Max or Maya?
Question it looks like a lot of Companies are using Maya now when I first started doing CG four years ago I started in Max then I used Maya for a year and a half then I went back to Max modeling. all this was because of the schools that I went to and then graduated from after I left school this December they stated using Maya. I liked Maya but have gotten use to Max.
What is the main program houses are using and which one do the professionals use the most? Need help with this!
What is the main program houses are using and which one do the professionals use the most? Need help with this!
Replies
need animation ? Maya
That was easy :P
Also, tech talk.
We use Max for modelling and animate in Motionbuilder.
I browse a lot of UK game company websites/game job ads and the types of 3d software knowledge they look for I'd say is around 65% max, 30% maya and 5% other stuff.
Well, sorry to say this, but this goes to show just how heavily biased you are. I wish you could spend more time using various apps before assigned them a rank.
Let me explain. In my time using Max for UVmapping, the best advice I've been given from many Max users is to "use something else". This is usually one of the mini-apps you listed first. Max's UV mapping tools alone, are the worst I've ever used. IMHO, that puts it behind "every other program".
Then I'm going to go out on a limb and say you have no idea what you're talking about, and the people who told you to "use something else" also don't know what they're talking about. Max has some solid and powerful UV tools, if you don't know how to use them effectively it's your fault, not Max's.
Basically this a recurring theme in the 3d community - uninformed people making snap decisions on tools they don't know how to use... and those same uninformed people then informing other users about how terrible the tools were. Really, it's laughable.
"It's a poor artist that blames his/her tools."
I've used 3ds max and Maya, both to a level that I feel comfortable in their respective environments. I'm fairly confident that I could pick up just about any 3d app if it was required of me. You're going to fail right out of the gate if you already have some kind of predisposition about a certain app.
But yeah, 3dsmax seems the most common in the industry, for modeling at least, just keep an open mind and be ready to learn another software when moving around different companies. That's what happened to me, learned maya when switching jobs and I'm really happy I know both now, gives you a better view of how things could be better in one or the other.
First let me tell you empirically: on our Tech Art Techniques Panel at GDC this year, we polled the audience on what software they use. Last year, almost exactly half said Max, same said Maya, there were less than a dozen between everything else. This year, it was about the same.
The trend I have seen that is not backed up by empirical data but only my own observations, is that major studios have been and are moving from Max to Maya. We are one of very, very few EA studios (in fact I don't know of one other but I assume they exist) who use Max primarily. And Edmonton is starting to use Maya for future projects. The reason for this is clear- Max sucks at pipeline, which movie houses have known all along.
That said, there are two other trends I've noticed:
First, small studios tend to use Max. This is reflective of the talent pool and the usually older people starting them, and should be no suprise. It is uncommon that I've found a small (<30 people) studio using anything other than Max. But likewise, it is increasingly uncommon for big studios to use Max exclusively, as explained above.
Second, large studios, especially those who were using Max exclusively, are moving to split pipelines. Sometimes it is using Max for environment and Maya for animation/characters, as I know many studios do. Also some studios such as Voliiton and Bungie are becoming app agnostic, by writing abstracted tools in C# or Python, that are implemented in any program supporting .NET or Python.
Is there an easier more efficient way of doing this?
I would only start getting worried once you find out that someone else can UV-map the same model in half the time that you can. That would indicate that there are better ways...
Arghh, so many good reasons to switch from 8.5 to 2009, but I really, really don't want to because of my extreme hate of the viewcube and the amount of use I get out of the viewcompass...:poly127:
...Really need to get our scripting guy at work to teach me enough that I can hack together even a small floating menu to do what the viewcompass does...
Many studios use multiple packages these days, sometimes taking a 'whatever the artist is most comfortable with' approach, or other times having different teams on different projects useing certain packages. I havn't seen any major shifts where package X is being abandoned for package Y, and if that does happen in the future I doubt it'll be between max or maya.
Mythic uses max, I'm a former Maya user but I'm not sure how happy I'd be going back to it.
Yup.
Took me less than a week to get the fundamentals.
There's also plenty of cross-platform documentation written, along with plenty of scripts that will help you emulate one or the other.
But yeh, I'm also seeing quite the trend of studios switching from Max to Maya.
It's unclear to me how many studios use this or that application. I took a job at Radical without having hardly ever used Maya. I just had to learn it real quick like
recently and they used max exclusively.
I find max and maya fairly similar anyway, so it s never caused me a huge problem switching
between the two.
For me having a good realtime view of the model is one of the most important things. Max's viewport beats the hell out of Maya's in nearly every way
One lesson I learned, if the art test doesn't specify what program to use, don't ask!
My studio uses both, but we do a lot of work for different companies that uses either Max or Maya. A lot of companies will have a primary production package, but often let artists use other tools somewhere along the pipeline.
My suggestion, is look what the job listings are asking for in your area. If 80% of them ask for Maya experience, focus on that. If it's Max... Same thing.
actura000- IMO y0ou are so wrong, having workied in max for years, gone to maya for 2 then back to max, mayas unwrapper totally wipes maxes face in the dirt for speed. add roadkill into the mix which works way better than any of maxes tools, and you can unwrap complex models in minutes.
but back to topic- its the knowledge of restrictions and artistic skill that will get you hired not the package you can use.
I use max
If you're talking about relax crumpling up a UV piece like it was a piece of tinfoil in a twister, then you first need to flip the piece. More then likely the piece is inside out or wrong reading. Select > Select Inverted Faces. Whatever it highlights it will try to flip it right reading while it relaxes. That's probably the least documented most common "bug" people run into when using 3dsmax.
Oh yeh does anyone no if theres a toggle shaded uv display equivalent in Max, where it shows which uvs are flipped and which is stacked ontop of each other.