Who do most of the features that you people prefer maya over are max in are already in max?
What ever Surface Control that Bokaja is talking about, I have seen max to be better at inorganic modeling over maya after seeing the kind of things people do with it. Racer is a good example of that.
But honestly in my opinion:
Maya=rigging and animation
Max=modeling and rendering
I read this thread, and found the answer in another...
Does that switcher Vig talks about in another thread, work or no? I would love my space bar view port change. and the ctrl addition click is just rebellious. EVERYTHING is shift click for addition! :P
modelling in Max, with a handful of scripts I 'grew up' with.
If you know both well, there is just no comparison. However it really depends on your understanding of max.
If you do know basic modeling in those apps, then they are all somehow equal.
IF you like nonlinear/nondestructive workflows, elegant Modifier Stack use and more generally if you use/need a lot of operations that really need a realtime preview, max is waaaaay ahead of all others.
However for polygon/edge/vertex level operations, they are basically the same now. Maya is less of a brainfuck now because they recently started adding clever manipulator controls, soft selection and so on. Basically catching up on basic raw modelling features from other apps 5 years later.
For complex operations it honestly still is a nightmare (lattice, deformers, and so on).
In a bizzare turn of events just 4 posts ago I said I hadnt used maya for a while.. now im learning it in earnest out of necessity ( Maya 8.5 ) and I have to say... max has pampered me right out of the box for its modelling and UVW tools.... BUilding up a basic 2500 tri male base mesh in maya has taken me maybe 6 - 8 solid hours from scratch ( given that its my first opening in maybe 7 - 8 years, its probably taken quadruple the time it would take to make something similar in max) I'll post more thoughts as I go along, but so far, modelling is a fair bit slower for me.
I box model a lot! Through tools like extrude, bevel, everything that stack modifier list goes against. I feel. I can show you my Maya custom shelf and it may give you a better idea of what tools I use the most? lol
Unwrapping in Max is really throwing me for a loop...
I've always been jealous of Maya's...swiftloop tool...don't know if it's the same name as in max...but thanks to those graphite modeling tools I have it now!
...I was going to try to learn Maya just for that stupid tool...seemed so much easier than...ring->connect-> than that little window to adjust the "slide"...man...the swiftloop tool added to a shortcut has reduced my highpoly modeling time like crazy!
I have yet to understand the stack modifier. It is kind of wonky to me.
Is the vertex snapping in Max 2010 worth anything? Vig, in another thread said it was a pain in the ass to even use. I am looking under Tools<Grids and Snaps and see nothing? I even went under the settings and checked vertex and unchecked everything else. Nothing.
I have yet to understand the stack modifier. It is kind of wonky to me.
Is the vertex snapping in Max 2010 worth anything? Vig, in another thread said it was a pain in the ass to even use. I am looking under Tools<Grids and Snaps and see nothing? I even went under the settings and checked vertex and unchecked everything else. Nothing.
are you trying to use snaps?
If so press "S" or check on the toolbar...it's an icon with a 3 and a magnet.
You can right-click it to change it to whatever you want it to snap to.
Edit: I have nothing to compare it too, so for the most part I'm ok with it...although sometimes I just can't for the fucking life of me get it to snap to anything.
In a bizzare turn of events just 4 posts ago I said I hadnt used maya for a while.. now im learning it in earnest out of necessity ( Maya 8.5 ) and I have to say... max has pampered me right out of the box for its modelling and UVW tools.... BUilding up a basic 2500 tri male base mesh in maya has taken me maybe 6 - 8 solid hours from scratch ( given that its my first opening in maybe 7 - 8 years, its probably taken quadruple the time it would take to make something similar in max) I'll post more thoughts as I go along, but so far, modelling is a fair bit slower for me.
Gah, Maya 8.5, that's your problem. Maya 8.5 is way behind Maya 2009 for modeling tools. I really hope that is not what you are going to be locked to at your new job. I learned on that beast, it's extremely unstable.
I keep trying to get faster with Max because I really want to use it more, I love the tools and non-destructive workflow, but every time I try, I get stuck because of speed (or lack of snapping) and just export to Maya. At least I spend most of my time in Zbrush these days anyway.
I love max's modelling, especially for hard-surface.
I dislike world-building in max (max seems to choke ASAP when you feed it a large number of objects, even if overall polycount is low).
