This is the last straw with Maya.
Seriously, free me from this misery. If this ever happened to you, you know how frustrating the above error is, and lately I had it happen every second time I work on something, most of the time as a result of a misclick. Not even gonna rant about the borked bevels, irreversible damage resulting from broken undo command, incompatibility with other software and other crap I put up with up to this point.
What would be better for polygonal modeling for games, preferrably cheap, compact and above all - stable? Silo seems nice, but I haven't had enough time to play with it. Would it be enough for my needs?
Replies
Maya is prefectly fine (says a max user), just breathe, slow down, and hope she starts putting out... (she won't).
Blender is the free one.
For pure subdivision modelling I would still recommend Max2009 over anything else for its stability and its solid toolset - but it requires a few extra scripts to really take it to its maximum potential. However if you know what you are looking for, a little bit of digging around Scriptspot should get you what you need fairly easily.
Good luck! I know exactly how you feel, it really varies from person to person. Some are fine with Maya, but I personally cannot stand it for the exact same reasons you mention - it feels like the app is going to just break anytime because of a bad operation that it lets you do (and even sometimes forces you to do - like a zero distance bevel or extrude)
I usually end up making quick sketches in ZB (with the inclusion of clipping tools, hard surfaces also have become more accessible lets say) and end up just finalizing and retopologizing my mesh in my main packages.
Mileage may vary naturally, so that is also worth a shot.
Keep your outliner open and see what nodes are being generated when you complete an operation so you know what to clean up. Keep an eye on your history. Don't assume it does things the same way as you may be used to in other programs. Keep your scene clean and use proper modeling practices. Be aware of which nodes you're renaming (the shape node is NOT the same as the transform node).
If all those things are lining up then you should rarely come across any problems.
I had Silo crash on me once already, but that was entirely my fault (I hit subdiv too many times and ran out of memory) and it was much easier to recover from than what Maya puts you through sometimes. ("Attempting" to save is a very fitting word there, and Maya's autosaves either interrupt your work or cause even more problems, while I didn't even notice Silo is saving anything at first.) Maya has a bad habit of enforcing its project structure on you, not remembering the paths you used last time, etc. It's frustrating (bloody map transfer) and slows you down even more. Using any tool feels like a chore, you can't even preview stuff like bevel size in real time, you have to input a number, undo, repeat. Once in a while an action will glitch out without being registered into the undo buffer, requiring a manual fix. Maya is very picky about what is considered an edge or face loop, making tools like dividing faces useless and creating problems when trying to select something. I could go on and on about this, but the important thing is that I'm free from this crap now.
Here's the end result of my Silo crash test, all detail on this cartridge is baked from the subdiv I made, save for the text and a little noise on the normal map. Imported into Unreal for preview.
For now, I'm quite satisfied with that tool. I assume that if I took the time to learn all the shortcuts, this model could've taken half an hour at most including the texturing.
I appreciate the heads up Hai, but I use Maya for long enough to know all that. A mesh irreversibly going nuts on undo isn't something I'd throw under user error, especially if this never happens elsewhere. That error I screencapped is something that appears when you try to do anything with a mesh already broken by the undo glitch.
You really better stay away from that thing if you intend to make complex subdiv work...
[ame="
And like all relationships, it can be the other half too!
VoidWorld - download
VW polycount thread
Bearing in mind Istonia is currently in the middle of optimising the viewport. The tools are amazing though. I can work even faster than in Silo.
I still use Maya sometimes for small things, but that bevel is so bad its unusable in my opinion. The errors too seem so mysterious. I use max 2010 simply because of the graphite tools save a lot of time.
It may sound silly but I've stuck with Maya all these years for the convenience of it. It is still the only 3D app I have ever felt like I have adequate access to the necessary tools when hiding the UI. That is, without establishing custom hotkeys, which I almost always find myself needing to create in other applications. Take Max for instance, tons and tons of useful graphite tools now, but the ribon UI is not my idea of easy access.
Tied to that convince is how Maya is basically built around the idea of being a script friendly platform and heavily customizable to a pipeline. The downside of course is people have had to script around Maya's modeling problems, but the upside is how many doors are left open. It may not always relate to modeling process, but overall it certainly is a huge driving force for me to keep using it as my main 3D software.
I am interested though in picking up some lightwave next as it seems to be a good balance of convenience and functionality.
Non linear workflow, graph editor sucks, modeling tools are pretty much useless most of the time, undo handling is horrendous, buggy, crash happy, very crappy performance when working with pretty high res meshes.
If you want a good (and fairly cheap compared to the others) modeling tool, get Modo. Softimage is a good app period, but it's modeling tools are pretty basic. Although it's proportional tweak tool is one of the best out there imho.
