…:banghead::banghead::banghead::cry: this time during IPR.

#244

10 years is a waste if you quit. :wise:

#245

So you are saying that everything you learn in maya can never be applied to other programs? :slight_smile:

#246

I agree, you learn somthing, you should take it with you to other software. Right now Im using maya, even though Im fluid with max. I have Houdini and 3delight to tackle next, so I think S’Ander’s is right. Learn what you can, use it where you can.

#247

It’s not as simple as that. It takes a bit of time to figure out translations between 2 programs. Sometimes the differences are so unique you bash your head in trying to figure out how and more in particular why another program does it the way that it does. Also, learning multiple apps will never get you to master one. Always have one you have conceivably mastered, and at least know 1 or 2 others. It’s great know the strengths and weaknesses of apps out there, but it’s more important to have mastered one. The old addage… jack of all trades, master of none.

With that, I’d never cut off my nose despite my face just to show someone I could do it. Dropping a core pipepline isn’t something to take lightly and other factors may be in play besides the app. I wouldn’t go blaming Autodesk quite yet until you investigate further.

Also, try checking user error and more importantly system stability. Some of the issues talked about seem more like system issues that haven’t been rectified. Who cares if it comes from Apple, Dell, Boxx or homemade. I’ve had issues with all of them in the past. It happens. It’s easier to blame the big bad Autodesk than it is to cover your own ass. I recently had to replace a 4 month old motherboard due to issues that seemingly were related to RAM. Large file downloads and non-repeatable crashes in Maya and a few other apps lead me to check my RAM, harddrives, drivers, etc. On a whim I got a new motherboard and reinstalled everything and it works great now.

Workflow is another issue that can kill. If you have a lot of dirty unused nodes floating around and you haven’t tamed areas in a large file, you only have yourself to blame.

#248

I was StudioTools user too, that divorced after release 12.
DT had pretty much the same problems than Maya has know. Prehistorical GUI, hardware issues and such highly customizable workflow that it simply became unusable. Not talking about stability…So I switched to Rhino.
But know I was using ST 2009 for a couple of weeks on a free seat at my new employer, saying that AD did a damn good job is the minimum!!! It still suffers from its heritage, but I’m convinced that with the Release 2010 they are able to fix the last issues! Maya is a much more complex program and I’m sure that AD is working hard to fix all the issues. I can imagine that they underestimated the work and issues, and their competitors namely XSI and also Houdini, Modo and LW. But this is a good news for all of us: we were afraid that Maya/Max might become the Microsoft of 3d apps, but the competition became even tougher. Not Maya became worse, the competitors became better…and we can chose, we saw dramatic price drops…tons of new features

#249

I’ve been a 3ds Max user since v7 and am having to learn Maya. I must say that there does seem to be some contrived attempt on AD’s part to milk the features per release down to a trickle. All the acquitsitions it has made beginning with Alias, appears to be additional software that it can sell…not innovative additions to current software…like Discreet did between Max 6&8 (when it introduced major additions like Character Studio, Reactor, Particle Flow, Shave and a Haircut). All of that has stopped. Investors are probably doing a great deal of arm twisting, and demanding that the spending spree cease. Just the right sort of business approach to allow XSI greater market and workplace saturation.

However, from Max Product Manager’s recent blog at “the Area,” it seems they have some BIG additions coming in the next release or two (after doubling their development team last year, I would certainly hope so). Regarding Mental Ray integration in Max as being better…I don’t think so (render elements/passes perhaps). If you plan to use anything dealing with Volumetrics (even Hair and Fur…using the standard Pixel Shader post-effect), you can forget using Mental Ray…it’s incompatible with volumetrics in Max. How it works in XSI and Maya is beyond me, but I think it’s time AD chucks MR in favor of VRay (especially since it is due to have a near realtime IPR like Lightwave’s FPrime), as its built-in production renderer. If they did that, it would be hard to justify switching to XSI…ICE or no ICE.

For me, Maya’s modeling workflow sucks wind, coming from Max. I mean simple, everyday, and more importantly, frequent, tasks take more steps to accomplish…such as the lack of an AutoGrid or Target Weld…no “Ignore Backfacing” option, etc. And when you are used to using Polyboost (roughly $100 and worth every cent of it), it makes modeling in Maya seem archaic. Is there a low-cost polygonal modeling plugin like Polyboost that helps remedy these worklflow issues?
I don’t expect each application to replicate every feature in other programs, but if it is something simple, and for a bread-and-butter task like welding vertices, that happens to be much more efficient (like Target Weld), why not add it? For example, in Max 2008, they stole from XSI’s toolset and added the interactive selection tool (so you can simply hover over a sub-object/component, it becomes highlighted and is immediately selectable…so you don’t have to keep switching between modes). I have no problem with them taking good ideas from another application and implementing their own version of the tool. I’m very disappointed to find that a program as deep as Maya is, isn’t much smarter and efficient in it’s workflow than it is, and I hope we see some significant changes to that end.

