3d max and maya, which one you prefer?

Have you considered Blender?

If you have but still rather invest on 3DSMax or Maya, all I can say is that Max is a pain to work with as a programmer, and sometimes as a makeshift modeler/animator, but thats just me, YMMV.

From what I understand, Max and Maya are pretty much on par for features. They are also incredibly expensive. (Last time I checked, a license for Maya was going for around $3,000).

The file format for Maya or Max really doesn't matter, as you will probably be running things through an exporter to get it into your game engine anyway.

Well, if you are a university student, you can by the educational versions of these programs with a 6 months (I'm not sure about this one) license for much less. (less then 300 as I recall).

But if you only want it to use for modelling but not for rendering and all the fancy stuff, go for Blender.

And it's truth, no matter how high-end MAX is, it lacks some pretty basic features and it even has bugs, some extremely annoying but (should be) easy to fix bugs.

... whichever one my artists ask to use. :)

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Original post by Moe From what I understand, Max and Maya are pretty much on par for features. They are also incredibly expensive. (Last time I checked, a license for Maya was going for around $3,000). The file format for Maya or Max really doesn't matter, as you will probably be running things through an exporter to get it into your game engine anyway.

Yup latest versions a lot more alike than not compared to older versions i.e. both come with mental ray renderer now, GUI a lot more similar ,etc.
Biggest difference that still sets them apart is that Maya is cross-platform whereas Max only runs on Windows so that may be a dealbreaker for some.

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Original post by Kwizatz Have you considered Blender?

+1. You can do pretty much anything easily with Blender these days. The major criticisms against it have been outdated for a few years now. You have to spend a LOT of money to get close to that functionality in other software.

It's very easy to work with. Only thing is that the python API for the new 2.5 version is still being finalized. So some scripts you write might break during the transition period, but they'd be easy to fix anyways.

And also, no software in the world is going to help you make NICE 3d models, no matter how much you pay for it. That takes talent, skill, and practice.

*cough*XSI*cough*

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Original post by Hodgman *cough*XSI*cough*

XSI sold out to Autodesk. The software is now called Autodesk SoftImage, and it cost in the same range as Max and Maya. There used to be a cheaper 500$ version, but they discontinued it shortly before the buyout.

Autodesk has bee buying everyone up these last few years.

There is also Modo, and a lot of people love the inexpensive modeler, Silo. But it just does modeling.

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Original post by Daaark Quote: Original post by Hodgman *cough*XSI*cough* XSI sold out to Autodesk. The software is now called Autodesk SoftImage, and it cost in the same range as Max and Maya. There used to be a cheaper 500$ version, but they discontinued it shortly before the buyout. Autodesk has bee buying everyone up these last few years. There is also Modo, and a lot of people love the inexpensive modeler, Silo. But it just does modeling.

If you are a student you can get Maya, Maya and XSI all in a single box now:
Autodesk Education Suite for Entertainment Creation 2011

Forget blender if you want to get hired - I have heard of people building entire production pipelines in blender but I think that's rare, most studios are going to want either Max and Maya experience. Maya is generally better IMO but there are lot of people who still prefer max. Maya has pretty awesome plugin support if you are doing your own code hookup to an engine.

If you are student then don't feel bad about getting a student / pirated copy of Maya instead of learning Blender as it works out better for Autodesk in the long run. When you do get hired by a company that has to pay the full price they will be buying the one you are most experienced with.

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Original post by daviangel If you are a student you can get Maya, Maya and XSI all in a single box now: Autodesk Education Suite for Entertainment Creation 2011

That's steep for what is effectively a box full of educational demos. Silo, for instance, is only $150 for the pro version, and $99 for the core version.

Those Autodesk programs are overkill for a lot of hobbyists, unless they are trying to train for a job at a company who uses those programs. They are end-all-be-all tools, and for people just wanting to make game models, they might never use or need 75% of the features.

There are lots of cheaper and free tools that can achieve the same results for game models. Lots of Autodesk users like to Unwrap UVs in Blender, and model in Silo anyways. XNormal for baking, and various other programs for sculpting details into those models.

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Original post by cammm Forget blender if you want to get hired - I have heard of people building entire production pipelines in blender but I think that's rare, most studios are going to want either Max and Maya experience.

If you can make awesome models in Blender then it's not hard to bring that knowledge over to another package. Knowing your modelling package well is only about 1 percent of being a great modeller, the rest is artistic and technical knowledge.

