Autodesk Maya 08 or 09

[nick3d]

Autodesk have been selling a program called Maya for many of years now, they haven't long released a new 1. (Maya 09) I was wondering if people could give me there own opinions on which 1 is better out of 08 or 09 on there own opinions, i currently use Maya 08 and my mate uses Maya 09 and i tried it out but it feels like I'm starting again with my design knowledge :S

[Con]

I still use maya 6.0 *shrug* I'm interested to hear about these newer versions, wondering if I should upgrade or not.

[DEElekgolo]

I think they are focusing more on 3ds max. Giving it XSI features and other random stuff.

[Anton]

What were the XSI features given to it? I'm curious. I know the Graphite toolset was from PolyBoost though.



Also go with 09. I love the new selection features such as step through with faces and edges.

[nick3d]

Whats step through with faces,
I tried it out down my mates today as well I'm not that much for that thing when you move the vertices and the other vertices around it move automatically, gets a bit complicated if you want to change how something looks to be honest

[Anton]

I don't know the true name/terminology for the tool but you can select one face and go down the same row and double click another face and it will select the entire row of faces.

Just use the application you find easiest and are more comfortable with.

[nick3d]

sounds quite good to be honest

[Warsaw]

I still don't know what the purpose of having two 3D modeling programmes is...

Somebody please enlighten me what the strengths of one over the other are, besides massive plug-in support for 3DSMax...

[Phopojijo]

I still don't know what the purpose of having two 3D modeling programmes is...

Somebody please enlighten me what the strengths of one over the other are, besides massive plug-in support for 3DSMax...The major thing Maya has going for it is MELScript tied into a robust physics engine amongst other things... basically a lot of things that 3DSMax needs plugins (or whole versions) to do... Maya gets with a MelScript that's generally compatible with just about every version.

Example -- when peltmapping was introduced to 3d Studio Max... Maya got it a couple weeks later (3rd party) in a Melscript for like -- the prior 3 versions -- by hacking the physics engine into doing a bunch of spring calculations and linking it into the UV texture editor.

Maya also integrates better (or did last I checked) with Pixar Renderman and nVidia Gelato and other major renderers.

Also, Maya has (debatably like everything) a much better animation editor built in.

***

As for why *I* put my 400+$ in it... it's got very different layout compared to 3d Studio Max. It's more about custom shelves, keyboard/rightclick command roses (see Battlefield 2's command rose), minimalism. That fit **my** method of learning best.

Results vary -- and some people just plain work better in one package rather than the other.

[Warsaw]

Ah, I see. So games typically use Max and film uses Maya?

I've used the stripped down versions of both (GMax and Maya PLE), and I did notice the difference in interface...I liked Maya's method better.

[Phopojijo]

... not really.

That ends up being mostly the case but more by fluke than anything... just find out what suits your needs better.

[Hunter]

3ds max ftw nick. You should make it work on your laptop seems as it wont, I am sure you will like it once you are used to it.

I have not tryed maya, when I was watching you use it it seemed like there where to many tools to do all of the work for you, I prefer to do it manually. Lol.

[Phopojijo]

... no, Maya's actually all about minimalism. You really only use like -- 5 tools to get the job done...

... granted everyone uses different 5 tools but still.

[nick3d]

I use most of the tools on maya 08, not 5 seperate 1's, like what hunter saw in college, i use practically as much as i can XD

[PenGuin1362]

Ah, I see. So games typically use Max and film uses Maya?

I've used the stripped down versions of both (GMax and Maya PLE), and I did notice the difference in interface...I liked Maya's method better.


Incorrect actually. More and more game companies require that you are well versed in Maya. For quite a few companies it does not matter whether you know maya or max but a few leading companies require Maya over Max. In fact most colleges which over development courses are even using Maya as opposed to Max. So if you're looking to get into the industry learning max is fine, but once you proficient in Max it'd be wise to expand your skills into Maya.