rooster: You can use the bridge tool to do it, although it creates double edges on the adjacent faces, just use the merge tool on them and it should be fine.
I think in previous Maya versions you could set a default settings in the optionbox for every tool, that it would use every time you executed it. But for some reason, unknown to me, they seem to have removed it in verisons 8.0 +
The big difference, across the board is consistency. Alais desigend a consistent experience, and autodesk (tho very good, and powerful, and all that other thumbs up stuff!) is less consistent.
IMO the 3dstudio max interfcae is just fine. It's a lil 'thrown together' but the interface still shows attentions to details like interaction design. the fact that the interface is not my style is irrelevent. the important thing is that I recognize that it's a good experience.
Maya, in my opinion has a consistent workflow across all the different strains of 3D design. When i tried nCloth for the first time 2 weeks ago I picked it up in 10 seconds. it's not cuz I'm particularly bright, i'm actually kind of slow on the uptake. Alais' ineraction designers just do a great job of consistent interaction design.
Even the script editor has the marking menus. It's like the difference between windows and Macs'. Widnows will always appeal to a certain croud, but macs promise easy integreation for any newbie 3D artist.
Dislaimer: I'm a fuckin' huge max fan. Huge. I'm also huge Maya fan. I use Maya everyday, but i am looking fwd to teh day I get to return to my true love.
I have to ask the Max people, in Max is there anything like Maya's Expression editor, and is there the ability to add your own custom attributes to any objects in the scene. Also is there any equivalent of the Maya shading utility nodes in Max as well?
I ask this simply because I'm interested to see how different my workflow would have to be for creating a rig I'm working on right now (it has no bones or skinning, its simply clever usage of Groups, constraints, expressions, and set driven keys).
[ QUOTE ]
ivars: my settings still stick in maya 2008, i dunno why it doesnt work for you and some others?
-R
[/ QUOTE ]
They stick alright, it's just that they've removed the main part of the attributes from the optionbox menu. Previously it had (almost) all the attributes that could be found in the node, now it's just a handfull....
3dsMax has Parameter Wiring that lets you write expressions and link any parameter to another, in any object. This tutorial gives you a look at the interface.
I would only use this if you have a really advanced expression you need to use otherwise use Reaction Manager which works more like Driven Keys if I understand Driven Keys properly.
I use Reaction Manager to rig up a control board that drives a mix of bone parameters, LookAt constraints & Morph Targets (blend shapes?) for facial animation.
Illusions, yes you can add custom attributes to any objects.
PaK: Maya? Consistency? Is that why you can drag a vertical divider to resize a viewport, but have to click a tiny little << arrow at the bottom of the channel box or attribute editor to make the column 5px wider? Archaic and inflexible, not consistent.
Pior also had a great JPG a while back of screenshots of Maya menus where some say "Save" (which also closes the window) others have "Save and Close" and "Apply", some have "Cancel" and some have "Close"...
You can right-click on some items but not others, middle-click drag works for some things but not others (these are all things which would make sense to have right-click or middle-drag on)... generally it's not really consistent at all, at least in terms of UI.
I'll have to agree with MoP. I found nCloth to be surprisingly user friendly, when I was expecting the usual mess
That said, I never quite liked the scrolling right hand menus with random button placements that you find in max
Mop, I guess my experience has been different. I see a consitency that you don't. You may assume that I am making this up, but I'm not.
The marking menus are 'rather' consistent, you should try them out mop, you will like the workflow I think
The scripting experience in Maya is great. Almost everything is driven through MEL. Maya was built on MEL. Maxscriptb was implimented afterwards. The few times I have been gated by MEL had to do with speed of an inturperated language, not the flexibility of the the commnands availiable to me.
IMO, we should all go the Bungie way, and open the DCC options up and make portable tools, so the users can choose how they want to work
In Max, is there an equivalent of maya's "Make Live"?
Something I was missing when working with it (that was a while ago) but couldn't live without today :P
[ QUOTE ]
is there any equivalent of the Maya shading utility nodes in Max as well?
[/ QUOTE ]
Two options. NodeJoe isn't free, but it is still being developed, which is a good thing. Then there's the free SME , which is certainly usable, but development has been halted.
