Maya or Max

[Axx]

Note i placed Maya first, reason being, I believe Maya is the high end 3d users way to salvation. On the other hand, i think max should be shreaded, and its remains burnt.

Getting serious, me and horadium were having a little convo about this, he was getting rather pissed about me "strongly suggesting" maya to jasiek, who works with some game engine or somthing to create his model.

My point was that maya has undoubtfully overwhelmed max in the cg industry, particularly movies, where i know of no large studio that uses max primarily. He argued that max was more popular, and that it was more user friendly, somthing i said was complete bull, i listed some reasons.

Now, to all 3d artists, who may have got a chance to work in both programs, please share with us your points of view on either program. If you have not worked with both, or neither of them, you opinions on the matter are still welcomed.


-Ahmad

[edit] can some moderator please include a poll, whith 3 options, maya, max, niether, and the question being : which is the ultimate 3d program?

[Darkflame]

Basicaly, Max is far more popular in Games, Maya far more popular in movies. (also Lightwave is sometimes used as an alternative for Maya in films)

There isnt a easy comparison, as they both have different stengths.
Max's biggest strength over Maya is its vastely better online support...theres far more custom plugins, scripts, add-ons,render systems, new materials ect. (same good stuff http://www.maxplugins.de/)
It seems either Max is easier to code stuff for, or there is less liesence restrictions.
This probably makes it popular for games.

Maya's strength over Max is its reliability, Max hasnt been rebuilt from scratch in ages, and thus has quite a few bugs hanging about.
Max7 was a rather pathetic update, that only seemed to be two things: Game-engine realtime viewing (Dx9 Materials, Bump ect), and bug fixs
Which is a bit much to ask people to pay for imo.

Interface is just subjective, I personaly love Max's Modifier stack system.

[LBAWinOwns]

Well, my friend says maya owns so .... but its not my vote so i wont vote >_<

[ChaosFish]

Btw this is quite a mess creating a poll to an existing thread, so try to avoid forgeting it next time

[Horadrim]

Axx,if you didn`t noticed my nick is HORADRIM not horadium.

[Axx]

so what?


Darkflame-
You know what i hate about maya, when you render the screen goes white if the status window pops up:P

I actually see maya doing quite well in the gaming iindustry. Its become everyday news that you hear of a new company adopting maya. Konami dropped max for maya, No-cliche droped softimage for maya. But then again, Max was used for games like GTA, Starcraft. Maya was used for games like tar Fox Adventures, Tomb Raider 5, Super Metroid Prime, Gran Turismo, Myst 3, and Star Wars Bounty Hunter, and lightwave for UT2003, Deus Ex, Quake 3, Halo, MechWarrior, Fallout, Diablo, Baldur's Gate, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and others (research by some other guy)
I think in the gaming industry they all do the same, maya just has a massive edge in the movie/advertising industry, they simply killed the competition from a long way back. Something i had read about in a 3ds max book (the animation one i told you about a long way back, advanced animation volume 3 or somthing was the title)

About strenghts, i think its mayas customizability and user friendliness, as well as integrated options like mayas artisian paint, fur, cloth, hair,liquid,and other features in the maya unlimited package. They are amazing tools, that have no competition. Max's equivilents where hardly as powerfull and manipulatable.

[Horadrim]

so what?

So buy yourself glasses...

[Lightwing]

Erm, from what I've heard, Maya is a solidly built tool for CG Imaging, and though I have never ever seen Maya I can say that:

3DMax can do such things, that I would not DARE to call it something worthy of being dissected to shreads and burnt.

Either you've spent very little time with 3dMax or you have some pet peeves with it, in which cases that's part of your own personal taste.

P.S. You forgot that WarCraft3 (the game with one of the most brilliant CGI cut scenes) used 3DsMax.

[Horadrim]

Axx,LightWave was used in UT2003, Deus Ex, Quake 3, Halo, MechWarrior, Fallout, Diablo,
Baldur's Gate nad Rollercoaster Tycoon,not Maya.
When you search for "proofs" better look several times what`s written.
I suppose you took your info from this link http://www.idevgames.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3367

If a man like you,starts a thread for arguments for which software is better,then it`s better to be prepeared beforehand.Your knowledge is restricted only at your Maya,from which you`re obsessed,so you look Maya everywhere.