I despise muli-subs with every fiber of my being.
I hate having to drop a modifer just to edit UVs. I love the modifier stack in general, but IMO vertex color control and UV control should be a part of the editable poly 'base', then things that modify these basic properties of a mesh go on top.
I'll be switching back to maya over the summer after 2 years in max, with 2 years in maya before that. We'll see how it goes.
I can't work with Max anymore... to use Max is like to go back to the paleolithic.
The modifier stack can be useful for some things, but being a modeller, for me is useless. I was always collapsing modifiers, for me it's fastest to work without them, i see the results, then i apply/ok.
In a bizzare turn of events just 4 posts ago I said I hadnt used maya for a while.. now im learning it in earnest out of necessity ( Maya 8.5 ) and I have to say... max has pampered me right out of the box for its modelling and UVW tools.... BUilding up a basic 2500 tri male base mesh in maya has taken me maybe 6 - 8 solid hours from scratch ( given that its my first opening in maybe 7 - 8 years, its probably taken quadruple the time it would take to make something similar in max) I'll post more thoughts as I go along, but so far, modelling is a fair bit slower for me.
Set up gestures for everything man...takes me no time at all with Maya.
You need a good amount of time on both too really judge either without bias.
Max, which I cut my teeth on and I still use frequently feels really basic now. /sadface
where if all you work with are polygons that might be true in that case something like silo or modo is truly in some areas way more speedy and powerful.
But max's strength are combining many things in a almost non destructible and non linear way. Like adding a cloth modifier to simulate clothing, or working with splines and extrude or loft with them or use them as part of a extrusion rail in a editable poly operation. Its the same with stuff like the camera map modifier, and many others which are not just about polygons alone.
So that being said its one of the best multi anything sandboxes and I believe thats also why its so popular in the game industry because you can build various things with it, not just polygon soup but also heavy meta constructions (physic related, motion, rigging, guiding, referencing,....).
I guess I already wrote it here but to me the question is more like which application do I hate more. Because they booth are rotten and need a overhaul so badly.
I use both Maya and 3dsmax but because I already know Melscript I would like to learn max script...
And yeah this thread is a troll guys... hahaha...
But the common point with Maya and 3dsmax is autodesk and if you spend 250 000 yen in a Maya licence they will never help you if you report a bug or alert them on the main community '
maybe a few years I would of said that Maya was inferior to Max in polygon modeling but that changed after 8.5. Most of what I hated about the program got fixed by Alias before the buyout. It's really a matter of getting used to the damn thing if you are coming from Max.
Does maya have constrain to edge yet? Not just on one vert, or an entire edge ring, but on any selection possible? I use that on a minute to minute basis in max, (shift+x) for high poly hard surface, and the last time I was using maya (about a year ago) it didn't have it, and NO scripts or add ons would bring it either.
Does maya have constrain to edge yet? Not just on one vert, or an entire edge ring, but on any selection possible? I use that on a minute to minute basis in max, (shift+x) for high poly hard surface, and the last time I was using maya (about a year ago) it didn't have it, and NO scripts or add ons would bring it either.
poop, not that i know of, still use the cut and delete method to move edges.
that said i still preffer mayas basic toools much more than maxs, and i had so many scripts in maya that cant be made in max because of the stupid/clever way it stores(doesnt) meshes vertex/edge/faces
Connect and constrain to edge are basically my two most used tools in Max, and I cannot get into Maya no matter what other pros it might have over max. If I could just get functional versions of those two tools that have been in every 50 dollar russian-made program since 1992, I'd be a happy man.
is there an align distribution tool/script in Max that is like the Snap Align Objects>Align Objects?
This may just be more of a workflow difference, but in Maya, I would create one object, duplicate it and move it along whichever axis and get it in position. Then I would duplicate however many copies I wanted between them, select them all, and align with even distribution between the key and target objects.
I messed with the spacing tool, but I'm having trouble getting it all to line up properly. Even if I go into an ortho view and draw a line with pick points, it still moves stuff around all weird.
Again, may be a workflow difference.
I model in Maya now, but there are definitely some tools in Max that I miss.
Max's connect tool is one of them. I've never tried Switcher, but if I ever move back to Max, I'll give it a try. Viewport navigation is the big thing that trips me up when switching between Maya and Max.