EricChadwick: If you're on Max 2008, you won't need that, since the editor in 2008 is really nice. A huge overhaul.
Anyone still on older versions might find it a bit nicer to work with outside apps (for multiple undos mainly), I write most of my scripts straight into Max8's script editor though.
With Maya I've been using Notepad++, although I haven't found a good syntax highlighting preset for MEL yet. The "TCL" default seems to work pretty well for getting things though.
You should read these errors . It probably told you to select a Curve-Point or Edit-Point instead of a CV. So change to either of those Selection Modes and and select the Area you want. Then use "Insert Knot" again.
rebb, i selected any type of thing I could try and used the tool.. I'll have another go though
edit: oooh i see how curve point works. you're not actually selecting a thing youre choosing a place on the curve to then perform an operation.. I was drag selecting the whole thing saying' there are no damn curve points to select'
i think both a great tools, but whats driving me nuts is that the selection hotkeys can't be customized. little example: in maya you use shift for selecting multiple objects in max it's the alt key. or is there a way/workaround i don't know?
Which are you trying to customize? In 3dsMax you go "Customize > Customize User Interface > Keyboard Tab". I'm not sure how it goes in Maya but I would be shocked if you can't.
i'm talking about the object selection. for example if you want to select two cubes in your scenes. you click on the first, then hold "alt" and click on the second cube. viola both are selected. that's something you do with the "shift" key in maya.
i haven't found a way to customize this and make it similar in both program...
I doubt you can change those in either program. That's stuff which has been hard-coded in for like 10 years, as far as I'm aware. Same goes for trying to assign different functions to the scroll wheel or right/left click, and heaven forbid trying to make use of more than 3 mouse buttons!
I doubt you can change those in either program. That's stuff which has been hard-coded in for like 10 years, as far as I'm aware. Same goes for trying to assign different functions to the scroll wheel or right/left click, and heaven forbid trying to make use of more than 3 mouse buttons!
an that's why i sometimes think, if some programmers/developers of software ever use their own software...they implement unbelievable cool and complicated stuff, but some straight forward things, which make the workflow 10times better and save valuable time stays untouched. with the autodesk/alias deal there shouldn't be an excuse anymore.
In Maya, most of the stuff is tools or commands, you find them divided in to different menus depending on what you are trying to do, modeling, animation, rigging (and so on)
There's a drop down list at your top left, that switches the menu sets.
Fuse: First off, you will probably have to select the "Modeling" drop-down on the top left next to the shelf, so that the menus will be set up for modeling.
Loft is still called Loft, as far as I can recall. It works on Curves (basically another name for splines), so you can make a spline circle and a spline path then Loft those.
I think Shell is called Thicken, but I might be wrong since I don't have Maya here. Either way, it doesn't have the same "spline as bevel outline" features that makes Max's Shell modifier so awesome, but it's fine for giving an open object some thickness.
FFDs are called Lattices, you'll find them under the Deformation tab of the modeling shelf.
yep, dont forget since all these useful bits are scattered everywhere, you can make your own arrangement of menus along the top/in the hotbox with the ones you want most
there are a few goodies in animation>create deformers
Wow i just found some of these tools .. they are definitely scattered all over the place ... i didnt find thicken (shell) but i guess bevel polygon in editmesh menu can do the trick ..
Some solid discussion here! I use maya for games at my studio and 3D MAX for personal freelance architecture rendering jobs. I really enjoy using 3D MAX at home on my personal projects I don't do much animation/rigging tho by the way.
From my personal experience, 3DS MAX is easier to bring a project all the way from 0 to high quality rendering: Right off the box! Its built-in tool sets allow for very quick workflow. Even the built-in scanline renderer imo is already much better than maya's software render. Add a few plug-ins like Vray and Treestorm and viola, I can pump out lots of perspective renders with minimal effort. Even up to 10 renders a night and my clients always love them.
The animation I do in MAX are very limited tho, just some animated trees (which treestorm takes care of it) some simple camera fly-through and some water which is just an animated noise added to displacement.
