I locked myself in a dark room with Maya ple, lots of coffee and some exensive but woefully written books (cough, cough*officialaliasbooksshouldchecksteps*cough) only popping out to grab a better book.

I need moral support and encouragement. Its dark in here and I havent got any apparent modelling tools in here with me.

Dave

heya, I'm doing the exact same thing. I'm pretty ok with polygonal modelling so far, going to move on to UV unwrapping. The modelling tools aren't fantastic, so be sure to check out mj poly tools.

You know what's my inspiration? I just think of all the cool cg creatures created in maya for film. That gets me going... king kong anyone? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Ive been switched to maya for a few months now and its finally starting to smooth out, to the point where I actually prefer a couple of features to the way max does it.. a couple [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]. You probably know the suggested plugins to use, mjpolytools/ byrons bevel (that right?), and theres a script to detatch selected from polygon object I think from highend 3d. After becoming familiar with mayas stack equivalent however I have begun to loath it.. The history function will pile up a load of useless unusable shit that slows your scene and swells your filesize, and its not always apparent in the outliner, and delete all history is occasionally untrustworthy. export selected then import into a new scene is a frequent operation in my office. I do sympathise [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

But once you mentally connect all mayas equivalent jargon and processes to the way max does it you'll be flying by in no time [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Oh sweet Maya, how I miss thee....

I started to switch, but PLE bothers me to no end. Since I was on a few mods at the time I needed something that was functional. The only thing PLE let me do was make crappy watermarked renders. I was using G-max and Milkshape to do mod work, it was disheartening but not as much as PLE.

Since a full (legit) copy of Max7 all but fell in my lap, I stopped trying to learn PLE. Functionality wins for form this time. Good luck! I know I liked what I started to use. It could see it being a really fast tool to use. I liked how it was geared more toward I would imagine a 3D should be like if I was to make one from scratch.

I'm switching from Max to Maya as well... need to learn it for my new job. Some things I'm finding tedious. Right now I'm learning from Lynda.com's "Maya 6.5 Essential Training" which is pretty good for learning the basics of the program... unfortunately I don't think it covers UV Unwrapping, so I'll have to find something else to learn that from. I'm thinking the Gnomon DVD for game character UV Mapping should be good.

Anyway, have fun Dave.

I'm planning the exact same torment iover xmas while klienluka sleeps.

I tried learning maya once. Kinda gave up after I ended up getting headaches, and sick to my stomach after trying it too much...migraines, maybe? Now,I've tried downloading the PLE version again, but my computer won't download it fully...

I find the Max-Maya prognostication very interesting. Does anyone have any theories as to why Autodesk would continue to develop both platforms? From a practical perspective, it seems to me that creating a unified platform would be cheaper for them in the long run (one development team, one tech support system, etc), and that a hybridization between the two would keep users from drifting off towards a third competitor. Name recognition seems like a non-factor, everyone in the industry knows Max as well as Maya. What is Autodesk's incentive to develop two products that do almost identical tasks?

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Does anyone have any theories as to why Autodesk would continue to develop both platforms?

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I had a talk with an Autodesk representative last week. He confirmed what I had assumed they would do. They'll develope Max with a focus on games, and Maya with a focus on film...since that is the strong points for each already. They may also develope MotionBuilder to work more closely with Max.

Interesting, so as games become closer to movie quality what will happen?

I think we're as close to movie quality as we're going to get, Vig. Stuff like Gears of War or Metal Gear 4 are as 'movie-like' as it can get.
I doubt that cpu's and gpu's will ever be powerful enough to push millions of polys and gig's of texture data for a single character, as most cg films do. If they ever do, I'll be old and grey when it happens [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Good luck, I made the switch from Max to Maya seven years ago and cringe at the thought of the stack now. I found learning Maya through the help file pretty straight forward. Also for anyone one wanting to learn pretty much any 3d app or fps shite proprietary modeling tool I suggest the video tutorials on 3dbuzz.com