Yeah, lacking a good constrain to edge is a right pain in Maya.
NEX added it, but they seem to have stopped support and it's been pretty flaky recently so that's kinda out of the question.
Generally I just use Slide Edge tool, since usually I'm moving edges around and want to constrain them, it does the trick most of the time (and it doesn't mean you have to do a whole edge ring or anything, you can do it with any number of edges selected).
If I need to snap verts then I use Snap To Curve, I've re-mapped it to Shift-X as a toggle so it's more like Max's constrain, but since it can actually snap to ANY edges instead of just surrounding ones, it's less easy to use.
It's definitely not a complete solution but it works for me, and I don't tend to use constraints all that much anyway.
Yeah, lacking a good constrain to edge is a right pain in Maya.
NEX added it, but they seem to have stopped support and it's been pretty flaky recently so that's kinda out of the question.
Generally I just use Slide Edge tool, since usually I'm moving edges around and want to constrain them, it does the trick most of the time (and it doesn't mean you have to do a whole edge ring or anything, you can do it with any number of edges selected).
If I need to snap verts then I use Snap To Curve, I've re-mapped it to Shift-X as a toggle so it's more like Max's constrain, but since it can actually snap to ANY edges instead of just surrounding ones, it's less easy to use.
It's definitely not a complete solution but it works for me, and I don't tend to use constraints all that much anyway.
Uggg. That is exactly what I *didn't* want to hear. Time to start nagging my future studio to get me a max license. I would sooner give up basically any other feature than constrain to edge.
Viewport navigation is the big thing that trips me up when switching between Maya and Max.
I just recently, this morning as a matter of fact, turned alt+w to spacebar. F that space bar to lock your object stuff! The mouse navigation I have gotten used to...
Ditto, does anyone actually use this feature? I have never, ever used Selection Lock in my entire life, no joke. I have yet to find a circumstance where it was needed.
And yet they assign it to the biggest key on the keyboard by default... I remapped ALT+W to spacebar too, it's the first thing I do with any new Max install
no complaining about max or maya! I came from Lightwave.. oh my god talk about unintuitive and horrible layout. i switched to maya about 8 months ago and havn't looked back since.
Ditto, does anyone actually use this feature? I have never, ever used Selection Lock in my entire life, no joke. I have yet to find a circumstance where it was needed.
I usually lock the selection when have to do some hierarchical linkage, nothing more. The max window toggle is way more used and useful.
Yeah max edge constrain is something I wish xsi had. I love how it stops when it meets another set of edges. While XSI does have a slide feature and it is useful, I really miss that about edge constraint. Ditto with slide in silo, it's rather annoying that nevercenter didn't adopt how max does it. The best way to do this in maya is to cut your new edge as stated and then dissolve the one you don't want. That's how I deal with the fact that XSI's texture swimming sucks balls. Max's Preserve UVs is great and should of been adopted by now. If it was adopted in the latest release of XSI it's time to upgrade again. I pretty much hate all of these 3d apps equally now, it's like why the hell can't you do that, it so much better this way... Now I just blame Autodesk. The really nice thing about Max history ( I mean user base), pun intended, is that the community fixes what autodesk doesn't. The good thing about Maya and XSI though is you can script the tools you need from Max since their "listener" actually works fairly well.
Uh, I'm sort of confused about how edge contrant in max is any different than XSI or Maya's slide edge feature. I can move a single edge along the normal of anything XSI, just the same way Max does it with shift-x. I'm I missing something here?
j_bradford: Max's constraints apply to only "connected" geometry when constraining. So if you have a vertex/edge/face selected, and constrain it, it will ONLY slide around on the surrounding geometry. Very useful for controlling tight geometry without affecting the surface shape.
Maya's Slide Edge tool is pretty similar when it comes to manipulating individual edges, but the beauty of Max's method is you can transform in screen space and it will slide along whatever direction "fits" best. Maya's method only slides along 90-degree angles (eg. slide a loop along a ring or part of a loop along part of a ring).
You also can't use the Slide Edge tool in Maya on vertices or faces, so you have to use Snap To Curve for vertices, which is painful in complex scenes since it snaps to every edge in the scene so you have to Isolate Selected just to make it workable or you end up snapping to edges all over the place.
