Heya - these onscreen keypresses are built into the Blender display (not an external program). The addon is called "Screencast Keys", it was definitely part of the default install at some point. Not sure if it is still the case now, but it is still working fine.
Sorry, i only heard excuse and jumps though hoops to get heavy meshes working on blender. Not ideal, not by far having to rely on decimation to have a working viewport in a memory hog app.
If, by any chance, it was the other way around (blender dealt with the mesh beautifully and 3dsMax maxed out the system memory and crashed) I'm sure if I said "decimate the mesh, use displace, etc" would only sound as lame excuses.
I see Autodesk pushing Maya wherever they can; Viz, Games, VFX, etc. I guess it doesn't make much sense to develop two programs which do pretty much the same thing but I don't think 3ds Max will go away anytime soon only because it has a huge user base.
I did switch from Max to Blender my self a couple of years ago, it was a really hard transition but also very rewarding. The flow when modeling is quite elegant and, in terms of viewport performance, I never had any issues with heavy meshes or ran out of memory but then again I'm not working with 100M polys on screen.
I see Autodesk pushing Maya wherever they can; Viz, Games, VFX, etc. I guess it doesn't make much sense to develop two programs which do pretty much the same thing but I don't think 3ds Max will go away anytime soon only because it has a huge user base.
I did switch from Max to Blender my self a couple of years ago, it was a really hard transition but also very rewarding. The flow when modeling is quite elegant and, in terms of viewport performance, I never had any issues with heavy meshes or ran out of memory but then again I'm not working with 100M polys on screen.
That is true, ADSK used to push Maya heavily for quite some time. But this is not the case anymore since mid 2016 to now. Guess they went (put money and marketing) as far as possible to make Maya penetrate markets where 3dsMax is strong. Didn't work, Max still has a much bigger user base (somewhere between 3 to 5 times bigger) than Maya after all the effort.
Now they did put Maya on the fridge (check Maya's 2018.1 and 2018.2 updates, nothing new, just a couple of bug fixes). Maya is practically on maintenance mode now and if you follow ADSK's social medias you'll see they advertising Max on Games, Film and TV, things unthinkable couple of years ago.
In a nutshell, Max has bigger revenue and gives more money to ADSK, it's just logical that they will focus and invest on their core products more on more in this transition of business model.
davius said: Now they did put Maya on the fridge (check Maya's 2018.1 and 2018.2 updates, nothing new, just a couple of bug fixes). Maya is practically on maintenance mode now and if you follow ADSK's social medias you'll see they advertising Max on Games, Film and TV, things unthinkable couple of years ago.
In a nutshell, Max has bigger revenue and gives more money to ADSK, it's just logical that they will focus and invest on their core products more on more in this transition of business model.
Maya 2018 is pretty strong release, so I don't think that Autodesk throw it on "maintenance mode". And 3ds Max's social medias shows us bunch of arch viz posts...
I see Autodesk pushing Maya wherever they can; Viz, Games, VFX, etc. I guess it doesn't make much sense to develop two programs which do pretty much the same thing but I don't think 3ds Max will go away anytime soon only because it has a huge user base.
I did switch from Max to Blender my self a couple of years ago, it was a really hard transition but also very rewarding. The flow when modeling is quite elegant and, in terms of viewport performance, I never had any issues with heavy meshes or ran out of memory but then again I'm not working with 100M polys on screen.
That is true, ADSK used to push Maya heavily for quite some time. But this is not the case anymore since mid 2016 to now. Guess they went (put money and marketing) as far as possible to make Maya penetrate markets where 3dsMax is strong. Didn't work, Max still has a much bigger user base (somewhere between 3 to 5 times bigger) than Maya after all the effort.
Now they did put Maya on the fridge (check Maya's 2018.1 and 2018.2 updates, nothing new, just a couple of bug fixes). Maya is practically on maintenance mode now and if you follow ADSK's social medias you'll see they advertising Max on Games, Film and TV, things unthinkable couple of years ago.
In a nutshell, Max has bigger revenue and gives more money to ADSK, it's just logical that they will focus and invest on their core products more on more in this transition of business model.
Where did you get any of that information? That's all speculation at best. Autodesk are the only ones with the figures.
Maya users have wanted a proper bug fixing release for a long time now. Lack of new features does not equate to EOL software. Read the change logs because they're fixing a lot of critical bugs.
The two have co-existed for many years, no idea why people think they need to kill one or the other off.
Case in point. Mudbox. No features for plenty of years but development has started on that again.