Ouija: Don't want to turn this into a thread about VW but when I picked it up I found it far from unintuitive. It seemed to fill all the gaps that silo was missing and fix a lot of things about it that are broken e.g. it's symmetry is rock solid. I work 90% of the time in VW with F5 - no UI showing.
If you need any tips or pointers on how to get it working just how you want then give me a pm, I'd be more than happy to help.
I wanted to try out Modo, but not only the trial is so short I'd barely have time to get a good grip of it, they're making me register just to download a TRIAL. (What's with this bullshit being so common lately?) I have a very hard time trusting anyone who reaches out for my dox before even letting me try anything, such practices reek of Autodesk way too much, not to mention my information would probably end up in the hands of at least 10 advertisers. Even if it was the best piece of software in the world, I'm not giving my money or my info to corporate asshats. Modo is officially out of the window. (well that was fast)
ya for this guys case i don't think VW is a good fit, VW ist mature enough yet for really heavy modeling because of it's performance issues. even know it's toolset is amazing at this point.
for what he want im thinking modo is hte best fit, main thing i don't like about modo ATM is how it does selections but everything else is good for when you want to do some pretty heavy subd modeling.
or max if your willing to spend a lot of time making custom keys.
Totally agree with this. Been using Maya for years but having (luckily) downtime this last few weeks I've been able to develop a lot of tools for my pipeline and happy with the results. God knows what kind of stuff the big studios are pulling, would love to raid them all with a USB.
Having said that, I agree with the rest of the thread, it does lack in the modelling department and always has. I just wish the universal transform would work on a subcomponent level, that would instantly boost Maya's cred in modelling and would not be difficult for AD to do.
The only advertising I got from them during my trial was a discount coupon which knocked a big chunk off the listed price. My info hasn't been transferred over to any other advertisers in any way shape or form.
Wish it had been developed further for sub-divs.. Was lightning fast as a box modeler back in the day. So damn intuitive and accessible.
I tested Modo back in 301, and while I know its a powerful package, I hated the workflow and UI during the trial. Just felt like it was constantly getting in my way (coming from maya/max/soft in the past)
I have not found anything to replace those three for modeling that I like sadly.. But I´m pretty sure that if I had time to learn and get used to Modo it would rock my world. At least judging from videos Ive seen on youtube and on Digital-Tutors.
I also can't live without UV flattening scripts (wrote these myself, but there are more floating around, James Hayward, SoulBurn), rescale UV shells (MoP's Normalize script) and half a dozen scripts that I can't remember but have been rolled into newer version of max also.
Oh and the new peel mode and point to point seam selection in 2012 is pure UV magic.
It has sped up unwrapping 50-60% for me. Select a point, select another on the opposite side of the model, it selects the edges in between, turn on peel, break and it relaxes, see a spot of tension, grab that edge, break and its done. Or select a few faces and hit quick peel. Pure gold...
Almost all of this has been rolled into newer versions of 3dsmax, the problem some people have is that they don't like the new ribbon or the caddy system. But honestly its more of a pain in the ass to cobble together a working version of 2009 just to get around the ribbon and the caddies.
Also they adjusted the caddies behavior in 2012 to be just like the old system but with a slightly different look. I can work around a slightly different UI so long as it functions properly, which it does now.
100% agree. i've tried a few different packages over the years but always come back to max. max + scripts and your own personal tweaks is awesome. i'm enjoying nitrous in 2012 and new UV tools alot, even graphite tools and ribbon seem to work better than 2010/2011.
Of course with Maya, for the longest time it was the jankity split polygon tool (cut tool equivalent), and no interactive offset style extrusions and bevels. The bevels still being a problem.
Blender, in my opinion, was and could possibly still be the worst off if the lack of any split/cut tool has not been addressed. But hey, it's free. And for Silo, it has had other issues.
It initially seems really simple, but with that, it's so different when it comes to navigation and selection, and some of it's tools hold such a different base logic than what I'm used to with Max and Maya, that I keep abandoning it.
I would recommend you to give it a shot and be a bit more resolved than I am, maybe it'll be worth it, every single user I asked told me that his experience with XSI is better than all others.
Never said it was an excuse, especially when it has taken so long to get well overdue improvements.
My point was more or less Maya gives you the open structure that can absolutely pay off if you take advantage of it. It is without a doubt the reason Maya, despite past and current setbacks, continues to maintain a solid presence in just about every 3D industry. Of course though, a lot of that is big picture stuff and may not be clear if the standard modeling tools are your deciding factor.
I suppose I'll just take it for a second crash test, with a more complex / longer to make mesh and see how that turns out. I'll keep Maya in my tools, but for rigging and animation only. That's the least it's good at. (that is, until my license goes out, then it's blender time for me)