And there seems to be no way to slide a face around in Maya at all. Max's method is nice in that it affects all elements in the same way, you don't have to use different modes for vert/edge/face, it just all works.
I'm not sure how XSI does it but if what Sage says is correct then part of the problem may be that it allows the geometry to slide/snap anywhere, including places where it creates crazy geometry. Max's keeps everything nice and tidy and only slides along "sensible" pieces.
That said, this also means that Max's snaps are different for if you wanted to snap a vertex from Object01 onto an arbitrary point on an edge on Object02. You'd have to turn on Edge Snap which is painfully clunky and flaky. In Maya this would be a breeze, which is cool, but unfortunately it's just not as useful a situation, you don't tend to use it as much in many cases.
It's probably pretty nice for precise large environment work though. I don't know much about XSI so I can't comment on the features there, but maybe this explains the Max method better?
Okay, I see what you mean by this. I don't actually use Maya but was assuming people clumped the functionality of XSI and Maya as the same thing. XSI's version of this does everything you described in max minus the "stops when it meets another set of edges" that Sage mentioned, which I just tried in Max. I don't really see what the value of this is, because you'd have to be blind not to notice it about to intersect with a neighboring edge. XSI's tweak tool has an embedded option that allows you to manipulate edges, faces, and points on the surface normal, you can slide it along the edge flow or not. Doesn't matter the angle, like an organic character basemesh or a hardsurface highpoly model. It also embeds this with XSI's own soft selection option.
I might be stating the obvious here, I don't know.. I suck at explaining and reading people's explainations.. this is one of those things where I need to see it done in Max or XSI to get it.
1. uhh make a unrwap uvw with no polys or anything selected, just the object (so your not in any sub-object modes)
2. go into face mode in the unwrap uvw, press ctrl + a to sleect every face
3. hit edit
4. mapping -> flatten mapping or maybe mapping ->unfold (works on simple objects like boxes or mapping -> normal mapping then choose like box
j_bradford the problem I have with slide in xsi is that it doesn't stop, unless there is another option or it was updated. :d Using edge constraint in max is a quick easy way to add perfectly tight loops for sub d, it fast and sloppy too. I found it fun. This might have changed though and off course with the split edge tool what I'm talking about is not that big a deal, it's more of a preference. before there was a slide feature in Max it was the quickest way to do it in Max. Keep in mind that if you didn't have polyboost there was no split loop option or split edge tool (using middle click option) in Max. Using connect was slow in comparison. What I used to do was connect, chamfer 100% then scale down with edge constraint on which more or less does what pinch does now. Or if I didn't want to do that I would just just the loop to the edges I wanted the loop to take the shape of then position it. I found it to be a quick way to get results I wanted.
I could get results like these very easy and quickly. That's why I liked it J_bradford, I didn't have to care or noticed, because it would stop. That said sometimes edge contraint give crap results and xsi tool seem to work every time.
Something I ran into this evening, you can not rotate individual faces? I was doing a lot of extruding on a piece, and I wanted to rotate a face 45 degrees. Click the polygon icon on the left, and the E to rotate. I got the little red handle bars, as if I pressed Q.
Okay, I see what you mean by this. I don't actually use Maya but was assuming people clumped the functionality of XSI and Maya as the same thing. XSI's version of this does everything you described in max minus the "stops when it meets another set of edges" that Sage mentioned, which I just tried in Max. I don't really see what the value of this is, because you'd have to be blind not to notice it about to intersect with a neighboring edge.
It's extremely useful. Say there are two edge loops, one aligned vertical, and the next one over has an angle to it for some kind of geometry change. Insert loop, and now it's half way between these two, not straight, and not fully curved. If you want it to exactly mirror either of these to help hold a hard edge, you can just slide it over to the straight one till it stops, and now you have another straight one, or slide it over to the angled one till it stops, pull it back, and now it mirrors it exactly. It's extremely useful on high poly hard surface modeling, and I use it a ton, more than almost any other tool in max. You want it to stop so that the rest of the edges or verts can keep going till they stop also, getting an edge that mirrors the one you pulled it against exactly.