I've tried doing realistic scenes in Maya too. But I must admit it's a lot harder to bring a project all the way through in Maya compare to MAX, it just feels harder. Little things add up, like mentalray, mentalray is not very intuitive imo compare to max's Vray. With Vray, it was so intuitive, almost 0 learning curve when I purchased it 4-5 years ago. And it covers everything from materials, ights and cameras. renderman? Hmm quite out of the question for simple home user like me who knows minimal programming
Maya does allow for a lot of flexibility when it comes to scripting and customizing, that I agree. But what that means is that, if you're working at home, it's very unlikely you'll get to use all the neat toys that professional studios developed. Unless you're a technical oriented artist and able to script, there are so many things you'll miss out in Maya. In a studio with dedicated TD's its a whole different story.
Wow i just found some of these tools .. they are definitely scattered all over the place ... i didnt find thicken (shell) but i guess bevel polygon in editmesh menu can do the trick ..
If you haven't already, I would suggest making your own custom toolbar for different jobs (UV mapping, polygon modeling, animation) made up of tools you use frequently. There's Shift + Ctrl + Left Click for adding things from drop down menus, or you can drag and drop code from the script editor into the toolbar as well...
I dont suppose there is an actual equivalent "Edit Poly" modifier that i can place at the bottom of my "history" stack so i can quick go back and forth when modelling .. You kind of have to model ON the model really ..
It would also appear that i cant toggle the history on and off on per modifier basis ... i cant even seem to delete separate piece of the history..
That's the trick - Maya needs a simplier way to toggle stuff on and off. I've been told the same thing about the hypergraph, but as soon as the TD and I started to mess with it to plug-unplug things on the fly (talking about modelling here, no rig setup or anything) it just didn't work. Maya simply needs a little eye icon in the history pile, and simple merge and copy-paste functions for this pile. Is there a script doing that somewhere?
Technically you can enable/disable a node via the "Node Behaviour" Tab in the Attribute Editor, by setting it to "HasNoEffect". But i think some Nodes work better with that than others, and i still haven't read up on what exactly all the other Options in that Dropdown actually do .
The hypergraph route will work.. you just have to be careful with it as some things can really screw up your mesh, but others are ok to delete. Plus the node links on a complex model often look like spaghetti. I've used this approach to get rid of a smooth operation that got stuck on a model due to a save or a crash or whatnot before.
I've been thinking of experimenting with a script to be able to plug and unplug different interdependent nodes to a model. Basically seeing if I can give maya mudbox-like functionality right within its own confines. (I'm pretty sure I can.. same concept as a rigging script I was working on)
I'll check into that after I finish this rig I'm working on in Max.
Reminds me. I'm actually starting to like max. Now that I've gotten around the default hotkeys and interface a bit. It seems that was the biggest problem to its accessibility to me. Plus MaxScript looks really really powerful, if a bit more complicated than MEL.
Hello. Much like the original poster, I'm trying to decide between learning Max and Maya.
I'm reviving this thread to ask a few questions on the topic:
So, Max and Maya are now "under the same roof" at Autodesk. Is it likely for features of the two programs to eventually be fused together into one program or are they so different from one another that this is not desirable/feasable?
While both programs are obviously sufficient at both tasks, I've been given the impression that Maya is prefered for animation and Max for modeling. I'm sure its arguable, but does this hold any weight?
I'm looking for an equal introduction to both modeling and animation to decide which (if either) should be my focus. Given that, would you recommend either program over the other?
I hear Max is easier to learn, commonly used as incentive for beginners to start with Max. Being considered more difficult to work with, is Maya the equivalent of taking the high road for a rewarding end result? As an example, I've noticed the high-profile Gnomon school in California teaches Maya pretty much exclusively. Should I see this as any indication?
Lets say I eventually intend on learning both Max and Maya. Which (if any) would make a better foundation by making it easier to adapt to its counterpart?
It's according to what you want to go into... again
I have a BFA in Computer Animation and was hoping to go into the game industry myself but have found the lionshare of game jobs want max, not maya. So, it depends on what you want to do, i'm teaching myself max now so we'll see.
Learning one or the other won't make much difference. It's all just button pushing, a means to an end. If you learn Max now you may end up having to learn Maya later, and the same applies the other way round.
Generally yes, it's true that Max is better than Maya for modelling (and viewport speed/stability), but Maya is more "open" and great for animation.
