Modo v.s. Maya
polycounter lvl 4
Hey all, I'm going to be graduating and seeking a professional position in the games industry soon, and my student licenses for all my Autodesk products will expire within the next year. I have a couple of questions regarding which 3D modelling program would be more cost effective to pursue a professional license for in the long run.
Maya is my program of choice and I've been looking at pricing for it recently - it's steep for someone like me who's just starting out, especially when you have to re-buy the license every time a new release is out. The annual subscription fee is obscene and I don't feel like Maya LTE would meet my needs, so that option is out too.
I have never used MODO before, but I've been hearing good things about it and its price is a lot more affordable. What I understand from the website is that you just pay an annual maintenance fee for patches and other tech issues, and don't have to re-buy the actual program again. I also noticed a graduate pricing deal which looks promising for me. However I don't hear much about MODO being used in a game development pipeline (beyond it being used for BL2).
If anyone has any advice about how to proceed I would really appreciate it.
Maya is my program of choice and I've been looking at pricing for it recently - it's steep for someone like me who's just starting out, especially when you have to re-buy the license every time a new release is out. The annual subscription fee is obscene and I don't feel like Maya LTE would meet my needs, so that option is out too.
I have never used MODO before, but I've been hearing good things about it and its price is a lot more affordable. What I understand from the website is that you just pay an annual maintenance fee for patches and other tech issues, and don't have to re-buy the actual program again. I also noticed a graduate pricing deal which looks promising for me. However I don't hear much about MODO being used in a game development pipeline (beyond it being used for BL2).
If anyone has any advice about how to proceed I would really appreciate it.
Replies
Then there's the regular subscription you mentioned, wherein you can only use the software as long as you maintain the subscription and the subscription costs are significantly higher, but you don't have to pay any up-front cost.
Frankly, they are both very crappy options.
Onsite most studios use Max or Maya as their primary (though many studios will let you use Modo as part of the pipeline) so it makes sense to be very familiar with one or both.
This is the only thing that has turned me off learning Modo really, after seeing more things made with it it looks pretty cool. New job will be using Maya but would be nice to see more game studios adopting Modo soon!
You can purchase a license and then annual maintenance subscription, and thats all you pay. For the annual fee you get access to support and various other services such as previous rights usage. Also, as long as you keep your subscription active, you will automatically get the next release at no extra cost.
In terms of the actual amount you pay, Maya will cost you £3500+ for a seat, then the subs are £600+. (prices are approximate and based on the UK online store)
So there's a vast difference between the seat cost and maintenance subscription. If you always want to be up to date and have support etc, then maintenance subscription is the most cost effective. If you decide to not renew you subscription then you can still use the software, but only for the version you stopped at.
Currently, if you have an older version of Maya (say you stopped Subs for a year or two), then you can pay an upgrade fee to get to the most up to date version. That can be approx. 70%, of the the full SRP. But please not, that from Feb 1st 2015 Autodesk is discontinuing upgrades altogether.
Last year, Autodesk introduced rental options (now called desktop subscription) where you can pay a monthly, quarterly, or annual fee. As long as you pay the fee, then you can keep using the software. If you stop, then you can't use it.
Earthquake, when I was looking into Modo it mentioned having tools for rigging and animation, are they not fully featured enough for use in a game art pipeline? I was really hoping for an all-in-one solution.
Thanks for the clarification, Bellsey. That sucks about upgrades, so that means they're completely removing the ability to get a discount on future releases if you cancelled your sub/own a previous version?
I just kinda wish they could have found a better option.
I don't PLAN to unsub at all, but if I had to for whatever reason, having to re-buy the whole program is nuts.
I understand their logic behind it, but it's already a pretty hefty purchase. Seems like a punishment to the customer (who may not have had a choice) to do it that way, especially if they're phasing out upgrade prices.
edit: when I was reading up on Maya LT it said it was largely mobile oriented and had a lot of tools removed and constraints on file types and other stuff that made it sound like a pretty unattractive option. The poly limit was one of the biggest for me, it said 25k is the cutoff?
I guess it depends on what you want to use it for. For modelling and texturing static props/environments it's very good, so long as you install Farfarer's vertex normal toolkit and use xNormal for baking normal maps (Modo doesn't support cages). For rigging and more technical level stuff it can be a bit of a problem. Modo's performance crumbles severely when painting weights and previewing animations, and it got so bad for us our animator required a Maya license to get the job finished. It's pretty disappointing.