It's just not a difficult thing, it's not like it's for unwrapping purple spiral giraffe necks with UV stretching pinched at the base. It's a very simple constrain tool that aids in maintaining volume and getting tight edges on angle changes, it should be in every modeling tool that wants to be serious about high poly modeling.
poopinmymouth: For that sort of use of Constrain in high-poly modelling, I have mainly been using Maya's "Insert Edge Loop" tool instead, since it has the same result as using connect -> shoving the edges to the far end and then pulling them back a bit as you describe.
Obviously it's less useful in many other cases, but for highpoly tight corners it works very well. Oh, and obviously it doesn't work right if the shape is not a valid edge ring either
Mop, I thought insert edge loop works just like the polyboost one in max, where it just pops a vert at the half point of every edge, connected by a loop. In the case where some edges are shorter, and some longer, you get a "crooked" loop, that shoving to the straight side, then pulling back, will fix.
No, Insert Edge Loop is a dynamic insert, you can click and drag on any edge to slice a new loop through the related edge ring (if any). Clicking and dragging slides along the edge (in the same way the Split Polygon tool does), using the snaps you've got set in your preferences (default is a 50% snap, but you can set whatever, I have 25% snaps for example).
Also, depending on your snap range you can slide it to any arbitrary point along the edge, and it will try to match that point all the way around the loop. It has two modes for this - the default is as you describe and usually gives "crooked" loops (since the edges it's slicing are usually different lengths, so 25% along one edge is not the same geometric distance as 25% along another, longer edge), but you can change this mode so that it calculates from the surrounding edge loops, resulting in a loop that is perfectly aligned with the surrounding edge loops.
This latter method gives the same results as what you described using Max's Constrain to Edge and moving to 100% then dragging back a bit to "align" the loop (although CrazyButcher's "edgeStraighten" maxscript does this same thing faster and more precisely anyway).
It sounds like you haven't really tried out these tools, maybe you should give them a go before demanding your Max license
Replies
What ever Surface Control that Bokaja is talking about, I have seen max to be better at inorganic modeling over maya after seeing the kind of things people do with it. Racer is a good example of that.
But honestly in my opinion:
Maya=rigging and animation
Max=modeling and rendering
I read this thread, and found the answer in another...
Does that switcher Vig talks about in another thread, work or no? I would love my space bar view port change. and the ctrl addition click is just rebellious. EVERYTHING is shift click for addition! :P
Maya For The Win!!
If you know both well, there is just no comparison. However it really depends on your understanding of max.
If you do know basic modeling in those apps, then they are all somehow equal.
IF you like nonlinear/nondestructive workflows, elegant Modifier Stack use and more generally if you use/need a lot of operations that really need a realtime preview, max is waaaaay ahead of all others.
However for polygon/edge/vertex level operations, they are basically the same now. Maya is less of a brainfuck now because they recently started adding clever manipulator controls, soft selection and so on. Basically catching up on basic raw modelling features from other apps 5 years later.
For complex operations it honestly still is a nightmare (lattice, deformers, and so on).
I box model a lot! Through tools like extrude, bevel, everything that stack modifier list goes against. I feel. I can show you my Maya custom shelf and it may give you a better idea of what tools I use the most? lol
Unwrapping in Max is really throwing me for a loop...
I'm only just starting to learn, but Maya's UVW is parting my butcheeks like the red sea atm man - Its hurting BAD.
...I was going to try to learn Maya just for that stupid tool...seemed so much easier than...ring->connect-> than that little window to adjust the "slide"...man...the swiftloop tool added to a shortcut has reduced my highpoly modeling time like crazy!
Is the vertex snapping in Max 2010 worth anything? Vig, in another thread said it was a pain in the ass to even use. I am looking under Tools<Grids and Snaps and see nothing? I even went under the settings and checked vertex and unchecked everything else. Nothing.
Thats because it is...it makes sense to me though but thats probably because all Ive used is Max.
are you trying to use snaps?
If so press "S" or check on the toolbar...it's an icon with a 3 and a magnet.
You can right-click it to change it to whatever you want it to snap to.
Edit: I have nothing to compare it too, so for the most part I'm ok with it...although sometimes I just can't for the fucking life of me get it to snap to anything.
I keep trying to get faster with Max because I really want to use it more, I love the tools and non-destructive workflow, but every time I try, I get stuck because of speed (or lack of snapping) and just export to Maya. At least I spend most of my time in Zbrush these days anyway.
