for symmetry you could always go to Edit>Duplicate Special Options, and dup half your model in the axis you need, and continue your work on one half and have it update in real time on the other (similar to zbrush's "x" symmetry hotkey)
but im not a user of max so maybe its modifier does something completely different, if so sorry cant help ya out
and for the quick smooth question, you can always select the mesh go to Mesh>Smooth Options, and adjust the division levels there
To answer your question, at the core : not worth it.
I have been using Max in a studio environment for 6 years (+ hobby time before that), and Maya for a bit more than 4 years now (picked it up on a job, so no previous experience on that one). Maya seems to be a better platform for tool development (in theory) but at the end of the day, Max has just more fluid features for pretty much everything. And it is especially true in your case - as an experienced user, you most likely customized it to your likings already.
BTW, I agree with you on the direction max is taking. Because of that I am still using 2009 and I think this is the best version of it, by far.
You will most likely find some cool stuff in Maya, some interesting 3rd party tools too - but if you are not a Maya fanboy, and thoroughly know Max already, I don't see the point of switching. Now if you were aiming at animation work, it could be worth it ; but from a pure modeling standpoint, my advice would be to just stick to max and get some cool work done!
Good points! And I got to concur, it's sad to witness a great program being spoiled by marketing decisions.
About profesional environments : I know from first hand experience that IT departments can obtain older licences when needed - It makes sense, since some projects actually require older version of softwares for compatibility reasons. However it is indeed tough to get a personal license of an older app. It's all a bit messed up and more complicated than it should be, I think!
Its been a long time since I switched but for me there wasn't any doubt of which one I liked better and I had been using max for 3 years at that point.
As far as your question of smooth mesh preview level being editable it is.
The hotkeys are page up to raise and page down to lower. It maxes at 4 like this but if you want higher you can go into the actual shape tree in the attribute editor and expand the "smooth mesh menu" and type in numbers manually, but this is done per object so really the hotkeys are going to be your friend here.
Pg up and Pg dwn just adjusts the subdivisions previewed in 2 & 3 it doesn't actually switch to the smp. So its something used in conjunction vs an alternative.
You definitely will want to get used to the quick menus. Try holding modifier keys (shift, ctrl, ctrl+shift) and hold different mouse buttons. Almost all quick menu functions are in these menus.
I use Maya almost exclusively now, but if I could take one thing from Max it would be the shell modifier with delete interior faces option. The new updated "split" poly tool in Maya 2012 is an improvement that I like over the previous split polygon tool. The auto welding option of mirrored verts in Max is nice, but it is not too much of a hassle to merge the verts in Maya.
I typically create a mirrored instance just to see what the mirrored side will look like as I model and then delete it and mirror over, combine, and merge the verts after modeling.
You can create your own unique custom shortcuts in Maya (but I've gotta run and can't type the steps right now). Check for Windows--Settings and Prefs--Hotkey Editor. Powerful editor (just don't overwrite an existing hotkey by accident).
You don't really need the cage modifier in Maya. Have you tried "make live" in Maya yet?
You can use history (inputs) in Maya (prior to deleting by type history--similar to collapsing stack in Max) for some tweaking, but really you just get used to a different work flow to accomplish similar objectives.
That's not helpful at all!
All I can think of is: If you feel like relearning another method, workflow and way of thinking, then yeah, Maya can be good to you. Most people try to think of Maya and keep complaining about it's features because "Max has it". Instead of finding a way on how MAYA would do it. It's a real conversion or it's not. You will have to decide. Both can do what you want. It's up to you to decide if you want to jump the boat or not.
I really disagree what people are saying it's not worth. I did the jump and I'm extremely happy since then.
I really like Maya's quick smooth toggle using the 3 hotkey, but is there some way to adjust how many iterations it uses? I would like to increase it.
Yes, select your mesh, go to the attribute editor, under your nameofthemesh"Shape" tab, go to the Subdivision Levels and on "Preview Division Levels select 3 or more.
Also, if you feel like learning Maya the right way, read some of this. This is what makes Maya better than Max for me.
It's all about workflow, customization and more freedom. Remember you can create your own marking menus. And also, don't think that you will survive Maya without the scripts, they are your life savers.
Making live is similar to "snapping to an object" in Max. You can bring in a mesh and then draw a NURBs curve on it (verts snap to the model without impacting the model), etc. You could then convert the NURBs to polys (lets say you wanted to model some armor parts for example). There are other ways, of course.
I'm not sure why the hotkeys are not being saved. Likely not getting stored in the main startup file or some related issue. It's been some time since I created a custom hotkey.
Ah, that is very interesting; I was wondering where snap to surface was in Maya. While on the subject of snapping, does Maya have some form of angle snapping?
There is discrete Rotate, you can setup your increments in the rotate tool options, and you can hold "j" to toggle discrete rotate/translate/scale.