Mudbox was KIA to transfer tech to Maya. Didn't work (Maya was/is a mess), so they are giving CPR to mudbox.
And the info I said is not speculation. It's even worse if you read ADSK financial reports and see that Maya is underperforming while Max was beating expectations and keeping the (now defunct) M&E division afloat. All a Google search away.
There are other websites that compile this sort of info, and all follow the same trend, like idatalabs.
And with the recent info, if you call fixing bugs "what users want" I can show you Maya user voice and it's not there at all. Meanwhile, ADSK is giving this to Maya users
In a quick comparison, 3dsMax had 4 (so far) point releases that, not only fixed a TON (literally, a ton) of bugs but also introduced new tools and workflows. From all new splines to fluids, batch, helpers, deformers, motion fields, scene conversions...
Maya got 2 point updates. No new features, and mostly bug fixing (they are advertising bug fixing as feature).
It's indeed quite a change of perspective, but not a surprise if you count where most of the money comes from.
You're getting the wrong idea, BrOken. I didn't say they are abandoning archViz for 3dsMax, I said they are, for the first time in a long time, advertising it for other things. On Facebook the first video of Autodesk 3ds Max page is a games reel. Then you get some Viz, then some character work, then some fantasy landscape, then some motion, some more character, some more Viz, some more character, some planes, cars, games again, call to VES.
It doesn't matter what to visualize. Cars, architecture, landscapes - it just visualization. And all latest updates are devoted to it: Fluids, Arnold, 3ds Max Interactive. I haven't seen for a long time any significant updates to modeling, animation. By the way, i don't see any characters on 3ds Max's Facebook.
You're kidding, right? If I make a character on a flying helicopter you call that Viz? Then everything is Viz. A quick scroll on Autodesk 3ds Max Facebook page shows this
A user asked what industries can he dive with 3ds Max as weapon. Autodesk response on facebook was video games, TV, archviz, movies effects, movie previz and much more.
This is ADSK own response. If you asked then just a couple of years before, the response would be much different.
Mudbox was KIA to transfer tech to Maya. Didn't work (Maya was/is a mess), so they are giving CPR to mudbox.
And the info I said is not speculation. It's even worse if you read ADSK financial reports and see that Maya is underperforming while Max was beating expectations and keeping the (now defunct) M&E division afloat. All a Google search away.
There are other websites that compile this sort of info, and all follow the same trend, like idatalabs.
And with the recent info, if you call fixing bugs "what users want" I can show you Maya user voice and it's not there at all. Meanwhile, ADSK is giving this to Maya users
Mudbox tech was only integrated for blend shape authoring. Also what is your point here? You said they failed but the tools are there so clearly they didn't. They're not as performant as mudbox but that's expected, Max would have the same pains.
That website you linked to that's just users they're tracking... Where is their source?
If you look at ADSK fiscal reports they only ever mention their media and entertainment sector. So that's nothing to go on.
I don't doubt there are more Max users than Maya but that's more likely due to pricing than anything. I suspect this will change now that the two cost the same subscription price.
And yes it's what professional maya users want. I know, I'm one of them. Oglu is another. Go take a look on the feedback hub and you can see people praising them for fixing features they half baked in a few years ago. They want more fixes than anything.
For you guys arguing from this zero sum frame of mind about Max or Maya being cancelled, did it ever occur to you that maybe Audodesk plans to support both packages that overlap the same industry? I know that might blow your minds, but it makes a lot of sense considering they've been doing exactly this ever since they bought Maya almost 13 years ago.
Max outscore Maya just because using in visualisation industry. VFX and animation almost completely on Maya side.
Depends on where you are. In many contury, 3dsMax has far more seat than Maya in game and even animation. Maya only rules big vfx market in US/UK/Canada which is tiny compare to all other industry.
Maya had good times with shopping spree. Last few years, almost all Maya features were purchaed from outside. Now Autodesk is in savings mode due to business model transition. The good wasteful days are long gone.
You're kidding, right? If I make a character on a flying helicopter you call that Viz? Then everything is Viz. A user asked what industries can he dive with 3ds Max as weapon. Autodesk response on facebook was video games, TV, archviz, movies effects, movie previz and much more.
This is ADSK own response. If you asked then just a couple of years before, the response would be much different.
If you doing that just for cool shots using rendering software like VRay, so yeah, it might be called as visualization. Autodesk always positioned 3ds Max as universal package for games, VFX, animation, visualization etc. Nothing has changed.