Of course that is not to say that Max is bad for animation or Maya is "bad" for modelling. Both apps have been used to produce fantastic models and animations. In the end it's just a tool.
In my personal opinion, Max is much less frustrating, and more forgiving to learn. Maya is very complex and deep, and to model in Maya with the ease and freedom that Max offers requires either a ton of custom scripting or an commercial plugin. Additionally, there are a few neat modelling features in Max that you simply CANNOT recreate in Maya.
Hi everyone, I just joined the site as well. I started with 3DS Max R2 but went on to Maya since 2.5. Strictly speaking from an artist viewpoint Maya has the upper hand over Max when it comes to interface usability. Max definately has the advantage in rendering, lighting, maybe even modeling (Maya has NURBS though). I tried Max2009 for a bit and couldn't get around it. Compared to Maya it feels sluggish, awkward and convoluted.
strange to me the Maya interface always felt like a big clumsy windows 3.0 application. When I see some of the option panels or tabs it almost hurts seeing how much space usually is wasted.
panels like this:
or even worse like this: http://www.raptorous.net/images/projects/ClothSimInterface.jpg
aren´t fun for me to work with
Hi everyone, I just joined the site as well. I started with 3DS Max R2 but went on to Maya since 2.5. Strictly speaking from an artist viewpoint Maya has the upper hand over Max when it comes to interface usability. Max definately has the advantage in rendering, lighting, maybe even modeling (Maya has NURBS though). I tried Max2009 for a bit and couldn't get around it. Compared to Maya it feels sluggish, awkward and convoluted.
May I please quickly refer you to the 2 little buttons ( << and >> ) at the bottom of the Channel Box/Layer Editor when it's docked on the right hand side.
Worst idea ever. Seriously horrible.
Pior put together an awesome JPG of the Maya UI inconsistency recently, too. Some panels have a "Save" button (which also closes the panel), some have a "Save & Close" button as well as an "Apply" button (which doesn't close the panel), some have just "Apply" (which also closes the panel), some have "Cancel", some have "Close" ... it's just generally hugely inconsistent.
It doesn't help that the Hotkey editor lists the commands by their "code" name rather than the "pretty" name displayed in the menus. So something that's called "Edit Vertex Colors" in the menu might be called "polyDoVertexOpenMenu" or something equally convoluted, making it quite hard to find corresponding commands.
Additionally, you can't right-click on Shelf icons to rename them or change their image/code, you have to go through the Shelf Editor each time, then find the one you want in a list, then go to a different tab. Max allows you to right-click on any UI element and go straight into its own customisation options. Right-clicking on a Maya shelf icon does... nothing. It's clear that it COULD do something, since right-click isn't used for anything else there, but it just doesn't.
Same applies to Layers - if you want to rename a Layer, you can't do it in the standard Windows fashion (ie. slow double click), you have to double-click the layer, which pops open a new window, where you type in the layer name and then HAVE to click "OK" ... you can't just type it and hit Enter, that would be far too easy and sensible!
Stuff like that is just generally slow, clunky, non-standard and not streamlined at all. At least the majority of the ways Max lets you interact with the UI are Windows standard methods, and the fastest route to the outcome (ie. just click twice on a Layer to rename it and hit Enter to accept).
The more I use Maya, the more I find it to take the "long way round" on most issues of UI interaction. I still haven't found a sensible editor for the context-right-click menus (ie. Shift-rightclick for the Modelling menu - how do I add/remove commands from that?). In Max it's a really straightforward Quad Menu customisation set up, you just drag and drop the tools and commands you want into the context-sensitive quad menu. In Maya, it seems like it's buried inside tons of weird sub-menus and strange codey-looking panels.
Oh yeah, and the Script Editor can only have one script open at a time, and no syntax-highlighting at all. Really rubbish. Max's script editor has tabs for multiple documents, full syntax highlighting, and a bunch of other useful functions.
It's not all bad though, clearly there are some things that Maya does right which Max does not (like telling you the hotkey next to each command in the menus). But yeah, if you think the Max UI is inconsistent and slow, you should probably stop and take a look at what you've been used to for the past ... 5 years?
