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Does it even matter anymore when it comes to what 3D app to use for portfolio?

ModBlue
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ModBlue polycounter lvl 7
For the topic of Maya, Max and Blender, does it matter when it comes to portfolio nowadays? I mean specifically for modeler positions. I know that in archviz it seems Max is still widely preferred, but when it comes to games it seems not to really matter considering how many jobs list "Maya or equivalent" or "Must know Blender, Maya or Max".

I'm guessing this is because Blender has become a more feature rich and stable tool, along with being free. So my question is...if this is the case then what use is there in using Maya or Max to build a portfolio out of for someone looking to get into the industry over Blender? I'm just not seeing any real advantage here not for modeling atleast.

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  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    To some degree yes. You should at least know the production base good enough to get data in and out cleanly.

    If you know how to do that in Maya you should be good for the majority productions.
    In the majority of production (from my point of view) this is Maya these days. Max used to be the main thing a while ago but i think about 10 years ago almost all bigger productions shifted away.

    Now that being said, if you know 3dsmax you might be in a worse position than someone knowing Blender. Not because of skill, just because a Maya based pipeline studio might not want to pay for maya AND max at the same time. As a blender user you might be able to just slip in, with luck your blender experience is something that could be beneficial for the maya modellers inhouse. 

    Max seems to ve a dying breed, and I say that as a native and active max user.
  • ModBlue
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    ModBlue polycounter lvl 7
    Thats a good point about Max users. They probably would be less considered than a Blender one simply due to studios not wanting to pay for a Max license if they have a Maya one already. I don't think Max has that much use in games anymore, not based on Artstation atleast given most professionals I see on there largely use Maya. I want to say I've seen about the same amount use Blender and Max, but its definitely growing in terms of Blender users whereas Max seems to be dying out.

    I also wonder if studios are basing some of their choices off what they see people using instead of just looking at it from the standpoint of what software they prefer in their pipelines?

    Right as Blender got 2.8x and up released, I've noticed Max has not gotten much attention anymore as people started shifting largely towards Maya and Blender when it comes to modeling stuff like characters and environments. I mean if you go to Youtube right now and look up tutorials for game modeling, everything you get is either for Blender or Maya. Only a few results come up for Max and most were years old. Its things like that which make me question how studios are looking at things when viewing someone's portfolio.
  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    Studios use Maya because (practically speaking) it's the best DCC to build an asset pipeline around. 

    Max is basically a dead end despite being objectively superior to both as a modelling tool (fight me :p ) - it's unpleasant to build tools for, the animation toolset has barely progressed in 20 years and they resolutely refuse to drop the price. 

    Blender is difficult to manage for larger organisations - open source software is a legal minefield and handling all the addons and crap you need to make it actually useful is a huge pain in the arse if you're working at scale. 
    For smaller studios that don't have a 20 year old pipeline it would be mad to not adopt it IMO - it's not awful to develop for and most of the legal issues don't come into play 


    If I was starting out now I'd work with Blender and try to get at least some Maya experience. 

    fwiw, I never paid a lot of attention to the software people used when I was hiring artists - you can teach tools, you can't teach talent






  • NikhilR
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    NikhilR polycounter
    I would recommend Maya too, there's a lot you can do with the software.

    I have seen many indie and AA studios specifying blender in their job posts.

    This is likely a combination of the versatility of blender and no cost to use it commercially.

    Depending on the pipeline though you'll be limited to what software is used so it's good to have atleast one industry standard down before adding any additional tools to your skill set.
  • zetheros
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    zetheros ngon master
    you know I hear Modo is all the rage these days, all the cool devs are using it
  • JoeXLegacy
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    JoeXLegacy polycounter lvl 12
    Like any software can export FBX as far as modeling and UVs go.. so I guess it comes down to the animation tools.

    I personaly use MAX as a modeler, ultimately comfortable in it for every task I even prefer to hard-surface in Max to anything else...
  • Indi2410
    For portfolio? Probably not no, not sure why it would?
    For a job, i'd wager it plays a bigger role. I say this as someone who is looking to land my first job, sent 50+ applications already.
    I see ''software proficiency in : Maya '' Like you said also a mix of knowing Blender/Maya/3DSMAX will do just fine in other job applications being posted, it's very dependant.

    It begs the questions:
    1. The pipeline requires ''x'' software to be used and they won't allow you to use anything else in studio, so you are forced to switch, you can't be a stubborn outsider or your kicked...
    2. Say they have two candidates that are equally skilled, are they going to pick the latter in which they need to  train, or at least give them time to pick up the new software to learn and catch up, OR pick the former that already knows the software from the get go? Easy choice if I was a recruiter.
    3. Its a  very ''case by case'' dependent question. Some studios like you say, any software goes, other's want you to use 3DS/Maya for pipeline reasons.

