Software choices + workflow advice (Maya user)
polycounter lvl 17
I am a Maya user and not new to 3d industry as such. I mainly do hard surface modeling , concept design and rendering as a freelancer. I am my own boss and buy my own software. Unfortunately I haven't used the animation side of Maya much. Always wanted to put never did. I have to take some cold hard decisions based on future work direction and software costs. I want to concentrate on concept design, modeling and presentation renderings mainly. So I will break my questions down :-)
1- I like using Maya but would it be better to move to Modo and save money if I am mainly doing hard surface models for presentation? I do like using Nurbs initially before converting to Polys but I feel dishing out $1000 every year for nothing is becoming a joke. I can afford it but still.
Should I stick with Maya as it is proven horse and prevalent in the industry?
2- If I stick with Maya then what would be good package to aid with hard surface texturing? in particualr and texturing in general? Mudbox, Bodypaint or Zbrush? I use PS currently for texture work. 3d coat I can't stand.
3- Should I consider Max? Or as a Maya user should I completely ignore Max? Max rendering options seem so straight forward and well integrated. Could be grass is greener on the other side symptom. I do hate Max UI though.
To be honest I don't really know what I am asking. I am just rambling and maybe looking for some thoughts. I would like to get into bit of animation and soft creature modeling type of stuff too.
1- I like using Maya but would it be better to move to Modo and save money if I am mainly doing hard surface models for presentation? I do like using Nurbs initially before converting to Polys but I feel dishing out $1000 every year for nothing is becoming a joke. I can afford it but still.
Should I stick with Maya as it is proven horse and prevalent in the industry?
2- If I stick with Maya then what would be good package to aid with hard surface texturing? in particualr and texturing in general? Mudbox, Bodypaint or Zbrush? I use PS currently for texture work. 3d coat I can't stand.
3- Should I consider Max? Or as a Maya user should I completely ignore Max? Max rendering options seem so straight forward and well integrated. Could be grass is greener on the other side symptom. I do hate Max UI though.
To be honest I don't really know what I am asking. I am just rambling and maybe looking for some thoughts. I would like to get into bit of animation and soft creature modeling type of stuff too.
Replies
I dunno if it's worth switching to Max if you're already comfortable with Maya. Providing you're happy with the work you can produce and the speed at which you do it in Maya then I don't think there's any compelling reason to switch. There are a few pros and cons on each side and while you might like a few Max features over Maya I imagine there will be just as many Maya features which you will miss in Max.
Personally I use ZBrush for highpoly texturing (although Photoshop is still 90% of my texturing workflow), with ZAppLink and polypainting it's decent.
It seems like Mudbox has nicer painting tools and a more PS-like interface but I haven't used Mudbox in years so I can't really comment on those. I am sure there will be people who prefer Mudbox to ZBrush for texturing and vice versa.
Personally unless you do a ton of texture work and really feel the need for 3D painting, I wouldn't bother with Bodypaint, especially since a license of ZBrush or Mudbox will allow you to sculpt and pose highpoly models too, which you can't do in Bodypaint.
Also, ZBrush is cheaper than Mudbox and so far have rolled out all of their updates for free, while Mudbox is now Autodesk-owned and charges (IMHO) way over the odds for their updates.
Personally I'd stick with Maya and buy ZBrush if you can afford it, but that's just my opinion, your preferences may vary
Other applications would be:
C4D also has bodypaint built.
Lightwave also as a new version which is a complete rewrite of its core coming out in a few months.
Both cheaper than Maya.
Maya on the other hand is terrible for hard surface stuff without plugins like NEX imo. If you arn't using mayas full toolset, then it's a waste keep paying out for the upgrades when cheaper and better packages fit your needs.
Autodesk charges extortionate amouts of cash for updates that contain little.
Another thing to note that non-US customers pay about twice as much as there US customers.
$3,495 for maya in US, £3,050 ($4,860) here in the UK.
There is no history or modifier stack though so if your modeling workflow relies heavily on non-linear modeling then you might want to stick with Maya, however if you are like me and just turn off the history anyway then Modo is great.
Modo has some 3d painting capabilities, it's actually pretty good, though I don't have much experience with that aspect of Modo yet so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
As for rendering Modo is pretty good with that too, though the shader tree is not node based like hypershade and takes some learning and getting used to.
As for animation, you already own Maya which is supposed to be pretty great at animation. Taking models from Modo to Maya for animation then back to Modo for rendering shouldn't be too difficult.
You should download the Modo trial and give it a try. Use it on a project or a mock project if you're worried about legalities of using a trial for real work to see if it's a good fit for you.
Sadly Modo isn't really a industry standard yet so if you have to pass work files back and forth with clients that may prove tricky. It does support FBX, OBJ, and Collada so it's not a lost cause.
Here's a recent thread with lots of Modo tips to help you get started. My best tip would be to customize the hell out of it especially the hotkeys. User customization is one of Modo's strong points and the hotkeys "out of the box" aren't so great IMHO.
i heard carmack mention it several times across a couple interviews regarding rage and the megatexture invention with quake wars... I think it soon will be.
its really more of an "all in one" than any other program out there, and if i wasnt just a pirating hobbyist, thats probably what i would pick.