It's sorta like programming; most people stumble on the syntax at the beginning, but in the end the syntax is the easiest part to learn. Learning good software development practices, on the other hand, is what sorts the newbies from the pros.

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Original post by PlayfulPuppy Knowing your modelling package well is only about 1 percent of being a great modeller, the rest is artistic and technical knowledge. It's sorta like programming; most people stumble on the syntax at the beginning, but in the end the syntax is the easiest part to learn. Learning good software development practices, on the other hand, is what sorts the newbies from the pros.

I think modelling is a bit different than programming and it's much more than the 1 %.
The modellers are quite hard to master, a lot of functions, complicated GUI etc - versus the very minor differences in syntax between programming languages. You can be very talented artist, an amazing sculptor IRL etc., but if you cannot transform your vision to polygons (not just imagine how you would represent the shape with polygons, but really create them), you're lost.

I personaly don't know how similar the modelling techniques are in Blender versus Max/Maya, but I can imagine it could be even harder to adapt to Max when you're good in Blender than just starting with Max from the beginning.
But I repeat - I don't know how similar they are, I've used only one of them.

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Original post by Tom KQT But I repeat - I don't know how similar they are, I've used only one of them.

Modeling techniques involve proper edge looping, keeping a clean model, etc. It has NOTHING to do with the package you are using.

The technique is universal. Different programs have different features, but modeling is modeling. As long as you have an advanced enough modeling app that has all the proper commands, and doesn't only support triangles and simple manipulations on them.

It took me about a week to learn the features of MAX that I use today. If you encounter a particular problem, you can look it up. For me Photoshop is harder to use than MAX, because it didn't have built in tutorials (A have a pretty old version).

As others have mentioned, the tool is the least thing in modelling. Not 1% but not much more.

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Original post by Tom KQT I think modelling is a bit different than programming and it's much more than the 1 %. The modellers are quite hard to master, a lot of functions, complicated GUI etc - versus the very minor differences in syntax between programming languages. You can be very talented artist, an amazing sculptor IRL etc., but if you cannot transform your vision to polygons (not just imagine how you would represent the shape with polygons, but really create them), you're lost. I personaly don't know how similar the modelling techniques are in Blender versus Max/Maya, but I can imagine it could be even harder to adapt to Max when you're good in Blender than just starting with Max from the beginning. But I repeat - I don't know how similar they are, I've used only one of them.

Ah it wasn't a perfect analogy (And a bit of a hyperbolic percentage), but the main point is that the principles behind the modelling vastly outweigh the knowledge of a single modelling package.

I mean, hell, I started learning modelling on an old Quake model editor I've long since forgotten the name of.

I know that it was not listed among the possible choices but... what about Newtek Lightwave? It is full featured and costs way less than most of the other packages (around 1500$ IIRC). A new completely rewritten version is up to be released soon (and it promises wonders) so you might wait a little or buy it now and have the new edition for free or close.

IMHO, lightwave is still the best software when it comes to features vs. price (except Blender of course).

That said, Blender is something you should really consider before buying a commercial product.

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Original post by DaaarkModeling techniques involve proper edge looping, keeping a clean model, etc. It has NOTHING to do with the package you are using.

How can you say it? It has a lot to do with the package - because in the end you always have to be able to make it using the features of the package.

Of course you are right, the whole modeling process requires a lot from the artist, I think I could put it into three "levels":

1. Artistic feeling, talent.
2. Technical knowledge of the modeling techniques you mentioned (clean model, being able to keep the lowes number of polygons necessary etc.).
3. Knowledge of the modelling SW, being familiar with its features etc.


Without the 3rd point, you will never be able to show how great you are in 1st and 2nd...
(Without 2nd, you'll be probably able to make a nice-looking, but badly-working models. Without the 1st, you may be able to get on relatively well as long as you always get full artwork, but you never will be really good.)

That was the point of my post, nothing else ;)

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Original post by Tom KQT 3. Knowledge of the modelling SW, being familiar with its features etc.

This amounts to about half a dozen commands.

Scale, Rotate, Translate, Extrude, Cut New Edge Loop, etc. These are easily learned. The only difficult thing is overcoming the muscle memory from inputting the old hotkeys. Everything else is extra, but none of it required for modeling.

The polygonal modeling technique is similar in all packages. You could load up videos on Vimeo or Youtube that teach you how to model something in one package, and easily follow along in any other modeling package.