You're listing just the most recent features on PUs, @BrOken . Are you forgetting DCM? MCG? Max Batch?
And I disagree on you view of viz. If I apply the same standard, then Maya is also Viz, as is C4D, blender, Houdini. Even After Effects and Nuke might fall on Viz If used to produce a still image. So, for you still image = Viz? Or is it needed to use VRay? In this case scrap After Effects
Axi5 - Mudbox was scraped in favor of Maya. If they only wanted to give blendshape editing, then why freeze mudbox for years? They wanted to integrate most of the package in Maya, and give true proper sculpting tools, but it didn't pan the way they wanted, too many problems, so better give CPR to mudbox instead.
If you want the source of the website you can ask them directly. But that's not the only website with similar results (Max user base / company penetration way bigger than Maya). And they make money with that info. If the info is not reliable, they are out of business.
You think pricing is the responsible for Max base being bigger? But they have the same price for at least 5 years (when I had to buy new licenses)! I suspect this has been the case since much longer, and anyone can correct me if I'm wrong.
And I disagree on you view of viz. If I apply the same standard, then Maya is also Viz, as is C4D, blender, Houdini. Even After Effects and Nuke might fall on Viz If used to produce a still image. So, for you still image = Viz? Or is it needed to use VRay? In this case scrap After Effects
All 3D DCC apps may be used for visualization. And After Effects and Nuke widely used in visualization pipeline. And not for only static images, dynamic scenes too.
Axi5 - Mudbox was scraped in favor of Maya. If they only wanted to give blendshape editing, then why freeze mudbox for years? They wanted to integrate most of the package in Maya, and give true proper sculpting tools, but it didn't pan the way they wanted, too many problems, so better give CPR to mudbox instead.
If you want the source of the website you can ask them directly. But that's not the only website with similar results (Max user base / company penetration way bigger than Maya). And they make money with that info. If the info is not reliable, they are out of business.
You think pricing is the responsible for Max base being bigger? But they have the same price for at least 5 years (when I had to buy new licenses)! I suspect this has been the case since much longer, and anyone can correct me if I'm wrong.
And we got more 2 PUs with bugfixes and features. Don't know why you can't have both but if you're happy with just bugfixes that ok.
Again, where is your source for saying Mudbox got scrapped for Maya? Mudbox development slowed back in 2014, not scrapped. The developers ported their tools to Maya for the 2016 release because the Mudbox team had no management. Now they have a new manager and are going to start putting out new feature releases.
Yes I do think that pricing is largely responsible. You're right it has been 5 years, but plenty of large studios would have their pipelines setup and wouldn't change for an equally priced product. For sales performance figures you're better off looking at new users since then rather than existing users. Which that website doesn't say.
We're also forgetting Maya LT which has some traction with indies, though not loads and especially now Stingray is dead. Though clearly Autodesk has faith in the product else they wouldn't have made it.
Max point updates aren't very relevant to your argument. In fact looking at release notes at all isn't a very good indicator of a software company's internal structure. Max got a feature release, Maya got a bug fixing release. That's all Autodesk have said on the matter.
Again though how much do you want to bet Maya isn't EOL?
I find it ironic that we're discussing Maya being EOL now after many years of people saying Max would be.
No sir. Mudbox was left to rot, with barely bug fixing at all. The dev didn't slow, it halted. They are investing again on Mudbox because:
a) Maya could not handle Mudbox performance on sculpting workflow (ask some beta testers around).
b) They were left with nothing to compete with ZBrush. If the competition with ZBrush was already though on 2014 imagine now with 3 years of software freeze. If they really cared about mudbox, they would not abandon it like they did. They are only coming back because they had no other option (and are already very late to the party, as they were with stingray).
Well, you think it's price, but I believe the price has been the same for longer than 5 years, so if it was true, Maya would have much more penetration on companies than it has now. But the available data shows otherwise. It has less penetration and is loosing rather than gaining new seats (probably to Houdini).
How point updates are not relevant? They are a pulse on how the development of the softwares are going. Max had 4 PUs, all with new features and bug fixing. Maya had half of that, with just bug fixing. It seems Maya is with few devs, and not enough investment to get new features, even though the first one at user voice has over 500 votes against your 2 votes asking *just* for bugfixing.
I don't bet. I try to see what's happening, read the data and make educated guesses. I'm guessing that, since this transition to a new model is being tough on ADSK, they are focusing on their core products to drive adoption and sales. They shut down lots of initiatives and fired some more people (indication of problems with their bottom line). By looking at the shape Maya is, I'd guess it is not posed to bring enough revenue to ADSK to justify investing ATM.
