Well perhaps the most unexpected and controversial events in the 3d world happened yesterday... AutoDesk (Makers of 3d Studio Max) bought out Alias (Makers of Maya) for about $187 million in cash! This will definatly have profound effects on the animation industry within the next few years, yet to be seen if this will be positive or negative.
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www.MattOrnstein.com
Character Animator - Lucas Arts
Yep, first Macromedia now Alias. What next!
I kind of like this.
From all my reasearch and looking up jobs posted for game studios it seems Maya tends to be the animator program and Max tends to be the modeler program.
I have been well trained in 3d max, and really like it. I have dabbled a BIT in maya. Havnt had a Maya class yet. i will soon though. so i really dont know why its used a lot more for animation. I dont see whats wrong with what Max has going for it.
Both their skills will be combined. Make each a bit more similar and compatible.
"who wouldn't want to make stuff for me? I'm awesome." -Bloo
Yeah, with out mods, Maya isn't well known for it's modeling. Max on the other hand isn't well known for it's extensibility. They both have their place in the biz.
The big potential problem is how many companies like ILM, Sony, Weta, etc. significant money and time invested in pipelines built around Maya. Of course, the same can be said of the game industry and their use of Max.
The question is, will they try to continue both, combine them or just ditch one of them? Combining them won't make too many people happy as one style of working is adopted over another(or even possible considering the proprietary tools writen around them both), dropping one over the other is likely to make even more people upset, and I have a hard time imagining them keeping both of them running, but that seems to be the best solution.
Crazy times. Crazy times.
Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com
Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight
I'm about to take the plunge into 3D...saving my pennies to build a decent PC (which seems strange, being a Mac guy!) and have been weighing the pro's and cons of both software packages...and now this happens! Sheesh!
3D Studio Maya?
Splatman:D
SPLAT digital
I think this just makes Softimage:XSI that bit more attractive. I think Autodesk may have just become the 'microsoft' of the computer graphics world. They now own the 2 biggest programs in the industry, and in my view, that's too much power. The official word is they're going to continue with both programs, but it would seem not forever.
they stated they would keep both. Like some sort of suite thing, yah know. like adobe suites and junk.
Maybe they will slowly combine them or slowly give each more specific differences.
"who wouldn't want to make stuff for me? I'm awesome." -Bloo
If you're interested in the film biz without a doubt Maya. Games, Maya or Max. Most use Max, but many are slowly going to Maya.
If you can't decide, I'd say Maya. Most companies list Maya as a prerequisit or a substitute for one. Rarely is Max listed as an alternate. It's kind of like learning Flame/Inferno and being able to go use any other compositing software out there.
Every company I've worked at uses Maya, and many have proprietary software in addition. Having known Maya, it wasn't difficult to switch to another app once I got the user interface down.
And even if they suddenly discontinue it, it has defined the standards in the industry for the foreseeable future (next 2-3 years at least).
Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com
Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight
kdiddy, if you are pretty fluent with Max how easy would you say it is to learn maya?
Is there really much of a difference? I hear its just a matter of knowing where things are between the 2.
"who wouldn't want to make stuff for me? I'm awesome." -Bloo
I don't honestly know, since I haven't used Max very much (and I mean much at all). From what I understand, Max doesn't have nearly as many 'options' for you to get caught up in. As one friend, frustrated with learning an app as complicated as Maya for his first 3D program related it, (and this is paraphrasing) "Max has the advantage of doing alot of the magic behind the scenes without the user being able to mess things up to badly. Maya on the other hand has everything out in the open for the newuser to stick his/her foot into." It can be a great software to start with if you don't know the first thing about 3D, and on top of that, it's very capable.
That's where the power, and difficulties with using Maya are. You can do anything you can do in Maya with Max (and sometimes easier) with a little trickery. Maya on the other hand, is very extensible, if you can think it up there's probably a way to do it. I've heard rumors of a programmer at alias proving it by programming Maya to play Tetris. A bit of an overkill, but I think you get my point.
Based off of every job listing and every recruiter I've ever spoken with, if you can do it in Maya, you can personally work in any other 3d application out there. Not necessarily true with Max. Maya is an industry standard at the moment. If you're considering anything except the video game industry, I would highly recommend learning Maya. If you aren't sure, I'd recommend Maya. If you're positive all you want to do is games, then Max would be a viable option.
Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com
Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight
Yah, our school doesnt teach maya very much. But there are classes on it. I havnt taken those yet. They come a bit later, i should be starting them pretty soon.
"who wouldn't want to make stuff for me? I'm awesome." -Bloo
Cool. Learning Max won't hurt you. Maya is great, but isn't all that's out there. I'd even recommend (for anyone else reading this thread) that if you wanted to work on a smaller scale that Lightwave is well thought of as well. Maya just makes it very easy for the big guys to extend it for their pipeline and needs, so it's kind of become an industry standard by imitation (everyone wants to say they're using the same tools as Industrial Light and Magic, Sony and Weta).
Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
www.galaxy12.com
Now with more doodling!
www.galaxy12.com/latenight
what's exciting is if adobe buys out autodesk
makes maya and max plug-in filters for photoshop
then microsoft buys autodesk and renames
photoshop into microsoft paint.
and it comes with explorer.
Don't worry. All shall be well.