Let's put it this way: I interviewed at a studio a few months back and we were talking about their rigging system... I asked if they were using Biped and he said no and practically danced a jig. Obviously you could use CAT or PuppetShop or a custom solution; it's not like Autodesk is holding a gun to your head. But I still…
I think the environment artists use Maya because they have custom scripts to model and set dress everything in Maya, then the script takes the .ma file and converts it all into a engine readable format, then its thrust into their engine. At least that was my understanding of their process from the Lead Technical artist's…