Great thread and good read for I am in a similar situation for making the switch to Maya.
For symmetry, since watching a few tutorials and trying the duplicate special technique. (also that duplicated instance meshes in Maya causes defects later down the line when imported to diff. scenes or even rigging) I find there is a better way to preview your mesh, mainly using the Subdiv Proxy option. That will make the other half subdivided and you can tweak your half of the mesh in real time while watching changes to the smoothed mesh. (Theres also an option to add the subdiv proxy mesh to a reference layer so you don't select by mistake when tweaking your mesh)
Also the shell mod. can be replaced by extruding the polys at its normals direction, however once done, cant go back and change the thickness (unless theres a better way to do this?)
Coming from a Max background myself, I have found splines to be much easier to tweak and use in real time, than Maya curves.
Although im still in the process of learning curves, I would like to know how some actions work like in Max. For example:
- Max can easily change a corner point to bezier corner or bezier handles, where you could tweak the roundness of one bezier handle, while tweaking the smoothness of the other.
- chamfer/fillet points - wheres the option similar to this in Maya?
- bevel profile - this modifier is awesome in max, you can draw an outline of a shape for your thickness and draw another spline of what you want it to look like in the side view, and once the modifier is applied to your original shape, it will take the profile spline and make the side edge to how you want your objects profile to look like (hopefully I explained it right, but people who have used it before should know, great for making architectural objects...)
So if anyone can point me out to a good tutorial on curves in Maya or know how to do these commands, feel free to share!
however once done, cant go back and change the thickness
You can alter the properties of any polygon operation after applying it. The concept of "History" in Maya is quite similar in some ways to the modifier stack in Max. So to edit the "thickness" (local translate Z) of an extrude after applying it: With the object selected open the channel box and under the "Inputs" heading you will see something similar to "polyExtrudeFace1", click that to expand it, alter the number in the channel "localTranslateZ". You can also use the "virtual slider" to play with this number by clicking on the channel _name_ (not the number) to hilight it and then middle click and drag left and right in the viewport to slide the value.
As for the points about curve editing it sounds like you're using the CV curve tool when the Bezier curve tool will behave more like you are used to in Max (correct me if I'm wrong though, I don't use curves that much).
Also, you can do the same thing as "bevel profile" with the Surfaces>Extrude tool. Another thing to note is that you can also extrude polygons along a spline. Just select some faces and then shift select a curve and do "Extrude" as you normally would on a polygon object.
Coming from a Max background myself, I have found splines to be much easier to tweak and use in real time, than Maya curves.
Although im still in the process of learning curves, I would like to know how some actions work like in Max. For example:
- Max can easily change a corner point to bezier corner or bezier handles, where you could tweak the roundness of one bezier handle, while tweaking the smoothness of the other.
- chamfer/fillet points - wheres the option similar to this in Maya?
- bevel profile - this modifier is awesome in max, you can draw an outline of a shape for your thickness and draw another spline of what you want it to look like in the side view, and once the modifier is applied to your original shape, it will take the profile spline and make the side edge to how you want your objects profile to look like (hopefully I explained it right, but people who have used it before should know, great for making architectural objects...)
So if anyone can point me out to a good tutorial on curves in Maya or know how to do these commands, feel free to share!
Gnomon recently released "Environment Modeling For Games" and Nate Stephens the presenter uses curves to generate all of his geometry. He shows a few basics like what your after but not too in depth. The rest of the stuff is awesome too.
Replies
but im not a user of max so maybe its modifier does something completely different, if so sorry cant help ya out
and for the quick smooth question, you can always select the mesh go to Mesh>Smooth Options, and adjust the division levels there
I have been using Max in a studio environment for 6 years (+ hobby time before that), and Maya for a bit more than 4 years now (picked it up on a job, so no previous experience on that one). Maya seems to be a better platform for tool development (in theory) but at the end of the day, Max has just more fluid features for pretty much everything. And it is especially true in your case - as an experienced user, you most likely customized it to your likings already.
BTW, I agree with you on the direction max is taking. Because of that I am still using 2009 and I think this is the best version of it, by far.
You will most likely find some cool stuff in Maya, some interesting 3rd party tools too - but if you are not a Maya fanboy, and thoroughly know Max already, I don't see the point of switching. Now if you were aiming at animation work, it could be worth it ; but from a pure modeling standpoint, my advice would be to just stick to max and get some cool work done!
Good luck!
About profesional environments : I know from first hand experience that IT departments can obtain older licences when needed - It makes sense, since some projects actually require older version of softwares for compatibility reasons. However it is indeed tough to get a personal license of an older app. It's all a bit messed up and more complicated than it should be, I think!
As far as your question of smooth mesh preview level being editable it is.
The hotkeys are page up to raise and page down to lower. It maxes at 4 like this but if you want higher you can go into the actual shape tree in the attribute editor and expand the "smooth mesh menu" and type in numbers manually, but this is done per object so really the hotkeys are going to be your friend here.
