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

#261

Wow that was a long post. Where do I start? To begin with, Polyboost is a plugin, not a native toolset. Without it, max is just as efficient or inefficient as Maya. Why do you think Carl Mikael Lagenkrantz developed Polyboost? He was simply sick and tired of waiting for the developers to come up with obvious soluitions to max’s modeling tools.

3ds max is by no means a holy grail when it comes to modeling tools. People tend to forget that it’s not all about tools. It’s the workflow that makes an application. In all honesty there is no one application out there that is the leader of the pack when it comes to efficient and artist friendly modeling. Years ago Mirai was very very close.

In my opinion Autodesk software engineers should very seriously consider taking a few top notch modelers and bring them to the drawing board before they add ANY more modeling tools to either max or Maya. The whole modeling paradigm needs to be redesigned in both apps because they both suffer terribly from tool functionality and usability. This might not make any sense at this point since the core of both softwares is pretty old and would require some serious re-writing. I would invest some resources into those ideas, research them very carefully and have them ready for the next generation of software.
Target weld is really just a drop in a bucket when it comes to fixing some of the modeling tools in Maya.
Pre-selection highlighting in Maya? A perfect example of a great and incredibly useful tool, but very poorly executed. No raycasting, no paint selecting.
Furthermore, if certain ideas from the modeling paradigm were implemented in Maya, things such as rigging could be made even easier, but thats up to Autodesk to figure out:)
Enough has been written on these boards about this and other topic so I won’t go into details.
Cheers:)

#262

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

It is though … lol

I used to use Maya a lot , now I just find it old buggy and just plain annoying to use compared to other tools

#263

Can somebody please tell me why in bloody hell i keep checking in on this thread ?

Everybody here is making more-or-less truthful statements about the tools.

Unfortunately, very little of this “discussion” is actually helpful to either the artists or vendors who may be following along.

Autodesk (and Soft and everybody else that makes a 3D package) is surely aware of the “wish list” items that come up the most - and you can bet that if they feel that a certain new feature fits the application’s overall target market, will enhance the flexibility of the toolset and give it a clear advantage over the competition - they will do their best to get it into an upcoming release. They aren’t deaf, blind or stupid. And please don’t underestimate the complexity of the underlying code in the applications -and the time and expense that goes into the development cycle between releases.

The other reality is this: Different tools have different strengths and weaknesses compared to each other. And no application - from any perspective - will ever be “perfect”.

You the artists will forever and always be forced to make concessions regarding your 3D application of choice. Very few of us will ever have the luxury of enough time to become competent in all the 3D programs simultaneously. An even if we were, there would still be a “wish list” of features that none supported yet.

Maya is very powerful. 3DSMax is very powerful. Soft is very powerful. Any one of these is light years ahead of where the “state of the art” in 3D technology was when I started in this business 11 years ago. If you use ANY of these technological wonders, then consider yourself absolutely blessed to be alive in 2008.

#264

LOL…I asked myself the same question before I wrote my last post:) It should have been closed before it reached page 2

#265

in my case the most boring and annoyng thing on maya is the hypershade and the material management, hypershade pop ups after 7 seconds! sometimes even more!.
and why still the materials thumbs need a maya.swatch file??? why the most materials and shaders found on internet needs to be thumbnalized by hand?

the UV window sometimes crash and the pivots disapear with no reason!

so many bugs for sooo many money!

i bought the houdini and it runs smooth and solid… i love it!
and im considering to test the new XSI 7 too… in my opinion my inminent divorce is just about time.

Autodesk-tructors have to put the top very very high on the next maya release or the maya market will colapse after siggraph, im almost sure this will happen!

cheers and sorry for my english.

#266

It had to be my thread,I loved Maya sooo much ,6 years of my life was waste of time.
The differense is ,that I quit 3d at all,Im soo disappointed,that cant gone even in other
application .so sorry.

#267

I’ve been using max for years before I got to maya, and still work with it from times to times, so I know how it works. And it’s true some stuff are quicker and easier in max, but I find maya is globally better for modeling. Maybe it’s just that maya is more suitable for my need or workflow.
Anyway, the great thing with maya is nothing prevents you from creating that command that snaps and welds vertices, it would actually be very easy to code. That’s also why it’s a real shame that alias or autodesk haven’t implemented it yet. But personally, I’m doing just as good without it (in general I have no real need to merge vertices right after they’re on top of each other, I just snap while modeling and weld the whole thing when I’m done/I need to)

Concerning your quest for a modeling plugin for maya, there was the MJpolyTools some years ago, but I think it’s been mostly incorporated into maya. Don’t know if it’s been reworked since then.

#268

I don’t think that the Maya MArket is going to collaps I think that they are going to give up alot og the gain that they have made out side of the big companies like ILM. wich could hurt them in the long run if people start learning smething else then there start to be fewer and fewer people that are learning Maya. But I don’t think that a collaps is on the horizon by any means. More likely is more 6 month releases. that was supposted to stop with this latest cycle but I think that there is going to be a puch internally to do something about getting caught with their pant around their ankles this year. Unfortunately, those quick turn around further alienate everyone except those on maintenance. But who knows we’ll see that they release at siggraph this year. But from what I have been told it is mostly related to rendering. If I had to guess they prolly have spent a ot fo time and some really nice render pass system that they are adding. I think prolly there will be some expansion of the Nucleus system. But other than that I don’t think that athere is much comming.

