3D Software Wars: Maya vs 3DS Max
I would appreciate comments from anyone who can venture an opinion on the virtues of 3DS Max as opposed to Maya. Or vice versa. I understand that each of these software packages has its assets and limitations. I'd like to hear from others on this!
It's interesting to note that Autodesk has purchased Maya, so now these two competitors are both owned by Autodesk. I wonder if they will eventually be merged into one product, or end up going very separate ways.
I'm especially interested in any comments relevant to working with architectural models.
I would also be delighted to hear from anyone who has worked with Catia, and would appreciate comments on Catia's relevance to architectural modeling. It would also be great to hear from any of my classmates who are especially interested in learning Catia.
Thanks in advance!
posted by Freya @ 11:36 AM
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5 Comments:
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Check out the Open Source application Blender (http://blender.org/) and an example of an animation created with Blender called "Elephants Dream" (http://www.elephantsdream.org/)
People are asking me just what kind of comments I'm looking for. If you have used these software packages, or even heard comments from users, and can comment on WHY a particular product might be a better choice for a particular purpose, that helps. If you can comment on differences between packages, such as "Maya and Max are similar but Lightwave is a different ballgame," that helps. Your perception of the products is helpful information to share, whether it's Maya or Max or SoftImage or Blender or whatever. Thanks!
Having used both Max and Maya, I believe both programs have strengths and weaknesses. When I first used Max and Maya, I found it difficult to switch between the programs. While both did essentially the same thing, (lighting, modeling, animation, and rendering,) both programs insisted on using different vocabulary terms to describe similar commands. Maya, in particular uses some very obscure vencular. ie Orthographic views for window views. Hypershade for Texture Editor.
Having used Max for modeling, lighting, animating, and rendering I find that it is a good all around 3d program. Is it going to create architecture as clean CADD or render as well as RenderMan? No, but I can see why so many gaming companies in Dallas use Max. It's a very handy workhorse, plus, you don't need to click a menu button to just import a mocap file, something that Maya used to require until recently.
That's not to say I hate Maya. I don't. However I use it more for animation than form modeling. The trax editor are and character sets are handy.
Cleaning up animation seems also easier in Maya. The graphic's curve seem more sensitive and responsive to tweaks. However it's much easer for me to rig and skin in Max. In the latter you can scale the bones to fit thte model better, plus the skinning command is in colour so you can see more clearly how much the bones affect the model's areas.
For myself, the perfect 3d program would have the animation ability of Maya, the modeling capability of xsi and the interface of Max. This program would also be able to light it's own scenes without default ambient lighting!
I see that I'm straying from this blogs point, what is Discreet going to do with Maya? Last year I attended the Maya road show and they had representatives say that Discreet would not make Maya dissapear. I beleive that, however, I also believe that Discreet will no longer allow Personal Learning editions of Alias software. After all, Discreet doesn't have shareware of Max and its other programs.
More than likely, I think Max will start to look and act like Maya, the newer editions of Max have started to ressemble Maya interfaces. If Maya dissapeared from the face of the Earth it won't happen anytime soon. Too many companies use that program.
Adobe bought out Macromedia some time ago and Freehand still coexists with Illustrator. It might be the same for Max and Maya.
Ir's just a thought.
You didn't stray at all, June, the first part of your post is exactly the kind of opinion I'm looking for! These are important things to think about. Anyone else? Opposing viewpoints? Additional thoughts?
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