Good luck...
I typically create a mirrored instance just to see what the mirrored side will look like as I model and then delete it and mirror over, combine, and merge the verts after modeling.
You can create your own unique custom shortcuts in Maya (but I've gotta run and can't type the steps right now). Check for Windows--Settings and Prefs--Hotkey Editor. Powerful editor (just don't overwrite an existing hotkey by accident).
You don't really need the cage modifier in Maya. Have you tried "make live" in Maya yet?
You can use history (inputs) in Maya (prior to deleting by type history--similar to collapsing stack in Max) for some tweaking, but really you just get used to a different work flow to accomplish similar objectives.
It practically makes the mirror for you and has a lot of other cool features
cheers !
That's not helpful at all!
All I can think of is: If you feel like relearning another method, workflow and way of thinking, then yeah, Maya can be good to you. Most people try to think of Maya and keep complaining about it's features because "Max has it". Instead of finding a way on how MAYA would do it. It's a real conversion or it's not. You will have to decide. Both can do what you want. It's up to you to decide if you want to jump the boat or not.
I really disagree what people are saying it's not worth. I did the jump and I'm extremely happy since then.
Yes, select your mesh, go to the attribute editor, under your nameofthemesh"Shape" tab, go to the Subdivision Levels and on "Preview Division Levels select 3 or more.
Also, if you feel like learning Maya the right way, read some of this. This is what makes Maya better than Max for me.
http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?157484-Maya-Demystified-The-Hidden-Marking-Menus
It's all about workflow, customization and more freedom. Remember you can create your own marking menus. And also, don't think that you will survive Maya without the scripts, they are your life savers.
Making live is similar to "snapping to an object" in Max. You can bring in a mesh and then draw a NURBs curve on it (verts snap to the model without impacting the model), etc. You could then convert the NURBs to polys (lets say you wanted to model some armor parts for example). There are other ways, of course.
I'm not sure why the hotkeys are not being saved. Likely not getting stored in the main startup file or some related issue. It's been some time since I created a custom hotkey.
There is discrete Rotate, you can setup your increments in the rotate tool options, and you can hold "j" to toggle discrete rotate/translate/scale.
hope it wont bite me in the rear that i prefer max in the future lol
For symmetry, since watching a few tutorials and trying the duplicate special technique. (also that duplicated instance meshes in Maya causes defects later down the line when imported to diff. scenes or even rigging) I find there is a better way to preview your mesh, mainly using the Subdiv Proxy option. That will make the other half subdivided and you can tweak your half of the mesh in real time while watching changes to the smoothed mesh. (Theres also an option to add the subdiv proxy mesh to a reference layer so you don't select by mistake when tweaking your mesh)
Also the shell mod. can be replaced by extruding the polys at its normals direction, however once done, cant go back and change the thickness (unless theres a better way to do this?)
Coming from a Max background myself, I have found splines to be much easier to tweak and use in real time, than Maya curves.
Although im still in the process of learning curves, I would like to know how some actions work like in Max. For example:
- Max can easily change a corner point to bezier corner or bezier handles, where you could tweak the roundness of one bezier handle, while tweaking the smoothness of the other.
- chamfer/fillet points - wheres the option similar to this in Maya?
- bevel profile - this modifier is awesome in max, you can draw an outline of a shape for your thickness and draw another spline of what you want it to look like in the side view, and once the modifier is applied to your original shape, it will take the profile spline and make the side edge to how you want your objects profile to look like (hopefully I explained it right, but people who have used it before should know, great for making architectural objects...)
So if anyone can point me out to a good tutorial on curves in Maya or know how to do these commands, feel free to share!
You can alter the properties of any polygon operation after applying it. The concept of "History" in Maya is quite similar in some ways to the modifier stack in Max. So to edit the "thickness" (local translate Z) of an extrude after applying it: With the object selected open the channel box and under the "Inputs" heading you will see something similar to "polyExtrudeFace1", click that to expand it, alter the number in the channel "localTranslateZ". You can also use the "virtual slider" to play with this number by clicking on the channel _name_ (not the number) to hilight it and then middle click and drag left and right in the viewport to slide the value.
As for the points about curve editing it sounds like you're using the CV curve tool when the Bezier curve tool will behave more like you are used to in Max (correct me if I'm wrong though, I don't use curves that much).
Also, you can do the same thing as "bevel profile" with the Surfaces>Extrude tool. Another thing to note is that you can also extrude polygons along a spline. Just select some faces and then shift select a curve and do "Extrude" as you normally would on a polygon object.
Gnomon recently released "Environment Modeling For Games" and Nate Stephens the presenter uses curves to generate all of his geometry. He shows a few basics like what your after but not too in depth. The rest of the stuff is awesome too.
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/955/