We have already made up our mind we have been Evaluating XSI 7 and I’m currently using XSI 7x64 and So far so good I have not had a project that I can really put it through its paces but I will say this: It has not crashed on me one time. I have had maya crash about 6 times today. soem how there is some shader that is trying to access some address in memory and every time I open the hyper shade it crashes. I have tried it under 32-bit and 64bit. 32 bit I can get the hyper shade open but it I try to mess with an of the materials I get the fatal error thing. But under 64bit It crashes immediatly when I open the HyperShade. God, I hate they hyperShade It is an invention of the Devil himself.

Uh what? hmm look like a google translation gone wrong.

#269

so how’s your Armenian?

#270

I’ve been trying to stay out of this thread. But people are complaining that there arn’t features in maya that ARE ALREADY IN MAYA.

Look around in maya before saying things like you can only view the shader thumbnails as spheres, when you can easily change any/all thumbnails or shader groups in the multilister, which is so much better than the hypershade yet no one uses it. Or that Alias / AD never implemented something as trivial as to stay in a weld tool where you can simply do merge to center and select your next two verts and hit G to do it again. And more.

I’m not saying maya doesn’t have its faults, but its such a big program, if you don’t go looking around for what you are trying to do, you just think it’s not in the program. Also, due to Maya being so big, you’d need a forum like this to bug test and get feed back; not to bash the program and say other programs are better for stuff they are probably copyrighting. Imagine needing to create something has not been formed by another person or company in these days of suing everyone, not as easy as it sounds.

Really, the only thing needed in Maya, is a GUI update; reorganization.

Also, I’m attempting to make almost the equivalent of polyBoost but for Maya. It isn’t too far yet, but Tartarus is coming around. After I graduate school in a year, I’m going to be putting alot more time into the tool set.

#271

I hear you, a few post’s up apparently you cant snap vertices?

i mean waaa??? how can people say such things about an app that theyve cleary never ever used.

#272

Im a big fan of the multilister so there are already 2 of us :love: Anybody remember the first version(s) of the hypershade? Those were well ... Im happy they brought in some of the multilister stuff into the hypershade.

#273

over 18.000 views on this thread and you still complaining…
i hope autodesk listens and change those ugly blue icons. it cant be that difficult to change them…

#274

I moved this post to it’s own thread, I felt it is needed for Autodesk and for any suggestions that already exist in maya for people to find out they are already in Maya.

#275

Hehe you picked a bad example there because the Backface Culling option is on every object! Select an object, open the Attribute Editor, switch over to the shape node’s tab, expand the ‘Mesh Component Display’ tab. Bingo!

But your other ideas were good!

:thumbsup:

#276

For example the Backface culling implemented into every objects attributes.

I guess I should have written that one better. But that was an example of what I meant, because if I’m not mistaken that was only recently they added that.

Like what I meant, instead of having to go through your marking menus or open up new windows to get to features you want, have pulldowns on the top of window “A” with options from other windows you are likely to use in the current window “A”.

#277

I’m using Maya and C4D, both are good for something but not for everything. C4D is fast and efficient, Maya is customisable. A customisable software will never be very userfriendly, that’s the nature of it.
But I agree, Maya has become less and less user friendly and the real time 3D in the viewports is very slow compared to C4D or XSI. If that doesn’t change i won’t update anymore and have a look into XSI. With the amount of good video tutorials there are it’s just a matter of a couple of weeks to learn to master a new 3D software. The barrier of learning a new software is smaller than most users think. Try it!

#278

Software takes time to rebuild, replenish and reroot the underlying decay. Like a revolution, change rarely comes from the top but from the bottom. The CEO of this Maya product should show more vision, rather than wait for masses to overthrow it. All he has to do is set up only a vision for the talented workers to follow, instead of trying to squeeze the last dollars out of the product, hoping that somehow it will change itself.

We may have more problem having a mistress, instead of a divorce.

#279

Why not read my post more carefully. I said that the Target Weld tool in Max snaps AND welds at the same time…without a script. I merely was stating that it’s surprising to me that something as routine and tedious as welding vertices isn’t easier/quicker in Maya’s default toolset.
The Target Weld tool in Max also works with UV’s too…then I asked if anyone knew of a plugin or some extension of modeling tools that helps with things like this.

I wasn’t being a troll or anything, just trying to find some answers in order to maintain a similar workflow.

#280

you can add the weld vert icon to a custom shelf which requires no script at all. i use it all the time, so all i do is select my vert and hit the weld vert icon and its done. if i have other verts to weld i just select them and hit the g key to repeat the function. i use maya every day and i cant tell the last time it crashed. that dosen’t mean i dont have my gripes with it. its a pretty good program, i just hope that whatever AD comes with will blow our socks off ( am i hoping for too much :slight_smile: .lets see whats next.