#250

I’ve never had a problem with backface culling. It’s in the manual, as well as right here in the Attribute Editor.

I find myself wondering how often people’s “problems” with a particular software stem from lack of research. As for Vray replacing mental ray? That seems much like Ford replacing Chevrolet, Nissan replacing Toyota, or Microsoft replacing Apple.

#251

Thanks for hilighting the backface culling. I didn’t see any mention of it in the tutorials I viewed or when I asked a few other Maya users how to disable selection of backfacing elements. Guess they didn’t see a need for it and wasn’t aware of it.

As it relates to VRay versus Mental Ray…I was specifically talking about MR in Max. The fact that it is totally incompatible with any volumetric effect…plugin or otherwise, makes VRay a much more sensible candidate for a built-in production renderer…especially in light of the new IPR VRay is introducing. It’s already the defacto renderer for Arch Viz users (major segment of Max’s customer base). So, no…it’s not just a matter of preference, at all. One has nothing but advantages and the other…not so much.

Before you try to label me a VRay fanboy…I’m actually a finalRender user and fanboy. It’s just that VRay seems to make the most sense, as it has bulletproof compatibility with most every Max plugin (as does finalRender)…unlike MR. And it’s already more widely used among the Max userbase than MR is, even though MR is free to them. Has to be a solid reason for that, don’t you think? Any Max house that does VFX will be using a 3rd party renderer, by necessity…not preference.

#252

Same here i consider switching over to Houdini if 2009 will not show itself as what i expect it to be!

#253

You can also use the paint selection tool which is always ignores backfaces. As for the polyboost plugin…I haven’t use it but there is a mel script that does just that, similarly. Try it…

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/modeling/poly_tools/LFdrawpolyTool-4724.html

#254

It’s already the defacto renderer for Arch Viz users (major segment of Max’s customer base).

I can’t disagree with that, so long as you mean “3DS Max Arch Viz users”. I know plenty of people that use Maya for this, and have built a career off mental ray architecture myself, and couldn’t choose Vray as an option even if Maya had Vray native. The rendertimes alone smoosh animation right out of the picture… Might not seem like a big deal now, but for every one of my clients we do animation for, the contract gets signed. Another equally skilled contractor bidding on the job, even with a lower bid, and even with photorealistic stills, wouldn’t “wow” the client nearly as much as even 30 seconds of animation. And since I might have only 24 hours for such a project, mental ray is the tool for the job in my pipeline.

I didn’t intend to label you a fanboy my friend, in either direction, but feel free to label me a mental ray fan!

#255

not me. Houdini is a blind man’s golden child. Everyone says they love it but few really know why. SESI has done an excellent job with marketing and have created a more user-friendly app, but there’s too many things that are easier to accomplish an another app than Houdini. I’d love to use it for particles and dynamics but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to make it my sole modeling, animation, surfacing, etc package. I’d rather take on XSI 7 than Houdini as it’s more rounded and closer to other apps in the way it does things.

People who think they can switch all aspects of their 3d pipeline to another app need to do a bit more investigation instead of assuming a new package will automagically solve all of their problems. New app, new problems.

Mo money, mo problems. :slight_smile:

#256

err isn’t that in Maya 2008?

#257

In Maya you can simply snap one vertex to another by turning on the move tool and holding down the “v” key and dragging the vertex. And then use the “merge vertices” or the “merge to center” command to reduce them to one vertex. I bet it’s much faster than trying to find your target weld button in max.

#258

Really it’s not, but neither is max’s way.
If i had to complain about the poly modeling workflow in maya, i’d probably point out the shitty split poly tool, but oh how weird: it was perfect before autodesk kicked in with their crappy code and ended up bringing max’s split tool’s bugs into maya. How great…

#259

I agree, it’s that mentality that have people moving all the way too australia for what they think will be a “better life”.

#260

The Target Weld in Max is much faster than the method you just described. You right-click to bring up the quad menu, select Target Weld…once it’s activated, you simply click the vertex you want moved then click the one you want to weld it to (it has like a little rubber band streching from the first to where your cursor is), and BAM, it’s welded…go to the next one and repeat the process…the tool stays on until you right-click in an open area in the viewport. So, essentially it snaps and welds in one stroke.
I’m going to have to use Maya, so I don’t mean to fuss, I just was rather surprised that for something as tedious, frequent and routine as welding vertices is, that Alias/AD hasn’t yet tried to simplify that task as much as possible…without having to rely on a script or plugin

Having said that, I like the select edge loop tool and insert edge loop tool in Maya. Max isn’t quite as interactive (you have to select an edge and hit ALT+L to select the entire loop), unless you use Polyboost (which is a real joy to model with).
I’ve got to find out if there is anything like Polyboost available for Maya, and learn it’s tools at the same time, so I can develop a good workflow in the process.