Maya 2017 and Maya 2018 have a been a huge improvement. It now has a lot of features that Max has, so I'm pretty happy with it. it finally does extrude with shift. It took over a decade for Autodesk to add this.
Sorry not for edit poly. You'll need a script. There's a bunch of INI files in: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2014 - 64bit\ You can open them up and change some defaults around.
I'm not sure... it could've been this thread: achieving realism: using Autodesk Photofly Which was a spinoff from this one: Generating game geometry with simple photographs In which case you want: http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/photo_scene_editor/
IFL is an old Autodesk format, so maybe now they'll implement support for it in Maya, but I doubt it, it's just a text file. There must be an analogue for it in Maya, it's just a list of the images to play back... Image File List.
just remember most autodesk products aren't even supported yet on windows 7, maya 2009 definitely isn't. if yours is an official copy there will be a 64-bit installer on the disc, use that and update your graphics driver
Those poker chips are cool. This isn't really game shwag, but Autodesk gave away some of those little 64MB usb drives at a sales event we went to yesterday. Reminded me of the MS no-show freebies.
What would be really cool is if Autodesk sold older versions of Max/Maya/whatever at a reduced price. They might be able to get more legitimate users that way. On the other hand companies might not upgrade as often if that was an option.
It seems like unity can do platformers decently, and autodesk even has a couple of tutorials for working with max and unity for a platformer http://area.autodesk.com/tutorials?word=unity&where=1&software=1&tutotips=&level=
Like all autodesk software its completely out of touch with modern workflow and techniques. You'l be hard pressed to find any game studio using mudbox. Substance is a must have skill if you're interested in doing this
I really hope so. a little outside pressure for autodesk would be healthy. I notice there are bend and twist modifiers now. anyone tried using these for general modelling tasks, like you would with the stack in max.