This could change. For a while, it was Max who was put against the wall. There seemed to be a genuine effort to sink it, but it's just too big, so they tried to make Maya eat its market (by pushing Maya heavily on markets where 3dsmax has already a strong foot like games and motion). Didn't work either. Now that money is short, we see a change of perspective on the company.
And regarding my point of ADSK killing MudBox to integrate it in Maya, check here, scroll to the video section where ADSK's own marketing material says "MudBox in Maya!"
Read the thread title. If that's not enough speculation for you...
On my part, I try, as much as possible, to ground my speculations of available data and facts. As fact, we have Max receiving 4 PUs with plenty of features + bug fixes. On the other side, I see only 2 PUs with nothing but bug fixes (even advertising bug fixes as feature, imagine that...).
Of course I don't see (and don't wish to see) Maya being EOLed anytime soon, really. But if ADSK financial situation worsens they will retreat even more to their core portifolio (where they get money from) and then ... Well, money will speak louder I guess.
You're kidding, right? If I make a character on a flying helicopter you call that Viz? Then everything is Viz. A user asked what industries can he dive with 3ds Max as weapon. Autodesk response on facebook was video games, TV, archviz, movies effects, movie previz and much more.
This is ADSK own response. If you asked then just a couple of years before, the response would be much different.
If you doing that just for cool shots using rendering software like VRay, so yeah, it might be called as visualization. Autodesk always positioned 3ds Max as universal package for games, VFX, animation, visualization etc. Nothing has changed.
Maya had good times with shopping spree. Last few years, almost all Maya features were purchaed from outside.
Same as Max. 3ds Max Interactive, new spline tools, Fluids, Arnold.
That's just for 2018 PU updates. From 2014 to 2017, almost all features except Physical camera was internal development. For Maya, XGEN, new shape editor, new UVeditor, new modeling tool, MASH all from outside.
I wish 3dsMax team had more money to buy more stuff. But, they did not have luxury like Maya.
but all those third party tools are still under development... most of them from the original devs... its much faster to start with an thirdparty tool than to develop all inhouse... xgen is ten years growing tool... would you like to wait that long... same goes for MASH or CAMd... im fine with jumpstarting a development...
but all those third party tools are still under development... most of them from the original devs... its much faster to start with an thirdparty tool than to develop all inhouse... xgen is ten years growing tool... would you like to wait that long... same goes for MASH or CAMd... im fine with jumpstarting a development...
Then you'll love the new Fluids in Max. They took all the goodies of Bifröst (detached it from Maya and made it truly an app agnostic tool), put that on a sensible UI and improved the UX to the point where you can simulate and your UI is NOT locked! Imagine that! You can simulate your fluids, and continue to work on your scene shaders, on some particle effects, make test renders or even simulate OTHER fluids in parallel! No locked UI. And this is just the more glaring example.
I'm with @gandhics , would be very nice if on those years Max team also had money as Maya team had to spend on already mature tools. They seem to have now, and are doing a great job at it
As fact, we have Max receiving 4 PUs with plenty of features + bug fixes. On the other side, I see only 2 PUs with nothing but bug fixes (even advertising bug fixes as feature, imagine that...).
For example, 3ds Max 2017 got only one PU with two features. Comparison of PU quantity is incorrect.
Maya 2018 give us so much new stuff that it would be enough for several PU. So, two PU with bug fixes is not bad.
Actually Max 2017 got 2 PUs. One with feature + bugfixes and one with bugfixes. The way you wrote your text can lead to imply differently.
And in Maya 2018 you hardly have two real new feature (unwrap or AE link). The other stuff is extensions of already in place tools (more mash nodes, geodesic voxel biding was already in place before on 2017, etc) or fixes of bugs (again, advertised as feature).
Maya 2018 give us so much new stuff that it would be enough for several PU. So, two PU with bug fixes is not bad.
??? Maya 2018 didn't have much new features. It considered as big fix release.
Also the one of 3dsMax 2017 PU was Data Channel modifier which include many features in one modifier. For example, DeltaMush is in it as operator which coulld be just a seperate feature.
davius your 3ds max's user base statistic based on the number of companies using it compared to Maya is wrong, because if we follow your logic that would mean that 1 % use Blender while it got more than a million download per year and some artists use 3ds max/Maya at work and Blender at home or for freelance and the huge majority don't work in a company because they don't want or are looking for a job.
