3ds Max vs Maya
During my school education, I was taught to use Maya because I was told that this was the industry standard software for modeling for games. I recently started working at a small indie studio and one of the people who works there says that for games, modeling in 3ds max is what most companies are using. My question is does it really matter or would it be a good idea to learn max and start using that as my default program for making my models for games?
Replies
Oh and back on topic: use whichever you feel an affinity with, it really makes no difference.
I can't do that. Animating in Max is probably the worst CG experience I have ever had.
To the point, I would say use what you prefer. Because the other package can be learned very easily if need be. I learned it on the job in a matter of weeks.
Thank me later.
set all the preferences and window position as you like, then exit the unwrap window and go to where your max preferences live and write protect the .ini file for uvw unwrap. done!
on topic: what you get told in school whatever is the standard is bollocks - schools decide on a software to base their courses on. that decision is made for whatever reason - experience/preference of the teaching staff, autodesk discount, connection with some local game studio, general job prospects.
+1
I'm sorry, but Autodesk did not made any progress with Max or maya since I can remember, and I no longer will use overpriced software that is not fit for purpose for that price.
Had a play around with Blender after some recommendation and its very cool but not sure if its worth changing for, its always a pain to learn a new app when you've been comfortable with one for a long time XO Although its nice that if needed you wouldn't have to go to any external apps for painting/retopology as it seems Blender can handle those pretty well.
Blender is good if you want to stick to doing indie games, but not many AAA studios actually use it. Modo is great if you're a freelance artist, but once again, not many studios in North America (that I know of) actually use it.
And yes, there are plenty of times when junior applicants have been turned away for not knowing a specific program.
Already decided that when i finish school unless i can help it, to never use Maya again.
I'm the guy in the corner screaming "fucking Maya!!."
More so of my own incompetence with the program than anything else.
But in all honesty i really do believe the program thats right for you, is the one you love and feel comfortable in, i mean if i tried reaaaaaaaaaaally hard, i could get as proficient at Maya as i am at Max, and figure out all the workflows how i like them now.
And if i started with Maya then Max i'd be singing a different tune.
Aside from a few features, I really have no interest in using max or maya after picking up Modo. Try it, just know how to turn off a few annoying default settings.
+1. Only thing I'm really missing from max is easy way to procedurally generate stones.
But I solved this problem with procedrually generating stones in zbrush.
It still have it's issues, like dreaded fbx support, but other than that modo
have everything you might need for modeling.
And even some things for animation and rigging (skin binding in modo, is just mind blow it is so easy and so accurate to do it automatically).
I'm 100% sure it will take over in game industry over maya and max.
...aaaaaaand, fight
Even longer ago I worked somewhere that used a very specialised animation program, and had someone who was an occasional dev for said program in-house as the TD. Every pipeline tool and plugin went through him but when he suddenly upped and left there was literally nobody that could replace him, nor anyone that even wanted to use the program - all the animators we had hired were Maya animators who had never enjoyed working in it and always questioned why we weren't just using Maya (cost, as far as I know). So we had to switch to one of the more well known packages at huge expense of money and time revising the entire pipeline.
It's frustrating because there's programs that have shown a lot of capability (and exceeded in many cases) the modeling or animation aspects of Max or Maya, but when the bulk of the job force and the bulk of the studios all use the same thing, there's not much incentive and too much risk on either side to switch up. For those new to 3d or without much of a CV it doesn't seem like a great bet to spend much time on a program that only has a miniscule percentage of use throughout the industry.
Although at the moment that sounds about right, things might change now with Maya LT. For the smaller indies the greatly reduced price could swing them to Maya LT. But as people are saying, both packages are so similar now, it shouldn't be too hard to learn one after the other. Plenty of online resources for that.
The Max modifier stack is lovely though, I'd really miss that in any other 3D application.
Sincerely,
Every Animator Ever.
Well I say what I believe in. I used max for longest time, that is not a reason to praise it. Oh well if Autodesk would cut price to 700$, and remove most of the bloat from max.. I would consider it again.
Tha being said, I can model using max, maya or modo. modo is quite different from both max na maya, but once I overcome differences (took me one day of really sit down and try), I don't want to get back to autodesk. Though I probably will have sooner or later ;/.
To sum up. The only thing that matter about software, is that you should be able to adapt as quickly as possible.
Hahaha, it's funny because its true.
I like max for modeling, the modifier stack, baking, materials, viewport rendering, the particle editor, renderable splines, tools like sweep and pro-booleans, pro-optimizer, skinning tools, skinwrap and even SOME rigging/scripting. I even like the command panel and most of the UI...
I can't stand it's schizophrenic attempt at animation, it's messed up curve editor or the dip sh!t uv editor that needs a few trips to the woodshed.
I've used max more than I've ever used Maya and if I had to pick one generalized tool it would be max but unfortunately I mostly animate and it's torture. Animating in max is like paying to be punched in the nuts. Maya isn't some Utopian dreamland but it's less of a pain.
I used to feel that way too, once you get used to modo though, and realize what parts you need to change to fit your style, its pretty nice and far from being clunky. To me, Max is clunky, Maya is direct, and modo is well a mixture of streamlined and designed specifically to be approached a certain way. Like Blender, you can pretty much make any combo of windows you want.
The hardest part is just getting over that initial learning curve. Some changes to get rid of the annoyances or learn to get used to them, and everything ends up being within reach fairly quickly.
That being said, Autodesk's updates have been disappoint for some time, while Modo just keeps getting better and better, so I have been more optimistic for The Foundry's success. But since Autodesk is the "standard", I would say learn both.