I could hardly say which developers used which program for their games,since every developer keeps the development process in a secret.The only thing that prooves that for example 3DS MAX is used for the models in Warcraft III is that the guys from Blizzard released a plugin pack for 3DS MAX (plugin for exporting of characters or static meshes and materials for the Warcraft III engine).
I think even that thi guy has been wrong when he said that for Quake 3 was used LightWave. ID software are using 3DS MAX from years,the md2 ( Quake2),md3(Quake3) and md5 (Doom3) export/import plugins for 3DS MAX are prooving this.

[Axx]

Axx,LightWave was used in UT2003, Deus Ex, Quake 3, Halo, MechWarrior, Fallout, Diablo,
Baldur's Gate nad Rollercoaster Tycoon,not Maya.

Originally Posted by Axx

and lightwave for UT2003, Deus Ex, Quake 3, Halo, MechWarrior, Fallout, Diablo, Baldur's Gate, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and others

My post makes that very clear. Also, i said "reasearch ny some other guy" so yes I did not claim credit. Man i think your the one who needs galasses, mine was a typo, yours are straight out blind. Stop with the personal arguments and accusations, or i will have you reported to the moderators.

3DMax can do such things, that I would not DARE to call it something worthy of being dissected to shreads and burnt.
I was j/k, trying to get your attention knowing this forum is a 3ds max base.
Either you've spent very little time with 3dMax or you have some pet peeves with it, in which cases that's part of your own personal taste.
If you recall, all my older modells where done in max, i will study it more later on.
P.S. You forgot that WarCraft3 (the game with one of the most brilliant CGI cut scenes) used 3DsMax.
The cg was done in maya :P Im not too sure about the games themselves, but it is quite possible they work using both, or that i am mistaken. Also, theyre so secretive.

[Battler]

Maya, because yaz0r uses it, and I can only trust those 3-D programs, that yaz0r uses.

[Reek]

Dear people,
I'm trying to export an object to .mov on Maya, but I get an error message
"could not save file", while it easily exports the animation to Maya binary (.mb) without trouble.

Can anybody help?

[Battler]

- Anakin: There is only one member of the MBN, who can help you with Maya. His name is Vincent Hamm, but he's more know as yaz0r.

[Axx]

Originally Posted by OBrasilo

- Anakin: There is only one member of the MBN, who can help you with Maya. His name is Vincent Hamm, but he's more know as yaz0r.

OI there are two people, vincet and myself :P i use maya aswell.

Anakin, you trying to batch render a scene? As far as i am aware, .mov do not store information on computer generated geometry, and animations.

As for batch rendering, maya can be a pain, but that settings for that vary depending on the renderer (maya has 2 engines, the maya engine (includes vector and hardware rendering, as well as software rendering) and the mental ray engine (superiour in every way, plus 10x faster with raytracing options on)

[Horadrim]

Originally Posted by Axx

Axx,LightWave was used in UT2003, Deus Ex, Quake 3, Halo, MechWarrior, Fallout, Diablo,
Baldur's Gate nad Rollercoaster Tycoon,not Maya.



My post makes that very clear. Also, i said "reasearch ny some other guy" so yes I did not claim credit. Man i think your the one who needs galasses, mine was a typo, yours are straight out blind. Stop with the personal arguments and accusations, or i will have you reported to the moderators.

3DMax can do such things, that I would not DARE to call it something worthy of being dissected to shreads and burnt.
I was j/k, trying to get your attention knowing this forum is a 3ds max base.
Either you've spent very little time with 3dMax or you have some pet peeves with it, in which cases that's part of your own personal taste.
If you recall, all my older modells where done in max, i will study it more later on.
P.S. You forgot that WarCraft3 (the game with one of the most brilliant CGI cut scenes) used 3DsMax.
The cg was done in maya :P Im not too sure about the games themselves, but it is quite possible they work using both, or that i am mistaken. Also, theyre so secretive.