Version 801 is due to be announced soon (in two weeks if the luxology forums are to be believed). I'd recommend waiting to see what it has to offer and give the 15 day trial a go.
I'm not an animator so don't take what I say about it too seriously (make sure to do your own research) but from what I understand the animation tools are not up to par with Maya/Max/Blender.
Plus, when you get into a studio environment you're most likely going to be required to rig/animate in Maya or Max, like a 99% chance you will use one of those in larger studios, maybe XSI or Blender somewhere else (though XSI was killed off entirely recently). Studios often have specific tools/scripts/exporters for the animation pipeline that one work in one app. Its just very unlikely that they will hire you and let you use Modo for animation, modeling/uvs/etc? Much more likely.
Most of those limitations have since been fixed, and it is now largely just game-focused with the extraneous video making stuff removed.
As far as I can tell, if you go the maintenance route you pay $795 up front plus $120 a year (first year up front as well, so $915 total), which is amazingly affordable.
- You can smooth your mesh in another program, like ZBrush or Blender and re-import into Maya to make your low poly. (There are no import tri caps.)
- You can export your high poly mesh in pieces and bake that way, or you can reassemble it in another program, like Blender. Just make sure to freeze your transforms when you export so every piece has the same pivot point and you have perfect alignment when you bring them over.
- Do your bakes in Turtle (LT's included baking solution.) The documentation isn't the best, but it's actually really robust and fast once you figure it out. I'm considering writing a tutorial on this for people used to a cage workflow.
In terms of the missing tools, like I said, really look at what you use Maya for. The modeling tools are all there. I can't really give a full rundown on the animation tools because I'm not an animator. The basic deformers and rigging tools are there as well though.
One limitation I should mention though is that Maya LT scene files (.mlt) and regular Maya scene files are not compatible. You need to export assets to bring them between the two. The trial version of LT also doesn't support MEL scripting, but the 2015 version will.
The whole "it's for mobile!" thing is really just to deter the industry from dropping Maya almost completely in favor of a cheaper option. It's designed to suit solo game artists by cutting a lot of fat they don't use. I would download the trial and give it a look. If it meets your needs, it can save you a LOT of money. If not, there's always the full version.
Owers, huh, that's good information to know. I noticed on the site that VFX was mentioned far more often, so I guess it's not surprising that it's missing a couple game related things... hadn't heard about the stability issues though, that's a bummer.
Earthquake, thanks for the info, I'll dig a little deeper into it. It's probably worth getting a Modo trial and giving the tools a go for myself before I make a final decision about which program to go with.
Equanim, I usually do retopo-ing and model optimization in Maya with quad draw which is mainly why the poly limit worried me. But there's no import tri caps? So that means I could export my my decimated 100k+ highpoly out of zbrush and that would import fine into Maya LT? Also it's fantastic to hear about the MEL support being added with 2015, I have a lot of handy little scripts I use that I'd hate to have to give up.
In any case, it sounds like it's worth taking a look at the trial version and seeing how I can adapt my workflow to work with it.
The problem is, as I see it, even if the new version of Modo knocks it out of the park with animation, baking, etc., Autodesk has such a head start *and* an entrenchment in the professional world (particularly with animators and TD-types) that it will still be a hard sell to studios and devs that have spent a small fortune and many years building a Maya-specific pipeline. It's not just about money - there are also time and opportunity costs to consider. Devs with active productions probably don't want disruptions for marginally-better or just-as-good tools. I doubt any studio or developer will give up on an established, working and dependable pipeline unless there is a hugely-compelling, Earth-shaking reason to do so. At best, a studio will allow an artist or a small group to fold a tool into the production pipeline, but will still expect that group to push assets to the established standard DCC tool (Maya or Max). Mostly, however, studios expect individual artists to get with their program and work with their tools. In the current job climate, it's kind of career suicide to not be able to rock with Maya or Max (or both).
So...and this is just my opinion, even if the new version of Modo is the bee's knees, we're still going to be living in an Autodesk world. Keep those Maya skills up and stay current, I guess is what I'm trying say.
I used to think there would be some kind of sea-change of support for artists wanting to forge a path with tools like Modo, but I'm less inclined to believe that now. And in the indie world, there are no rules...use whatever works best for you. The studio model is a different story. Everyone is expected to at least be proficient in the company standards. If anything disruptive is going to happen on a corporate level (at least for game artists) I believe it's going to be caused by free tools like Blender - which is the tool I would recommend to an indie team or individual who wants a great all-in-one tool that can do just about everything they'll need it to do and can scale or contract as the needs and the size of the team or project change. Open-source is not the be-all, end-all, but it is very compelling these days and the tools have matured to the point where it is now coming down to personal preference rather than abundance or lack of tool-specific features.