I have what I consider to be a good CPU however max takes 30 sec for me to load or longer. I have also tried beginner tutorials and run into random problems not described in the tutorial
On a random note any one know any amazing new to 3ds Max tutorials?
Sorry for bad punctuation needed to type this fast
Sometimes I work with maya on some projects but I like softimage more because of its modeling tools, ICE, rigging and the arnold renderer (yes its available for maya too but we use arnold for softimage).
I used the 3D Buzz intro to max tutorials, not sure if they've changed or updated them since I watched them 7 years ago.
Don't feel bad, Blender seems pretty hard to figure out coming from the other direction!
oh.. well not used it since like version 2.x something but .. LIGHTWAVE!
it was doing cool things when max was still in DOS form ala 3D Studio 4
But as has been said, if you are planing on getting into the industry as it is now, the safest bet is Max, with side knowledge of Maya, since most have their pipelines set up for those packages.
I experiment with a lot of types of new modelling, sub-d, environmental, modular etc. and I just can't do it because something always gets in my way, wherever it being my ctrl-z stops working, stuff randomly collapsing, random crashes when I have plenty of ram dedicated to max etc.
Still doesn't stop me using max. But I won't animate it in. no way in hell, although MassFX is a nifty little feature to mess about with!
I like Modo a lot (been using it since 2008 ) but I'm not overly-optimistic about it becoming dominant in the games industry mainly because of entrenched pipelines and tools that show no signs of going away any time soon. Game and film companies invest tremendous amounts of money and manpower into their pipelines and will stay with them as long they can or until it no longer is in their best interests to do so (either because of cost or because of some big sea change). As has been mentioned, most pros use one or the other or a combination of the two. Probably smart to use what the pros use. Why swim upstream?
Indies use... whatever works. I dig Blender and think it's a great all-around tool. I like that it's open-source and has this great evolutionary DNA that means it is rapidly changing and growing. I would recommend Blender to anyone, including the seasoned pro or the neophyte. But I would also stress the need to know Max and Maya. Keep your options open and don't give a potential or current employer reasons to not hire you or keep you on a project.
My name is SurlyBird and I approve this message.
Yeah. Loss of the modifier stack is what keeps me from switching to say, modo, in earnest. Or from switching back to XSI, the program I started with back in the day.
Sorry, but it is a big deal. I've used modo and it's very nice app, but destructive workflow outweighs any possible advantages it could have over XSI (not many actually). It's like going back to stone age.
1) The curve editor drastically affects viewport playback speed.
You have to either close it, or deselect everything which you are constantly having to do each time you play your animation. Or you forget to do that and then suddenly are reminded when it drops to -10fps, you stop, close it or deselect and then hit play again. Doing that a few hundred times a day will have beating your monitor with your keyboard.
So people tend to render out a quick preview animation (Maya calls this PlayBlast) it's a fast render played back instantly after it's done. But it opens in windows media player, you can't scrub media player frame by frame. Setting avi's to open in something like quicktime doesn't work, Max stubbornly clings to media player. You have to render a custom file, then open it separately through quicktime, which adds another layer of annoying friction to a work around that wouldn't exist if the damn curve editor didn't lag the viewport... grr... (deep breath)
2) The modifier stack is a blessing to modeling but can be a curse to animation.
It's great when you can collapse the stack with impunity and you're happy going back down to a base object. When you carefully construct a stack with skin, unwrap, skinwrap, FFD or cloth modifiers that you can't really collapse, it becomes a balancing act. It really becomes a problem if you need to tweak UV's or you need another modifier inserted and it has to go in just the right spot and be collapsed in just the right way or it could screw up everything. In maya the UV editor is a mode that you can pop open at any time, its just a UV editor not a modifier dependent feature. It's not screwing with a delicately balanced stack. Which makes doing things like UV animation much easier.
3) Because 3dsmax evaluates everything in the stack from the bottom up...
The longer the stack is the slower everything goes. So you could just keep adding modifiers and not collapsing it quickly stops being an option when max rolls over and dies instead of updating the viewport.
Or you are passing a selection up the stack and operating on just it when you forget to exit sub-object model the right way and your stack explodes with problems. Fixing the selection doesn't always fix the problems that it causes. Close, reopen and start over.
4) A lot of places don't rig from scratch and build custom tools as they go, but instead use biped.
This is were a lot of max animation hate is generated. It doesn't behave like normal animation that everyone is used to, even inside of max with standard max objects its different.
Biped on paper seems awesome, it saves time and comes loaded with tools that if you where in Maya you would have to find, license or build yourself. Working with motion, blending animations and retargeting is great, until motion builder came along it was king, even now its still easier to do it all in one spot. BUT it has a lot of draw backs once you start using it to hand key animation. I could get into all of its problems but it probably needs its own thread... ha.
5) For Maya guys, animating with biped is a nightmare.
So many little hitches and hickups, silly rules and goofy work arounds that it gets to be too much. If you start with max/biped you can tradition to other things just fine, but going the other way isn't as easy. If you've animated in maya trying to use only HumanIK, its kind of like that but a little crappier.
Maya can be a little frustrating too for me. There are a lot of annoying bugs that simply don't exist in Blender or Modo...stuff like the default Lambert randomly becoming invisible just annoys me. Plus if you turn on autosave in the student-licensed version Maya throws a pop-up at you when you're in the middle of something every five minutes. If they would change that I might be more inclined to use Maya.
I cut my teeth on Blender, so of course I love it the most. Modo is good too; I miss my up-arrow in Modo whenever I use anything else.