Hi

I'm finishing a very poor degree on 3d and animation where we did a bit of everything. Long story short I don't know a specific area and I want to concentrate on environments.

I'm used to work with Maya because that's what we use on campus but I keep seeing environment artists using Max. I'm kind of in a start from zero situation. Would you advice on learning Max for environment modeling or can i get by just fine with Maya ?

From what I understand Max seems geared toward modeling and i'm cool with learning a new package if it will save me time on the long run.

you can accomplish the same things in both maya and max, i work only on environments and prefer maya for most things, but i find max has better tools for doing more advanced modeling.

I myself am at university studying Games Design - making everything from characters to levels, particle systems, and HUDS. Everyone in my year uses MAX but I myself use Maya as I find it easier to use. However, I do switch to max for rendering, mapping my UV seams and the occassional complex geometry modelling.

But i still would choose maya over max :P

Sounds like a good opportunity to use learn another app and broaden your resume so you can apply at studios that use either. I started out using Maya and switched to Max. I love environment art even though I do character animation for a living now. I would use Maya again for animation but I would be giving up a lot of great techniques and shortcuts inside of max if I was to switch to Maya. I'm not saying it can't do some of the same things, they just aren't as refined or as easily adapted.

It's all about the art, not the tool. You can make amazing environment art in any 3d package. The industry is pretty split between Maya and Max. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, but they're so minor it's not worth switching apps to overcome them. Plus, the communities are so large that you can easily find scripts or plugins to overcome any shortfalls.

There are two hurdles to making great game art: The tools hurdle, and the art hurdle. The faster you can jump the tools hurdle and get that out of the way, the faster you can work on jumping the art hurdle and making great looking work. Stick with Maya and push it as far as you can. Employers want to see amazing looking artwork and don't usually care about how many packages you know. It's relatively easy to re-train somebody on a tool, it's excruciating to re-train somebody as an artist.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, I will stick with Maya but I am curious about Max so I will take a peek.

In the end I stand for what Harbinger said, and with Maya I am at least 40% away to pass that tool hurdle.

if your sticking with maya.. you can check out Ninja Dojo.. it is a set of tools for Maya that i have been working on for the past 6 or so years.

http://www.bk3d.com/Ninja_Dojo/Dojo.htm

there is also a video section there.. There are more videos on you tube.

Looks awesome, bookmarked !

I personally prefer max for modeling and maya for animation and rigging. In max I like how you can make a stack of modifiers while modeling. It remainds me a bit of photoshop layer system. You can always come back without loosing your final result.

i do like the Max stack was a Max user for years... Thats why i created a History Editory for Maya. works similar to Max being able to turn on and off history items.. i still need a good way to move history up and down the stack.

Ninja_Mesh (HistoryEditor) - YouTube