For personal projects I'll continue to use Modo.
The Maya way is obviously better, but the Modo way is barely worse and doesn't bog down the program.
There are no annual maintenance fee, the service packs(SP) are fee. If you buy 801 you'll get all the SP for free. So far Luxology has been very friendly with their upgrade path, you can pretty much upgrade from Modo 101 to 701 without having to pay any back maintenance at 495 USD. You are not required to upgrade , you can let it lapse and upgrade anytime in the future.
801 is weeks away from being release I'd suggest you keep an eye out for it. There is a sneak peak event here: http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/modo801live/
As a modo user and game artist, I'd be really disappointed in 801 if I don't see any feature set that is gear toward game artist. I don't know any game studio what use Modo as their primary content creation tool, that's mostly reserve for Maya or Max(sadly).
@Valliant, I also started with Maya but made the switch to Modo and do not regret it at all. Modo's modeling features are not notch, and very tool based (like Maya). No other 3d application has such smart selection workflows, which makes it incredibly refreshing.
Baking in Modo is actually VERY GOOD. The problem is that as far as 701 is concerned, it takes some getting used to since the process is a tad convoluted and confusion. But once you get it down, you can bake some very nice maps out of it.
UVing in Modo is soooo good. You will save hours UVing your meshwork.
Retopology tools with the retopo interface/topology tool are very very very good. I would put them on par with those applications which are dedicated to retopology work. Its as simple as creating points or shift dragging out verts, edges and faces, and then seeing them snap intelligently in place. Very fast, very easy.
Unlike Maya, you get a fairly good painting and sculpting toolset. While not as good as the dedicated applications, you can quickly paint and even concept in Modo, even paint directly onto an alpha layer which is pretty neat for creating silhouettes in which to model on top of.
Sculpting can allow you add detail or form fairly quick, even out toplogy or just push and pull some verts.
One can also pose characters easily in Modo. I would say for character art, its a great application that can cover nearly all parts of the pipeline and do so intelligently for the most part.
There's even hotkey to make everything spin as though on a turn table. Great for checking out your work.
The down side is that the viewport so far still isnt all that good. The perk with Maya is you get that nice viewport 2.0 and direct x 11 as well as the use of cgfx shaders.
With Modo, you have access to Allegorithmic plugins which link the texture workflow with substance designer to Modo. Great for texturing within Modo itself.
I would say you get far more value with Modo over Maya. In addition to that, Modo often has 50% sales every now and then. I would suggest waiting until news about 801 is out (I think end of this month) and hold off until you can get a deal. Modo will empower your ability to make character art, its not perfect, but the pros really out weigh the cons.
Well the day that Max and Maya is now considered secondary apps, you know someone been asleep at the wheel ... Autodesk ? :poly128::poly128::poly128::poly128:
yeah, Max Aristov (the senior artist on DOTA 2) praised it on How to Make Games podcast. He still uses Max out of habit though .
Oh god please be true.
I would agree that waiting to see the new features of 801 next week would be the best move. I believe many discussions about it will emerge here that will certainly influence your decision.
If I was the Autodesk licensing department I would probably add IK / better animation support only after the switch to rental-only licenses. That way people would be forced to jump on the subscription bandwagon.
This will probably happen because, let's face it, Autodesk is a terrible company.
If I were the guy in charge of Autodesk licensing, i'd drop that monthly sub fee to be more inline with Epic's strategy. £30/month (roughly $50) is not as indie friendly as AD seem to think it is.
Thanks for dropping in, Snefer
What is your opinion on all the drawbacks people are mentioning related to game art creation?
Lol, yeah I quoted the wrong dude, in the wrong thread. Not having used the Modo tools for animation I have no opinion.
I would really like Modo to do a monthly subscription type thing, though. Hell, update the Steam version to be more feature complete and sell it for a couple of hundred bucks. I don't need offline rendering. That's probably half of the charm (and the price) right there.
If i ever do get Modo (I'm waiting to see what 801 offers before i decide on that or Maya LT), it WON'T be the steam edition, that's for sure.
The full rental monthly fee for AD's full software (the 200% a month one) is a JOKE! I'd expect that kind of fee for SITE LICENSES! NOT individual! They can't honestly expect an individual user would willingly use the rental plans. 50 dollars a month is a far more reasonable monthly fee for the FULL versions, for individual users anyway.
Maya LT should be half that, at most.