Just because you're used to it, doesn't mean it's good, streamlined or fast. It just means you've learned where to click over the years
well this is what I meant,-
that previous shortcut manger interface could be shrinked to this or even less:
and such things are nearly everywhere in the application ,- its so wasting and unproductive for me
Replies
Try this command: polyChipOff -ch 1 -kft 1 -dup 1 -ltz 0.1
Where the value at the end is the offset in units.
cheers bud
polyChipOff -ch 1 -kft 1 -dup 1 -off 0 -ltz 0.5;
polyPerformAction ("polySeparate -rs 1", "o", 0);
Just copy pasted from the script editor.
I think in previous Maya versions you could set a default settings in the optionbox for every tool, that it would use every time you executed it. But for some reason, unknown to me, they seem to have removed it in verisons 8.0 +
-R
IMO the 3dstudio max interfcae is just fine. It's a lil 'thrown together' but the interface still shows attentions to details like interaction design. the fact that the interface is not my style is irrelevent. the important thing is that I recognize that it's a good experience.
Maya, in my opinion has a consistent workflow across all the different strains of 3D design. When i tried nCloth for the first time 2 weeks ago I picked it up in 10 seconds. it's not cuz I'm particularly bright, i'm actually kind of slow on the uptake. Alais' ineraction designers just do a great job of consistent interaction design.
Even the script editor has the marking menus. It's like the difference between windows and Macs'. Widnows will always appeal to a certain croud, but macs promise easy integreation for any newbie 3D artist.
Dislaimer: I'm a fuckin' huge max fan. Huge. I'm also huge Maya fan. I use Maya everyday, but i am looking fwd to teh day I get to return to my true love.
I ask this simply because I'm interested to see how different my workflow would have to be for creating a rig I'm working on right now (it has no bones or skinning, its simply clever usage of Groups, constraints, expressions, and set driven keys).
ivars: my settings still stick in maya 2008, i dunno why it doesnt work for you and some others?
-R
[/ QUOTE ]
They stick alright, it's just that they've removed the main part of the attributes from the optionbox menu. Previously it had (almost) all the attributes that could be found in the node, now it's just a handfull....
This tutorial gives you a look at the interface.
I would only use this if you have a really advanced expression you need to use otherwise use Reaction Manager which works more like Driven Keys if I understand Driven Keys properly.
I use Reaction Manager to rig up a control board that drives a mix of bone parameters, LookAt constraints & Morph Targets (blend shapes?) for facial animation.
PaK: Maya? Consistency? Is that why you can drag a vertical divider to resize a viewport, but have to click a tiny little << arrow at the bottom of the channel box or attribute editor to make the column 5px wider? Archaic and inflexible, not consistent.
Pior also had a great JPG a while back of screenshots of Maya menus where some say "Save" (which also closes the window) others have "Save and Close" and "Apply", some have "Cancel" and some have "Close"...
You can right-click on some items but not others, middle-click drag works for some things but not others (these are all things which would make sense to have right-click or middle-drag on)... generally it's not really consistent at all, at least in terms of UI.
That said, I never quite liked the scrolling right hand menus with random button placements that you find in max
The marking menus are 'rather' consistent, you should try them out mop, you will like the workflow I think
The scripting experience in Maya is great. Almost everything is driven through MEL. Maya was built on MEL. Maxscriptb was implimented afterwards. The few times I have been gated by MEL had to do with speed of an inturperated language, not the flexibility of the the commnands availiable to me.
IMO, we should all go the Bungie way, and open the DCC options up and make portable tools, so the users can choose how they want to work
-R
Something I was missing when working with it (that was a while ago) but couldn't live without today :P
is there any equivalent of the Maya shading utility nodes in Max as well?
[/ QUOTE ]
Two options. NodeJoe isn't free, but it is still being developed, which is a good thing. Then there's the free SME , which is certainly usable, but development has been halted.
Someone mentioned editors for MAXScript. Came across this again today, might be interesting to some, dunno.
Setting up Ultra Edit as your Maxscript Editor
Anyone still on older versions might find it a bit nicer to work with outside apps (for multiple undos mainly), I write most of my scripts straight into Max8's script editor though.