I dislike world-building in max (max seems to choke ASAP when you feed it a large number of objects, even if overall polycount is low).
I despise muli-subs with every fiber of my being.
I hate having to drop a modifer just to edit UVs. I love the modifier stack in general, but IMO vertex color control and UV control should be a part of the editable poly 'base', then things that modify these basic properties of a mesh go on top.
I'll be switching back to maya over the summer after 2 years in max, with 2 years in maya before that. We'll see how it goes.
Going to try what you stated now. I use snaps all the time in Maya, they work really well!
EDIT: Whenever I click a vertex and press the S button, a big yellow box pops up? Nothing snaps, I will keep trying. I don't see a magnet...
The modifier stack can be useful for some things, but being a modeller, for me is useless. I was always collapsing modifiers, for me it's fastest to work without them, i see the results, then i apply/ok.
Quokimbo, right click and select the element?
Set up gestures for everything man...takes me no time at all with Maya.
You need a good amount of time on both too really judge either without bias.
Max, which I cut my teeth on and I still use frequently feels really basic now. /sadface
But max's strength are combining many things in a almost non destructible and non linear way. Like adding a cloth modifier to simulate clothing, or working with splines and extrude or loft with them or use them as part of a extrusion rail in a editable poly operation. Its the same with stuff like the camera map modifier, and many others which are not just about polygons alone.
So that being said its one of the best multi anything sandboxes and I believe thats also why its so popular in the game industry because you can build various things with it, not just polygon soup but also heavy meta constructions (physic related, motion, rigging, guiding, referencing,....).
I guess I already wrote it here but to me the question is more like which application do I hate more. Because they booth are rotten and need a overhaul so badly.
And yeah this thread is a troll guys... hahaha...
But the common point with Maya and 3dsmax is autodesk and if you spend 250 000 yen in a Maya licence they will never help you if you report a bug or alert them on the main community '
http://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-maya/autodesk-maya-2009/bug
gt-mipmap-options/
Please guys leave a message on their forum and the mipmap option could work again in the Maya 2009 and 2010 version!!! hahaha!!
lol, did the same thing.
They finally implemented Target Weld in Maya 2009.
+1 awaiting someone to answer this BAD.
that said i still preffer mayas basic toools much more than maxs, and i had so many scripts in maya that cant be made in max because of the stupid/clever way it stores(doesnt) meshes vertex/edge/faces
This may just be more of a workflow difference, but in Maya, I would create one object, duplicate it and move it along whichever axis and get it in position. Then I would duplicate however many copies I wanted between them, select them all, and align with even distribution between the key and target objects.
I messed with the spacing tool, but I'm having trouble getting it all to line up properly. Even if I go into an ortho view and draw a line with pick points, it still moves stuff around all weird.
Again, may be a workflow difference.
Max's connect tool is one of them. I've never tried Switcher, but if I ever move back to Max, I'll give it a try. Viewport navigation is the big thing that trips me up when switching between Maya and Max.
NEX added it, but they seem to have stopped support and it's been pretty flaky recently so that's kinda out of the question.
Generally I just use Slide Edge tool, since usually I'm moving edges around and want to constrain them, it does the trick most of the time (and it doesn't mean you have to do a whole edge ring or anything, you can do it with any number of edges selected).
If I need to snap verts then I use Snap To Curve, I've re-mapped it to Shift-X as a toggle so it's more like Max's constrain, but since it can actually snap to ANY edges instead of just surrounding ones, it's less easy to use.
It's definitely not a complete solution but it works for me, and I don't tend to use constraints all that much anyway.
Uggg. That is exactly what I *didn't* want to hear. Time to start nagging my future studio to get me a max license. I would sooner give up basically any other feature than constrain to edge.
I just recently, this morning as a matter of fact, turned alt+w to spacebar. F that space bar to lock your object stuff! The mouse navigation I have gotten used to...
Ditto, does anyone actually use this feature? I have never, ever used Selection Lock in my entire life, no joke. I have yet to find a circumstance where it was needed.
And yet they assign it to the biggest key on the keyboard by default... I remapped ALT+W to spacebar too, it's the first thing I do with any new Max install
I usually lock the selection when have to do some hierarchical linkage, nothing more. The max window toggle is way more used and useful.