And also most companies do product design and architectural visualisation so 3ds max is often the software used, while there is fewer animation and video games studios and in this field there is a lot of indies, hobbyist, amateurs. Another thing to mention I think companies are registered after renting the software and that most indies do not rent it so they aren't in the stats.
I think the real statistic for the user base is the trending, the number of searches on Google, this is more accurate because proportionnal to the user base: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&q=/m/01tgyn,/m/0svhm,/m/0l1qq On each 3ds max release arround april the interest stagne followed by an huge drop represented by a massive switch to Blender by disapointed users about the update.
Things evolve quickly, 3ds max is in an huge decline: in 2004 3ds max was 5 times more searched than Blender , 11 years later in 2015 Blender got more searches than 3ds max for the first time, in 2019 it's expected to have equal trending of Blender than 3ds max and Maya combined. I think that will happen in 2019 with the release of the 2.8 expected in late 2018. But we have to remember than even if the user base of Blender could in two years be equal to 3ds max and Maya combined it includes a lot of hobbist and amateurs and some using it for tiny tasks like video editing by Linux users or a programmer wanting to do the icons of his GUI (Ubuntu's icons are made in Blender). And Blender is popular for 3D printing, a domain that gets more and more users.
Sorry Linko, it's not "my statistics", it's the number of companies using certain softwares. And you're wrong if you think ADSK share their clients list to anyone. That would be a MAJOR breach on their policy. They can't share that database or face huge legal action against then. Those websites that report such numbers do their own homework and research to get to those numbers. And there are a many more sites like those that report the same trend.
And I'm more inclined to say your methodology is utterly flawed. Sure, Google trends is a good measure of *interest* on a certain subject, but can't possibly reflect people actually using software A or B. I've searched for Blender several times, but hardly use it at all. @gandhics here downloaded and installed it to compare it to Max and found it failed on his test. Can a search trend account for those who don't download? Or for those who download but don't use? Remember Blender is free, and I can assure you that many people download it just because it is free, while the people who pay for Max or Maya don't generally pay to have it sitting on a folder on their computers - they most likely use them, a lot.
So while this is a good indicator of interest, this is a poor measure of actual use. I don't doubt Blender is used a LOT. But it's a hard beast to measure and properly compare to other packages. So I'm not comparing Blender on my comments, just Max and Maya if you cared to read all of them.
I didn't meant that that was your own statistics but like I said this would mean than less than 1 % of the 3D artists are using Blender that's why I think it's not representative and in game art there is mostly indies and hobbyist not like archiviz and product designers that work in companies with 3ds max.
About the trending if they were all just downloading it without using it the curve would have much more spikes especially on new versions released but instead it shows a smooth curve and a long therm trending meaning that the majority of the interested are using it regularly, watch tutorials, follow the news, go on forums, etc we only see a spike for the end of the year for all 3 software and a permanent drop after the release of a new version of 3ds max at each summer. About 3ds max and Maya it shows that 3ds max was 250 % more searched than Maya in 2004 and now it's just 50 % more, that's still a lot but that's 1.5 times not 3-5 times. If we follow the trend the software will soon get bellow Maya in interest but this will happen slowly since the majority leaving 3ds max switches to Blender.
Again, you're confusing search results with user base, and again I'm telling you those are different things. You can make some wild guesses about it, but not as accurate as companies actively researching and gathering data about real companies using software A or B.
And you confused it even more, saying Max was searched 1.5 times more than Maya and that's way less than the 3 to 5 times (that I mentioned earlier). I was referring to actual real world companies using Max rather than Maya, not Google searches. Also, are you even aware that a LOT of searches and interested today are on social media (aka Facebook) which completely blocks Google from prying into them? Which also means your base of comparison might just be utterly incomplete and out of touch with the reality? The decline might be largely compensated by migration of users to social media channels to consume tutorials, detach for help, and keep up to date with their software?
This gigantic user base is completely away from Google's reach.
So, I'd much rather rely on research and statistics of companies who need to make a living out of it. If they output the wrong numbers, they're done and out of business.
For a pulse of it, just see how long time famous forums are just a shadow of what they used to be. Go to cgtalk for example and look how it is actively posting on social media to draw people back. All those users who spend their days on Facebook or Instagram are out of Google search. Can we just ignore all of them?