I didn`t noticed the lightwave thing,but anyway who cares,the point is that you`re using other people`s information,which is not very correct (for the info I mean).It is hard to say which developer is using which program,because as everyone knows they`re keeping everything in a secret and we could only brainstorm around that theme,until the developers themself don`t show something that could help us to find the right answer.
I don`t know what reasons you have for reporting me (and what to report) to the moderators and I don`t want to know either,but I could tell you that I have much more reasons to report you.Firstly you`re very arogant with me and with the other people,which I don`t like.You don`t accept advices or contrast opinions of your own.I also suppose that you typed my nick wrong just because you wanted to provoke me and your answer prooves this.And finally you called me blind.
When I told you that this conversations between me and you in the Jasiek`s thread are useless and I don`t want to continue with them you didn`t stopped to provoke me.And because of your search for attention you even started this thread,just to provoke me and to show yourself as a victim.

[TheMagicalElephant]

Maya is the choice of professional movie and CG animation makers, MAX is mostly for game makers. In my opinion , mostly because Maya succeeded to kill competition quite some time ago, so the industry is just keeping the momentum.

I worked abit with Maya, and tons with MAX. I can tell from my expirience that Max just seems very intuitive for low polygon count models (Which are mainly suitable for games).

Now, I'm sure a MAX professional user and a Maya professional user will be both convinced that their software is the best. And I'm pretty sure that they will both be able to do the exact same things with same efficiency and speed.

And This brings me back to the initial thought. The reason that Maya is so popular in the CG industry, is because a whole generation of professionals was trained in it, and Maya evolved more in the direction they were leading it (As you probably know, most software development processes are greatly affected by it's users' requirements).

On other hand, you can clearly see that MAX was developed with more thinking of game developers. Just take a look at it's render abilities (How they started to evolve only in the later versions) versus it's modelling abilities development.

[Darkflame]

Originally Posted by Axx

As for batch rendering, maya can be a pain, but that settings for that vary depending on the renderer (maya has 2 engines, the maya engine (includes vector and hardware rendering, as well as software rendering) and the mental ray engine (superiour in every way, plus 10x faster with raytracing options on)

Yes, Max also has Mental Ray built in, as well as its default Scanline Raytracer. (Its scanline renderer is actualy pretty darn good quality wise, but s.l.o.w...about the only thing it cant do is caustics

you shouldnt dismiss plug-in ones either though, Brasil is good, and even V-ray can be usefull.

I got my conclusion of Max being used more in the games industary by looking at Adverts for Jobs in Edge and Online.
There is more requireing Max as a skill then Maya, allthough many list both.

Also, I suspect a lot of the Maya requirements are for game cutscenes and the ingame stuff is still mostly Max.

Max was used for Neverwinter Nights (this is an educated guese seeing as all the tools for it are max-focused), so its odd that Buldars Gate was done in Maya, unless it was just the cutscene work again.

[Jasiek]

Originally Posted by Axx
Axx,LightWave was used in UT2003, Deus Ex, Quake 3, Halo, MechWarrior, Fallout, Diablo, Baldur's Gate nad Rollercoaster Tycoon,not Maya.

How could Baldurs Gate be made in a 3D program ? That game only uses sprites and hand painted backgrounds (not even pre-rendered CG graphics - But I can be incorrect)( But the game kicks ass nevertheless ! ) The same for fallout and Diablo

[ChaosFish]

I think Axx meant the FMV's of these games.

[Horadrim]

Jasiek and ChaosFish,Just like Diablo Baldur`s Gate is a 2D game.The point is that firstly the characters and the environment were modelled in a 3D modelling program.Then rendered like simple images and imported in the 2D space of the engine they use.
About the characters the different thing istead of the static objects is that their movement actually is rendering of various keframes.

[Axx]

Darkflame:- Ok i believe youve atleast tried out maya, what do you think of the user friendliness. The 3d artist, i think you know who im talking about, that worked in max and maya (and is a fan of max) noted that in maya the speed at which you can change windows, and change between zoom, pan, and rotate, is quite impressive.

He also noted that both could achieve the same results, somthing i am sure of.