With Maya I've been using Notepad++, although I haven't found a good syntax highlighting preset for MEL yet. The "TCL" default seems to work pretty well for getting things though.
.
MoP. check out EditPlus : http://www.editplus.com/others.html ( run a find for mel on that page )
edit: oooh i see how curve point works. you're not actually selecting a thing youre choosing a place on the curve to then perform an operation.. I was drag selecting the whole thing saying' there are no damn curve points to select'
i haven't found a way to customize this and make it similar in both program...
an that's why i sometimes think, if some programmers/developers of software ever use their own software...they implement unbelievable cool and complicated stuff, but some straight forward things, which make the workflow 10times better and save valuable time stays untouched. with the autodesk/alias deal there shouldn't be an excuse anymore.
Things like Shell, FFD, Loft etc etc ... It doesnt seem to have a modifier pallete in the same way that max does... Thanks guys
There's a drop down list at your top left, that switches the menu sets.
Loft is still called Loft, as far as I can recall. It works on Curves (basically another name for splines), so you can make a spline circle and a spline path then Loft those.
I think Shell is called Thicken, but I might be wrong since I don't have Maya here. Either way, it doesn't have the same "spline as bevel outline" features that makes Max's Shell modifier so awesome, but it's fine for giving an open object some thickness.
FFDs are called Lattices, you'll find them under the Deformation tab of the modeling shelf.
there are a few goodies in animation>create deformers
From my personal experience, 3DS MAX is easier to bring a project all the way from 0 to high quality rendering: Right off the box! Its built-in tool sets allow for very quick workflow. Even the built-in scanline renderer imo is already much better than maya's software render. Add a few plug-ins like Vray and Treestorm and viola, I can pump out lots of perspective renders with minimal effort. Even up to 10 renders a night and my clients always love them.
The animation I do in MAX are very limited tho, just some animated trees (which treestorm takes care of it) some simple camera fly-through and some water which is just an animated noise added to displacement.
I've tried doing realistic scenes in Maya too. But I must admit it's a lot harder to bring a project all the way through in Maya compare to MAX, it just feels harder. Little things add up, like mentalray, mentalray is not very intuitive imo compare to max's Vray. With Vray, it was so intuitive, almost 0 learning curve when I purchased it 4-5 years ago. And it covers everything from materials, ights and cameras. renderman? Hmm quite out of the question for simple home user like me who knows minimal programming
Maya does allow for a lot of flexibility when it comes to scripting and customizing, that I agree. But what that means is that, if you're working at home, it's very unlikely you'll get to use all the neat toys that professional studios developed. Unless you're a technical oriented artist and able to script, there are so many things you'll miss out in Maya. In a studio with dedicated TD's its a whole different story.
If you haven't already, I would suggest making your own custom toolbar for different jobs (UV mapping, polygon modeling, animation) made up of tools you use frequently. There's Shift + Ctrl + Left Click for adding things from drop down menus, or you can drag and drop code from the script editor into the toolbar as well...
It would also appear that i cant toggle the history on and off on per modifier basis ... i cant even seem to delete separate piece of the history..
I've been thinking of experimenting with a script to be able to plug and unplug different interdependent nodes to a model. Basically seeing if I can give maya mudbox-like functionality right within its own confines. (I'm pretty sure I can.. same concept as a rigging script I was working on)
I'll check into that after I finish this rig I'm working on in Max.
Reminds me. I'm actually starting to like max. Now that I've gotten around the default hotkeys and interface a bit. It seems that was the biggest problem to its accessibility to me. Plus MaxScript looks really really powerful, if a bit more complicated than MEL.
delete nameOfNode;
then press enter, and its deleted. Of course this could completey screw over your mesh if you're not careful.
I'm reviving this thread to ask a few questions on the topic:
So, Max and Maya are now "under the same roof" at Autodesk. Is it likely for features of the two programs to eventually be fused together into one program or are they so different from one another that this is not desirable/feasable?
While both programs are obviously sufficient at both tasks, I've been given the impression that Maya is prefered for animation and Max for modeling. I'm sure its arguable, but does this hold any weight?
I'm looking for an equal introduction to both modeling and animation to decide which (if either) should be my focus. Given that, would you recommend either program over the other?