    I kinda ''regret'' picking up blender instead of Maya because the UI to me and the Anti alising with the jaggered edges when I first booted up Maya was laughable and outdated in my mind, and the Blender hype didn't help either. Now I regret it 3 years onwards looking for a job and not having a student license, so I need other means to you know what until I can land a job and go legit... Going back I would of picked up Maya first hands down, NOW I'm spending a lot of hours catching up in Maya to what my current skill is at in Blender solely to increase my chances of landing a job, even if it's plays 1% of landing it. I'm doing it..
  • ModBlue
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    ModBlue polycounter lvl 7
    @Indi2410
    Get Maya Indie. Its $300 a year (far more affordable than the other options) and shouldn't be too hard to set aside that much money for it if your not financially pressed. That eliminates potential problems with trying to get your hands on the program through 'other means'.

    About learning Maya, I get where your coming from but I don't think your method is an effective way of learning it as your trying to essentially replace Blender with Maya by learning to redo everything in it. There's no point spending hours trying to do stuff in Maya that you could do in minutes in Blender. Instead of doing that, learn Maya for specific uses as it relates to your needs in order to take advantage of their strengths. That's a faster way of doing it and I think more effective.
  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    I personaly use MAX as a modeler, ultimately comfortable in it for every task I even prefer to hard-surface in Max to anything else...
    nobody would seriously argue that max isn't superior to maya or blender for hardsurface modelling would they?  

    maybe people don't know how to use max ? :D 
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    Senior industry HS artists from what I've seen and/or followed, (...just naming a few that readily come too mind - Tim Bergholz, Hamish Ames and also Karol Miklas) in particular, had worked with open source apps for many years so guessing back in the day having an agnostic aptitude would still get your stuff published whether "AA or AAA" shipped IPs.

    Edit:
    Definitely no argument here specifically 2016 Max is my DCC unicorn 4ever, it's modifier stack was an absolute sublime thing of beauty to work with alongside TexTools as well. Which really helped keeping my head above water when grinding through Tim's tutes, rather than at present wrangling imho a substandard compromise out of Blender   :  /

    Edit Edit:
    This one bit OT but nonetheless CS6 is certainly another tool I've fond memories of   :  )
  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    ultimately, what makes you good is knowing what the mesh you're trying to make should look like - good tools make performing the operations you need to perform a lot quicker but even with the best tools in the world you're still going to be slow if you make the wrong decisions while you're building a thing. 
    Your decision making capacity is a matter of experience and once you have that experience you can become competent enough quite quickly in basically any tool. 


  • RaptorCWS
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    RaptorCWS polycounter lvl 12
    if its a big studio it really doesn't matter. the cost of max and maya is the same, bigger studios probably have a couple of extra seats of both just for dealing with assets from outsourcing. if you prefer working in blender make your portfolio in blender. its not hard to teach someone the pipeline to get something into engine so no serious person will turn someone down solely because they need to import to one dcc to export.
  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    Unless the studio's already committed to a multi-DCC pipeline that's not really the case.  people have to be able to work on each other's files so they all need access to all the tools -  that means not only buying licenses but also handling distribution, plugins, tooling etc.  
    It's a lot of work to maintain
  • Alemja
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    Alemja hero character
    I used to be a Max person, but I've touched it maybe once in the past 5 years. I really miss it, but it was clear around the time blender 2.8 released that Max just wasn't getting the love from Autodesk that Maya was, and a vast majority of studios use Maya for their DCC app because it had python support first and it's rigging pipe is still arguably the best. If a studio does have Max, it's for legacy reasons for the few things that still need it and their licenses are generally far more limited because why pay for something that isn't a major part of the pipeline? So I know quite a few Max people, including myself who have switched to Blender, which I think it's an easier transition going from Max to Blender than from Maya to Blender. Professionally I do all of my modeling in Blender, then unwrapping, skinning, integration and any final model polish in Maya. On personal projects, I just use Blender for all 3D software things except sculpting in Zbrush.

    What I try to tell people these days is at minimum know how to do basic things and navigate in Maya. If you are in a larger studio there is a great chance you will have to interface with it at some point. Even figuring out the right settings to get models imported into Maya correctly at the right scale/orientation can go a long way. Other than that, you can learn whatever program you want, and these days I would recommend Blender, simply because of the base program being free there is a good chance you can take it with you from place to place.


    Edit Edit:
    This one bit OT but nonetheless CS6 is certainly another tool I've fond memories of   :  )

    Kind of a side thing, but I have Photoshop CS5 and I've long said that Adobe can pry it out of my cold-dead hands. Well with them shutting down the authentication servers I have lost one of the 2 installs I could possibly use of CS5 with no way to free it. Turns out you now have to deactivate old CS5 and CS6 programs before you wipe your computer or uninstall it, something I never had to do before. So I guess a heads up to anyone else who have old versions of Adobe software, you'll need to do the same.


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