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'm wondering why people are doing this... maya is not going to be upgraded past version 7 as far as I know.

you can do it!

/moral support

[ QUOTE ]
maya is not going to be upgraded past version 7 as far as I know.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where did you get that info from? Is that reliable or did some bloke in the pub say it?

The most obvious answer is that you often need to know Maya to work in film and a lot of other forms of pre-rendered CG ( many games studios use it too ). Currently that is, unless your source is reliable.

Good luck Dave, learning new software is a pain. I'm sure you'll find the poly tools sorely lacking out of the box. There are tools available to make up the difference as stated tho.

haven't found this yet in Maya, but I stumbled across a mel script for..... TARGET WELD!!!! O-M-G! No more, snap, move, weld. Now its all in one, like in MAX [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Get it on this page:
http://www.users.on.net/~neilandbron/

Just found it so I haven't played around with it yet. Oh, and if there is target weld in maya now and I'm just stupid and haven't found it then let me know.

I'm gonna have to try and set up a marking menu to work like a quad menu. If anyone already knows if this has been done then please post a link.

aah nice one! I've been snapping all my verts then just group-select welding them afterward with a tiny threshhold so-far

I heard from a rep from Discreet as he sat in my office that they are going to continue to develop Maya & Max both as seperate products and almost nothign will change. He did say they will try to make the two programs work together in some respects.
Of course, his card says "Territory Sales Manager" so I don't know how "in the loop" he is.

I really wish I could say what I know, but I can't or I'd probably be dissapeared by some shadowy figures in the night. I can say though don't worry about either going poof. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Go Dave! learn maya! Learn to love Maya! and remeber Maya doesn't crash as frequent!



ps. I took u're tips and tricks for max at GDC a few years back.

Mr. Max is learning Maya. I'm pretty impressed. If you get stuck or need to know a certain tool don't hesitate to ask. Yeah, the official Alias books are pretty outdated. They really need to overhaul all of their books. Some recent DVDs have gotten better I heard though.

I keep MayaPLE on my desktop for days I'm bored and feel like learning a little. Coming from an XSI workflow, I've found learning many of the basics in Maya to be very easy. They're similar in design. Except Maya is covered in icons.

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?

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

mr_rockstar, I think it's funny you say that because I heard the exact same thing about Max, I think they announced it at Siggraph this year that Max will stop at version 8?

Dave, it took me two weeks to get fluent, and two more to get production quality with it, and then two years and there are still things I don't now about the program. The problem with Maya is that it is deep and secretive, and rewards a certain gearhead mentality. it also encourages specialization in tasks. I used the book Learning Maya6: Basics. and the "Quick Start" Guide. and that helped. but mostly do those, and the video tutorials (running on the second screen on the work machine and copying every lesson, no matter how stupid or elementary. Learned Z-Brush the same way.

Scott

Getting marking menu motions memorized as 2nd nature was an unanticipated benefit from Maya. Selecting rings, loops and deleting/splitting with the a few quick, short mouse motions is great. Kinda like being a wizard. Of polys. Or something. (anyone know what I'm talking about or do I just sound crazy?)

How do you guys work around the selection tool selecting polygons behind the ones visible and closest to you on screen. For example selecting the chest of a character from the front would also select the shoulder blade and would carry on selecting to the character behind that and the character and so on? Do you just have go rotate the view and deselect what you don't want after the initial selection or is there another way.

Aaah, the transition! Keep going Dave, it will all be worth it. Realise the power of being able to sub-object edit two, or more, seperate meshes simultaneously!
Maya I miss you, please come home soon [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]