Compare on Facebook, for example. Blender pages (they have 2 of them?) Barely gets beyond 50k likes. 3ds Max has over 670k likes. This is interested people on the software or user base? How you read these data? How many people are actually being reached by posts from Autodesk's channels and blender channels?
oh man so much speculation here... part of the problem here autodesk does not talk to there users... only behind closed doors with big studios...
lol you think they share their business plans even with "big studios" ? That's a pretty misguided belief.
they do customer meetings all the time... i had such meetigs in the past...
Yes, they do, but it's more of "marketing" meeting than really sharing business plans. They will of course say things "you can't share around", but it's more of their own view and bias (PM) towards what they want to happen, what will likely happen, than sharing their internal business plans.
Replies
If, by any chance, it was the other way around (blender dealt with the mesh beautifully and 3dsMax maxed out the system memory and crashed) I'm sure if I said "decimate the mesh, use displace, etc" would only sound as lame excuses.
I did switch from Max to Blender my self a couple of years ago, it was a really hard transition but also very rewarding. The flow when modeling is quite elegant and, in terms of viewport performance, I never had any issues with heavy meshes or ran out of memory but then again I'm not working with 100M polys on screen.
Now they did put Maya on the fridge (check Maya's 2018.1 and 2018.2 updates, nothing new, just a couple of bug fixes). Maya is practically on maintenance mode now and if you follow ADSK's social medias you'll see they advertising Max on Games, Film and TV, things unthinkable couple of years ago.
In a nutshell, Max has bigger revenue and gives more money to ADSK, it's just logical that they will focus and invest on their core products more on more in this transition of business model.
And 3ds Max's social medias shows us bunch of arch viz posts...
Where did you get any of that information? That's all speculation at best. Autodesk are the only ones with the figures.
Maya users have wanted a proper bug fixing release for a long time now. Lack of new features does not equate to EOL software. Read the change logs because they're fixing a lot of critical bugs.
The two have co-existed for many years, no idea why people think they need to kill one or the other off.
Case in point. Mudbox. No features for plenty of years but development has started on that again.
And the info I said is not speculation. It's even worse if you read ADSK financial reports and see that Maya is underperforming while Max was beating expectations and keeping the (now defunct) M&E division afloat. All a Google search away.
https://discovery.hgdata.com/product/autodesk-maya
https://discovery.hgdata.com/product/autodesk-3ds-max
There are other websites that compile this sort of info, and all follow the same trend, like idatalabs.
And with the recent info, if you call fixing bugs "what users want" I can show you Maya user voice and it's not there at all. Meanwhile, ADSK is giving this to Maya users
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/Maya-WhatsNewPR/files/GUID-1D3DA9DB-8F81-4952-9CDE-A1EA3D83886C-htm.html
Maya got 2 point updates. No new features, and mostly bug fixing (they are advertising bug fixing as feature).
It's indeed quite a change of perspective, but not a surprise if you count where most of the money comes from.
Before was just Viz. Not anymore.
By the way, i don't see any characters on 3ds Max's Facebook.
Disclaimer: I'm a 3ds Max user.
https://m.facebook.com/Autodesk3dsMax/photos/a.10150284179492851.342396.21238962850/10155441664287851/?type=3&source=48
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155447165902851&id=21238962850
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155447137662851&id=21238962850
https://m.facebook.com/Autodesk3dsMax/photos/a.10150284179492851.342396.21238962850/10155428955572851/?type=3&source=48
https://m.facebook.com/Autodesk3dsMax/photos/a.10150284179492851.342396.21238962850/10155407679177851/?type=3&source=48
And this is just a very, very quick scroll.
A user asked what industries can he dive with 3ds Max as weapon. Autodesk response on facebook was video games, TV, archviz, movies effects, movie previz and much more.
This is ADSK own response. If you asked then just a couple of years before, the response would be much different.
That website you linked to that's just users they're tracking... Where is their source?
If you look at ADSK fiscal reports they only ever mention their media and entertainment sector. So that's nothing to go on.
I don't doubt there are more Max users than Maya but that's more likely due to pricing than anything. I suspect this will change now that the two cost the same subscription price.
And yes it's what professional maya users want. I know, I'm one of them. Oglu is another. Go take a look on the feedback hub and you can see people praising them for fixing features they half baked in a few years ago. They want more fixes than anything.
That last link you sent was a feature list, of course there aren't many featues, its a bug fixing release. Here's the full change log:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/sites/default/files/Maya_2018.2_Update_ReleaseNotes_enu.htm
Even then the developers occasionally say they fixed something that was in a release but had no assigned ticket number.
How large a bet do you want to make that Maya is not EOL in the next 3 years?
I know this forum has more max users than Maya but there are many communities out there.