I hear Max is easier to learn, commonly used as incentive for beginners to start with Max. Being considered more difficult to work with, is Maya the equivalent of taking the high road for a rewarding end result? As an example, I've noticed the high-profile Gnomon school in California teaches Maya pretty much exclusively. Should I see this as any indication?
Lets say I eventually intend on learning both Max and Maya. Which (if any) would make a better foundation by making it easier to adapt to its counterpart?
Thanks!
I have a BFA in Computer Animation and was hoping to go into the game industry myself but have found the lionshare of game jobs want max, not maya. So, it depends on what you want to do, i'm teaching myself max now so we'll see.
Generally yes, it's true that Max is better than Maya for modelling (and viewport speed/stability), but Maya is more "open" and great for animation.
Of course that is not to say that Max is bad for animation or Maya is "bad" for modelling. Both apps have been used to produce fantastic models and animations. In the end it's just a tool.
In my personal opinion, Max is much less frustrating, and more forgiving to learn. Maya is very complex and deep, and to model in Maya with the ease and freedom that Max offers requires either a ton of custom scripting or an commercial plugin. Additionally, there are a few neat modelling features in Max that you simply CANNOT recreate in Maya.
panels like this:
or even worse like this:
http://www.raptorous.net/images/projects/ClothSimInterface.jpg
aren´t fun for me to work with
May I please quickly refer you to the 2 little buttons ( << and >> ) at the bottom of the Channel Box/Layer Editor when it's docked on the right hand side.
Worst idea ever. Seriously horrible.
Pior put together an awesome JPG of the Maya UI inconsistency recently, too. Some panels have a "Save" button (which also closes the panel), some have a "Save & Close" button as well as an "Apply" button (which doesn't close the panel), some have just "Apply" (which also closes the panel), some have "Cancel", some have "Close" ... it's just generally hugely inconsistent.
It doesn't help that the Hotkey editor lists the commands by their "code" name rather than the "pretty" name displayed in the menus. So something that's called "Edit Vertex Colors" in the menu might be called "polyDoVertexOpenMenu" or something equally convoluted, making it quite hard to find corresponding commands.
Additionally, you can't right-click on Shelf icons to rename them or change their image/code, you have to go through the Shelf Editor each time, then find the one you want in a list, then go to a different tab. Max allows you to right-click on any UI element and go straight into its own customisation options. Right-clicking on a Maya shelf icon does... nothing. It's clear that it COULD do something, since right-click isn't used for anything else there, but it just doesn't.
Same applies to Layers - if you want to rename a Layer, you can't do it in the standard Windows fashion (ie. slow double click), you have to double-click the layer, which pops open a new window, where you type in the layer name and then HAVE to click "OK" ... you can't just type it and hit Enter, that would be far too easy and sensible!
Stuff like that is just generally slow, clunky, non-standard and not streamlined at all. At least the majority of the ways Max lets you interact with the UI are Windows standard methods, and the fastest route to the outcome (ie. just click twice on a Layer to rename it and hit Enter to accept).
The more I use Maya, the more I find it to take the "long way round" on most issues of UI interaction. I still haven't found a sensible editor for the context-right-click menus (ie. Shift-rightclick for the Modelling menu - how do I add/remove commands from that?). In Max it's a really straightforward Quad Menu customisation set up, you just drag and drop the tools and commands you want into the context-sensitive quad menu. In Maya, it seems like it's buried inside tons of weird sub-menus and strange codey-looking panels.
Oh yeah, and the Script Editor can only have one script open at a time, and no syntax-highlighting at all. Really rubbish. Max's script editor has tabs for multiple documents, full syntax highlighting, and a bunch of other useful functions.
It's not all bad though, clearly there are some things that Maya does right which Max does not (like telling you the hotkey next to each command in the menus). But yeah, if you think the Max UI is inconsistent and slow, you should probably stop and take a look at what you've been used to for the past ... 5 years?
Just because you're used to it, doesn't mean it's good, streamlined or fast. It just means you've learned where to click over the years
that previous shortcut manger interface could be shrinked to this or even less:
and such things are nearly everywhere in the application ,- its so wasting and unproductive for me