You saw the guy who won the most recent Dominance War, right?
While I will agree that other applications may have a few nicer tools for dealing with highpoly hard-surface modelling, saying that Maya is "terrible" for it is just plain wrong.
I've been doing all my highpoly stuff at work in Maya and the only thing I really miss from Max is not having the flexible modifier stack (which Modo also doesn't have). I have been getting just as good quality results as I'd have done in Max in roughly the same time frame. It's just a matter of knowing your tools...
Yeah Slipgate's work is amazing! I do apprciate the work done in Maya, just imo it needs NEX just to get Maya's poly tools to work properly.
I dunno, maybe i've been spoiled with other applications, but maya seems to be missing a few tools or haven't found that help when doing hard-surface stuff, things like aligning a custom workplane for stuff that off-axis, a proper connect tool as insert edge loop as a limit on the amount of edges you can set, bridge tool that actually works and dosen't create open edges, a bevel tool that averages the verts, local scale? i could go on about how mayas tools need to be more interactive like max's.
Subdivision surfaces are a pain aswell in maya, the stupid 'smooth preview' doe's exactly that, why can't it render and bake like that, instead of just a viewport preview.
Just these annoyances that imo make maya much harder to work with and less forgiving, killing your workflow.
Don't want to turn this into an app war, but thats how i feel about maya in general.
Still Artist > Tools, but i believe that someone of equal skill to slipgate could have modeled all the hard-surface stuff on his domwar model faster in something like max or maya.
Like i said earlier this is just all my opinion.
/maya rant, let the flames begin.
It may not be quite as good in some areas but that does not make it useless or painful, you just have to get used to it and learn where you can make up the time you might have lost due to those few issues mentioned.
however if you're basically happy with maya and if it satisfies your needs, there's no need to change imo. perhaps cancel that subscription (maya's focus is not quite on modelling anyway, is it?) and put the money towards something like maxwell render, should be pretty applicable for your line of work.
My Maya subscription ran out last month and I have not renewed it. I will start giving Modo a serious 1-2 week try and see how I feel. I did download trial version last night but felt very strange being outside Maya's UI.
I am thinking of buying Vray or Maxwell plugin for Maya. MR serves my needs in Maya but lot of the stuff goes over my head and is bit too complicated and nerd like. I am more a creative artistic guy.
As far a Mudbox and Zbrush is concerned. Mudbox seems lot straight forward from a usability point of view but Zbrush seems so shinny, glizy and receives all the love. Maybe there is a reason for that?
So I am thinking to do the following-
- Maya stays my main app. Cancel subscription but continue with Maya 2010 unless something dramatic happens that tempts me to renew the subscription. Costly coming off the subscription wagon though grrrr.
- Give Modo a decent run to get a good idea.
- Buy Vray or Maxwell plugin for Maya (any thoughts which of the two?)
- Jump into Zbrush or Mudbox (undecided still)
I wish life was straight forward.
I wish I had chosen Zbrush from the start, maybe it's the "grass is always greener". I know Zbrush has some major usability issues, but when you get right down to it it's a more complete and functional app than Mudbox. Free upgrades make it even more appealing, the only hurdle is it's crazy UI.
Vray is very easy to setup and get great results from, however Maxwell is an unbiased renderer and will take alot longer to render stuff, but it's results speak for themselves.
With maxwell you can just place a light where it would be in real-life and it does all the work for you.
Finalrender is also not be overlooked, Stefan Morrell gets some amazing results from it, just not as popular as Vray.
I don't do much rendering myself, but it seems like you can get some very impressive results out of Mental Ray. I would at least spend some time messing around with settings and test renders in MR before shelling out any cash onto a different renderer just because it may expose some options a little nicer, or render 10% faster.
I guess it'd be worth the speed if you do a lot of high-end rendering, but I'd have thought there were better things to spend that much money on, considering that MR can do most of what those other renderers do, albeit with maybe a little more fiddling.
Vaguely unrelated: I don't think I've ever seen anyone post any high-end renderings on this forum recently other than global illumination/sunlight renders of grey-material assets anyway which you can do in any decent scanline renderer, yet I keep hearing people talking about VRay, Maxwell and Finalrender as if they're indisposable tools
Id say the third-party renderers are always about ease of use. Alot of features of your chosen 3dapp could be imcopatable with with the renderer, so you do run the risk of that.
Although the next version of MR is getting Iray, which is a interactive renderer thats not a approximation unlike Vray RT. This should really help with the tweaking parts of MR.
http://artiquest.com/2009/12/introduction-to-iray-video/
If you just want to learn more about MR, take a look at places like this:
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/
http://www.mymentalray.com/learn.html
Those places have some great tutorials on how to make awesome renders with MR.
I recently purchased modo. I really like the renderer and for me it is easier to work with than Vray. The live render preview and photoshop style layout for manipulationg materials and shaders is excellent.
modo is what Jim Baker (a.k.a. monstermaker) uses to render his ZBrush creations.
The full price of modo is also about half the upgrade price for max.
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is there a way to get only the link in here without the vid..?