Maya only rules big vfx market in US/UK/Canada which is tiny compare to all other industry.
Last few years, almost all Maya features were purchaed from outside.
Now Autodesk is in savings mode due to business model transition.
The good wasteful days are long gone.
Autodesk always positioned 3ds Max as universal package for games, VFX, animation, visualization etc. Nothing has changed.
Same as Max. 3ds Max Interactive, new spline tools, Fluids, Arnold.
And I disagree on you view of viz. If I apply the same standard, then Maya is also Viz, as is C4D, blender, Houdini. Even After Effects and Nuke might fall on Viz If used to produce a still image. So, for you still image = Viz? Or is it needed to use VRay? In this case scrap After Effects
If you want the source of the website you can ask them directly. But that's not the only website with similar results (Max user base / company penetration way bigger than Maya). And they make money with that info. If the info is not reliable, they are out of business.
You think pricing is the responsible for Max base being bigger? But they have the same price for at least 5 years (when I had to buy new licenses)! I suspect this has been the case since much longer, and anyone can correct me if I'm wrong.
Oh, and Max got bugfixes too. Look:
PU1
https://up.autodesk.com/2018/3DSMAX/3dsMax2018.1_Update_Readme_enu.html#WhatsFixed
PU2
https://up.autodesk.com/2018/3DSMAX/3dsMax2018.2_Update_Readme_enu.html#WhatsFixed
And we got more 2 PUs with bugfixes and features. Don't know why you can't have both but if you're happy with just bugfixes that ok.
All 3D DCC apps may be used for visualization. And After Effects and Nuke widely used in visualization pipeline.
And not for only static images, dynamic scenes too.
Yes I do think that pricing is largely responsible. You're right it has been 5 years, but plenty of large studios would have their pipelines setup and wouldn't change for an equally priced product. For sales performance figures you're better off looking at new users since then rather than existing users. Which that website doesn't say.
We're also forgetting Maya LT which has some traction with indies, though not loads and especially now Stingray is dead. Though clearly Autodesk has faith in the product else they wouldn't have made it.
Max point updates aren't very relevant to your argument. In fact looking at release notes at all isn't a very good indicator of a software company's internal structure. Max got a feature release, Maya got a bug fixing release. That's all Autodesk have said on the matter.
Again though how much do you want to bet Maya isn't EOL?
I find it ironic that we're discussing Maya being EOL now after many years of people saying Max would be.
a) Maya could not handle Mudbox performance on sculpting workflow (ask some beta testers around).
b) They were left with nothing to compete with ZBrush. If the competition with ZBrush was already though on 2014 imagine now with 3 years of software freeze. If they really cared about mudbox, they would not abandon it like they did. They are only coming back because they had no other option (and are already very late to the party, as they were with stingray).
Well, you think it's price, but I believe the price has been the same for longer than 5 years, so if it was true, Maya would have much more penetration on companies than it has now. But the available data shows otherwise. It has less penetration and is loosing rather than gaining new seats (probably to Houdini).
How point updates are not relevant? They are a pulse on how the development of the softwares are going. Max had 4 PUs, all with new features and bug fixing. Maya had half of that, with just bug fixing. It seems Maya is with few devs, and not enough investment to get new features, even though the first one at user voice has over 500 votes against your 2 votes asking *just* for bugfixing.
I don't bet. I try to see what's happening, read the data and make educated guesses. I'm guessing that, since this transition to a new model is being tough on ADSK, they are focusing on their core products to drive adoption and sales. They shut down lots of initiatives and fired some more people (indication of problems with their bottom line). By looking at the shape Maya is, I'd guess it is not posed to bring enough revenue to ADSK to justify investing ATM.
This could change. For a while, it was Max who was put against the wall. There seemed to be a genuine effort to sink it, but it's just too big, so they tried to make Maya eat its market (by pushing Maya heavily on markets where 3dsmax has already a strong foot like games and motion). Didn't work either. Now that money is short, we see a change of perspective on the company.
http://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/17642-mudbox-2016nearly-eol/
We newer understand the intentions of big corporations like Autodesk. So all that discussion is just speculation.
On my part, I try, as much as possible, to ground my speculations of available data and facts. As fact, we have Max receiving 4 PUs with plenty of features + bug fixes. On the other side, I see only 2 PUs with nothing but bug fixes (even advertising bug fixes as feature, imagine that...).
Of course I don't see (and don't wish to see) Maya being EOLed anytime soon, really. But if ADSK financial situation worsens they will retreat even more to their core portifolio (where they get money from) and then ... Well, money will speak louder I guess.
