For the topic of Maya, Max and Blender, does it matter when it comes to portfolio nowadays? I mean specifically for modeler positions. I know that in archviz it seems Max is still widely preferred, but when it comes to games it seems not to really matter considering how many jobs list "Maya or equivalent" or "Must know Blender, Maya or Max".
I'm guessing this is because Blender has become a more feature rich and stable tool, along with being free. So my question is...if this is the case then what use is there in using Maya or Max to build a portfolio out of for someone looking to get into the industry over Blender? I'm just not seeing any real advantage here not for modeling atleast.
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If you know how to do that in Maya you should be good for the majority productions.
In the majority of production (from my point of view) this is Maya these days. Max used to be the main thing a while ago but i think about 10 years ago almost all bigger productions shifted away.
Now that being said, if you know 3dsmax you might be in a worse position than someone knowing Blender. Not because of skill, just because a Maya based pipeline studio might not want to pay for maya AND max at the same time. As a blender user you might be able to just slip in, with luck your blender experience is something that could be beneficial for the maya modellers inhouse.
Max seems to ve a dying breed, and I say that as a native and active max user.
I also wonder if studios are basing some of their choices off what they see people using instead of just looking at it from the standpoint of what software they prefer in their pipelines?
Right as Blender got 2.8x and up released, I've noticed Max has not gotten much attention anymore as people started shifting largely towards Maya and Blender when it comes to modeling stuff like characters and environments. I mean if you go to Youtube right now and look up tutorials for game modeling, everything you get is either for Blender or Maya. Only a few results come up for Max and most were years old. Its things like that which make me question how studios are looking at things when viewing someone's portfolio.
Max is basically a dead end despite being objectively superior to both as a modelling tool (fight me ) - it's unpleasant to build tools for, the animation toolset has barely progressed in 20 years and they resolutely refuse to drop the price.
Blender is difficult to manage for larger organisations - open source software is a legal minefield and handling all the addons and crap you need to make it actually useful is a huge pain in the arse if you're working at scale.
For smaller studios that don't have a 20 year old pipeline it would be mad to not adopt it IMO - it's not awful to develop for and most of the legal issues don't come into play
If I was starting out now I'd work with Blender and try to get at least some Maya experience.
fwiw, I never paid a lot of attention to the software people used when I was hiring artists - you can teach tools, you can't teach talent
I have seen many indie and AA studios specifying blender in their job posts.
This is likely a combination of the versatility of blender and no cost to use it commercially.
Depending on the pipeline though you'll be limited to what software is used so it's good to have atleast one industry standard down before adding any additional tools to your skill set.
I personaly use MAX as a modeler, ultimately comfortable in it for every task I even prefer to hard-surface in Max to anything else...
For a job, i'd wager it plays a bigger role. I say this as someone who is looking to land my first job, sent 50+ applications already.
I see ''software proficiency in : Maya '' Like you said also a mix of knowing Blender/Maya/3DSMAX will do just fine in other job applications being posted, it's very dependant.
It begs the questions:
1. The pipeline requires ''x'' software to be used and they won't allow you to use anything else in studio, so you are forced to switch, you can't be a stubborn outsider or your kicked...
2. Say they have two candidates that are equally skilled, are they going to pick the latter in which they need to train, or at least give them time to pick up the new software to learn and catch up, OR pick the former that already knows the software from the get go? Easy choice if I was a recruiter.
3. Its a very ''case by case'' dependent question. Some studios like you say, any software goes, other's want you to use 3DS/Maya for pipeline reasons.
I kinda ''regret'' picking up blender instead of Maya because the UI to me and the Anti alising with the jaggered edges when I first booted up Maya was laughable and outdated in my mind, and the Blender hype didn't help either. Now I regret it 3 years onwards looking for a job and not having a student license, so I need other means to you know what until I can land a job and go legit... Going back I would of picked up Maya first hands down, NOW I'm spending a lot of hours catching up in Maya to what my current skill is at in Blender solely to increase my chances of landing a job, even if it's plays 1% of landing it. I'm doing it..
Get Maya Indie. Its $300 a year (far more affordable than the other options) and shouldn't be too hard to set aside that much money for it if your not financially pressed. That eliminates potential problems with trying to get your hands on the program through 'other means'.
About learning Maya, I get where your coming from but I don't think your method is an effective way of learning it as your trying to essentially replace Blender with Maya by learning to redo everything in it. There's no point spending hours trying to do stuff in Maya that you could do in minutes in Blender. Instead of doing that, learn Maya for specific uses as it relates to your needs in order to take advantage of their strengths. That's a faster way of doing it and I think more effective.
maybe people don't know how to use max ?
Your decision making capacity is a matter of experience and once you have that experience you can become competent enough quite quickly in basically any tool.
It's a lot of work to maintain
Kind of a side thing, but I have Photoshop CS5 and I've long said that Adobe can pry it out of my cold-dead hands. Well with them shutting down the authentication servers I have lost one of the 2 installs I could possibly use of CS5 with no way to free it. Turns out you now have to deactivate old CS5 and CS6 programs before you wipe your computer or uninstall it, something I never had to do before. So I guess a heads up to anyone else who have old versions of Adobe software, you'll need to do the same.