I am very interested in level design for 3D games and I have found most job listings mention 3DS almost exclusivly. Is there no market for MAya or other 3D apps in this area? I chose to go Maya as it seemed to be the biggest ‘standard’ but it seems in the game arena that is not the case. I actually spent a lot of time with 3DS but I have own Maya and don’t welcome purchasing a totally new setup.
What do you think?
-gl
It is true that most devs swear by 3ds max, but there also alot of people using maya and softimage. Its just a matter of converting the formats as for level design I wouldnt use 3ds get a dedicated program like cartography shop or quark.
Many development studios use Maya and many use max. It’s good to know both in the game industry in all honesty. But if your starting out, just learn Maya for now. Focus on your work, the quality of the work you produce is the most important thing, learning another software package is trivial in comparison.
I believe 3dsmax became so popular because since version 3 or so they provided explicit gaming tools (saw them on the CeBit some time ago) and the polygon- and rigging-tools (character studio) are quite good (IMHO better than Maya).
The good thing about Maya however is, that it’s so highly scriptable, that you can do almost anything with it. So I personally favour Maya over 3dsmax at the moment and I do believe that it’s not a bad decision to go that way instead of 3dsmax.
Oh - and another thing that’s better about Maya is that it runs on Linux and MacOS, too. That won’t happen wih 3dsmax as far as I heard because (that’s from a discreet marketing guy) 3dsmax is so closely linked with the windows-API that porting is nearly impossible. So if you want to keep independent in terms of your OS Maya is the better choice IMO.
Carto stuff or Quark is useless for level design, I never saw it being used for it…
Just learn both progs, you could learn Max with gmax or so if you dont want spend money on it and in the end, if you know levels it doesnt matter what program you use because the idea stays the same and thats most important. Skill isnt dependant on a specific program.
You should also learn level editors if you want to get serious. Skill in those is often required and you cant make entire levels in just Max/Maya nor is it realtime so wont really help you…
LD isnt something you just do and not without knowing how the core gameplay works etc…
LD isnt something you just do and not without knowing how the core gameplay works etc…
I second this statement. It’s essential to use a dedicated level editor, and learn the issues surrounding flow, detail, culling, framerate, etc.
Other apps (ala Max/Maya) can be used to create detail pieces for the level, but the main “design” usually comes from first making something that’s playable in a game-specific app., then fleshing it out once gameplay is solid.
Unreal is a good engine to learn with, with a great level editor and tutorials.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/BreakAwayExample#Introduction
Some good level design articles (even if a bit old)…
http://www.johnsto.co.uk/text.php?t=common_sense
http://www.cliffyb.com/rants/art-sci-ld.shtml
http://www.cliffyb.com/rants/ut-ld-tips.shtml
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