From 2014 to 2017, almost all features except Physical camera was internal development.
For Maya, XGEN, new shape editor, new UVeditor, new modeling tool, MASH all from outside.
I wish 3dsMax team had more money to buy more stuff. But, they did not have luxury like Maya.
I'm with @gandhics , would be very nice if on those years Max team also had money as Maya team had to spend on already mature tools. They seem to have now, and are doing a great job at it
Agree. And I hope that they continue to implement ideas from 3ds Max's Ideas forum.
And in Maya 2018 you hardly have two real new feature (unwrap or AE link). The other stuff is extensions of already in place tools (more mash nodes, geodesic voxel biding was already in place before on 2017, etc) or fixes of bugs (again, advertised as feature).
Strange that Autodesk did not even mention other 3ds Max 2017 PU on their help website.
Also the one of 3dsMax 2017 PU was Data Channel modifier which include many features in one modifier.
For example, DeltaMush is in it as operator which coulld be just a seperate feature.
And also most companies do product design and architectural visualisation so 3ds max is often the software used, while there is fewer animation and video games studios and in this field there is a lot of indies, hobbyist, amateurs. Another thing to mention I think companies are registered after renting the software and that most indies do not rent it so they aren't in the stats.
I think the real statistic for the user base is the trending, the number of searches on Google, this is more accurate because proportionnal to the user base: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&q=/m/01tgyn,/m/0svhm,/m/0l1qq
On each 3ds max release arround april the interest stagne followed by an huge drop represented by a massive switch to Blender by disapointed users about the update.
Things evolve quickly, 3ds max is in an huge decline: in 2004 3ds max was 5 times more searched than Blender , 11 years later in 2015 Blender got more searches than 3ds max for the first time, in 2019 it's expected to have equal trending of Blender than 3ds max and Maya combined. I think that will happen in 2019 with the release of the 2.8 expected in late 2018.
But we have to remember than even if the user base of Blender could in two years be equal to 3ds max and Maya combined it includes a lot of hobbist and amateurs and some using it for tiny tasks like video editing by Linux users or a programmer wanting to do the icons of his GUI (Ubuntu's icons are made in Blender). And Blender is popular for 3D printing, a domain that gets more and more users.
And I'm more inclined to say your methodology is utterly flawed. Sure, Google trends is a good measure of *interest* on a certain subject, but can't possibly reflect people actually using software A or B. I've searched for Blender several times, but hardly use it at all. @gandhics here downloaded and installed it to compare it to Max and found it failed on his test. Can a search trend account for those who don't download? Or for those who download but don't use? Remember Blender is free, and I can assure you that many people download it just because it is free, while the people who pay for Max or Maya don't generally pay to have it sitting on a folder on their computers - they most likely use them, a lot.
So while this is a good indicator of interest, this is a poor measure of actual use. I don't doubt Blender is used a LOT. But it's a hard beast to measure and properly compare to other packages. So I'm not comparing Blender on my comments, just Max and Maya if you cared to read all of them.
About the trending if they were all just downloading it without using it the curve would have much more spikes especially on new versions released but instead it shows a smooth curve and a long therm trending meaning that the majority of the interested are using it regularly, watch tutorials, follow the news, go on forums, etc we only see a spike for the end of the year for all 3 software and a permanent drop after the release of a new version of 3ds max at each summer.
About 3ds max and Maya it shows that 3ds max was 250 % more searched than Maya in 2004 and now it's just 50 % more, that's still a lot but that's 1.5 times not 3-5 times. If we follow the trend the software will soon get bellow Maya in interest but this will happen slowly since the majority leaving 3ds max switches to Blender.
And you confused it even more, saying Max was searched 1.5 times more than Maya and that's way less than the 3 to 5 times (that I mentioned earlier). I was referring to actual real world companies using Max rather than Maya, not Google searches. Also, are you even aware that a LOT of searches and interested today are on social media (aka Facebook) which completely blocks Google from prying into them? Which also means your base of comparison might just be utterly incomplete and out of touch with the reality? The decline might be largely compensated by migration of users to social media channels to consume tutorials, detach for help, and keep up to date with their software?
This gigantic user base is completely away from Google's reach.
So, I'd much rather rely on research and statistics of companies who need to make a living out of it. If they output the wrong numbers, they're done and out of business.
Same here. Autodesk Maya team came by to our studio to give a talk on the new features in maya 2018 and future development.