I'm evaluating the purchase of some sort of programmable gaming keyboard like the Logitech G13. I've been working for years with a [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-E06-00001-Sidewinder-Strategic-Commander/dp/B00005U21V"]Microsoft Strategic Commander[/ame] and a custom interface I made for Rhinoceros, but that isn't supported anymore, since xp32. It was the fastest nurbs modeling configuration ever
Maya's Slide Edge tool is pretty similar when it comes to manipulating individual edges, but the beauty of Max's method is you can transform in screen space and it will slide along whatever direction "fits" best. Maya's method only slides along 90-degree angles (eg. slide a loop along a ring or part of a loop along part of a ring).
You also can't use the Slide Edge tool in Maya on vertices or faces, so you have to use Snap To Curve for vertices, which is painful in complex scenes since it snaps to every edge in the scene so you have to Isolate Selected just to make it workable or you end up snapping to edges all over the place.
And there seems to be no way to slide a face around in Maya at all. Max's method is nice in that it affects all elements in the same way, you don't have to use different modes for vert/edge/face, it just all works.
I'm not sure how XSI does it but if what Sage says is correct then part of the problem may be that it allows the geometry to slide/snap anywhere, including places where it creates crazy geometry. Max's keeps everything nice and tidy and only slides along "sensible" pieces.
That said, this also means that Max's snaps are different for if you wanted to snap a vertex from Object01 onto an arbitrary point on an edge on Object02. You'd have to turn on Edge Snap which is painfully clunky and flaky. In Maya this would be a breeze, which is cool, but unfortunately it's just not as useful a situation, you don't tend to use it as much in many cases.
It's probably pretty nice for precise large environment work though. I don't know much about XSI so I can't comment on the features there, but maybe this explains the Max method better?
I might be stating the obvious here, I don't know.. I suck at explaining and reading people's explainations.. this is one of those things where I need to see it done in Max or XSI to get it.
In Maya, to have her lay out the UV's for you, I would do this. Create UV's < Automatic Mapping
How do I make Max lay out the UV's for me to manipulate? I tried Unwrap UVw modifier and got green lines around my mesh. Nothing in the UV Editor box.
2. go into face mode in the unwrap uvw, press ctrl + a to sleect every face
3. hit edit
4. mapping -> flatten mapping or maybe mapping ->unfold (works on simple objects like boxes or mapping -> normal mapping then choose like box
I could get results like these very easy and quickly. That's why I liked it J_bradford, I didn't have to care or noticed, because it would stop.
http://apsentertainment.com/previews/w_fzero03_04.jpg
Any one know of anything?
It's extremely useful. Say there are two edge loops, one aligned vertical, and the next one over has an angle to it for some kind of geometry change. Insert loop, and now it's half way between these two, not straight, and not fully curved. If you want it to exactly mirror either of these to help hold a hard edge, you can just slide it over to the straight one till it stops, and now you have another straight one, or slide it over to the angled one till it stops, pull it back, and now it mirrors it exactly. It's extremely useful on high poly hard surface modeling, and I use it a ton, more than almost any other tool in max. You want it to stop so that the rest of the edges or verts can keep going till they stop also, getting an edge that mirrors the one you pulled it against exactly.
It's just not a difficult thing, it's not like it's for unwrapping purple spiral giraffe necks with UV stretching pinched at the base. It's a very simple constrain tool that aids in maintaining volume and getting tight edges on angle changes, it should be in every modeling tool that wants to be serious about high poly modeling.
Obviously it's less useful in many other cases, but for highpoly tight corners it works very well. Oh, and obviously it doesn't work right if the shape is not a valid edge ring either
Also, depending on your snap range you can slide it to any arbitrary point along the edge, and it will try to match that point all the way around the loop. It has two modes for this - the default is as you describe and usually gives "crooked" loops (since the edges it's slicing are usually different lengths, so 25% along one edge is not the same geometric distance as 25% along another, longer edge), but you can change this mode so that it calculates from the surrounding edge loops, resulting in a loop that is perfectly aligned with the surrounding edge loops.
This latter method gives the same results as what you described using Max's Constrain to Edge and moving to 100% then dragging back a bit to "align" the loop (although CrazyButcher's "edgeStraighten" maxscript does this same thing faster and more precisely anyway).
It sounds like you haven't really tried out these tools, maybe you should give them a go before demanding your Max license