Horadrim:
You take everything the wrong way, absolutly everything. Im not some damn little kid trying to pick a fight for fukes sake, why the fuck would i wanna provoke you. Look at your reply to the other guy in jasieks thread? that didnt seem so friendly, and niether did your posts to me. Arogance is one thing, i dont take what i said to be arrogant, i merely state my opinion, as you do yours, but rudness is another issue, as well as unfriendly sarcasm.

Chaos, i was quoting somthing i found on another page.

[Horadrim]

Originally Posted by Axx

Horadrim:
You take everything the wrong way, absolutly everything. Im not some damn little kid trying to pick a fight for fukes sake, why the fuck would i wanna provoke you. Look at your reply to the other guy in jasieks thread? that didnt seem so friendly, and niether did your posts to me. Arogance is one thing, i dont take what i said to be arrogant, i merely state my opinion, as you do yours, but rudness is another issue, as well as unfriendly sarcasm.

Phahahahahaha!!!You think that I was nagging with you?It seems that you thought my assessment about the situation with the modelling software for a personal attack against you?

Originally Posted by Horadrim

Axx,why you "strongly suggest" Maya?I could say this for Maya-I have the latest version,but I don`t work with it.I work with 3DS MAX and I could say that 3DS MAX has more friendly interface than Maya.Furthermore there are more plugins for MAX than for Maya.And about Jasiek-he`s trying to tell you that he`s using the engine`s model editor.If he wants to use any other modelling program firstly he`ll need to learn this program,secondary he`ll need from proper plugins for that program,so to be able to export the models in proper format that the engine will use.This will take him too much time.As you said you learned Maya for 3 years,I`m using 3DS MAX from 4 years (this year they`ll become 5 years of using MAX ).
So my advice to you is to think smart

What`s wrong with my post?After this what I posted you became to "throw mud" on 3DS MAX,which really pissed me off.
I was just trying to tell you that 3DS MAX and Maya are equal on match.
Also you was trying to make the things look like no one is using MAX anywhere,which is terribly wrong.You said that 3DS MAX is for the trash,it must be burned and so on,even if you`re telling that this is a joke I accept this as mockery.
Even the fact that I don`t like Maya very much I didn`t joked in this way like you.Your jokes are not a mark of a good sportsmanship.If you pretend to be a profesionalist you must respect the other people`s choice of software,not to make the to think that the software you`re using is the best.
By saying that Maya is the ultimate software you`re underestimating the people using other software (3ds MAX for exampl,or lightwave or auto cad or blender or whatever you wish),which some people (like me) cold consider this like a personal offence.So don`t wonder why my tone was changed after the first posts in the Jasiek`s thread.

[Jasiek]

Horadrim, I know about Pre-Rendered Graphics... The thing is, that the locations never looked to me like pre-rendered. The same effects that are there can be achieved by simply painting the locations. Horadrim, I don't mean to be rude, but your post sounded like you where lecturing me (maybe that is what pisses Axx of in your posts?) But maybe your right about it, I never gave much thought to it, maybe the locations and the characters are pre-rendered (Like in Longest Journey, Syberia etc. - locations only)

[Gobbles]

I don't think there is much of a big deference between 3d packages. Usually the first tool every user is introduced to and is usually known better is usually their most prefered. I started of with Realsoft 3d, which i have researched to find that it is not the most well-known, but it does everything i want it to do, and is very affordible, and has probably the best NURBS modeling tools available, But has average to poor animation tools. So every tool has it's weak and strong points. And besides, why would you spend alot of money on the best 3d tool, which is probably designed for the most experienced 3d artists out there to achieve life-like graphics that you could never make yourself?

[Darkflame]

Darkflame:- Ok i believe youve atleast tried out maya, what do you think of the user friendliness. The 3d artist, i think you know who im talking about, that worked in max and maya (and is a fan of max) noted that in maya the speed at which you can change windows, and change between zoom, pan, and rotate, is quite impressive.

He also noted that both could achieve the same results, somthing i am sure of.

Well, I have used Maya quite a bit, the interface is ok, but I cant compare it fairly to maxs because I know max enough to use it quickly. (Expert mode, Keyboard shotcuts for most things).
Maya however, Im just at the "newbie" level

So I can list maxs problems better then I can complient Mayas strengths.
The first thing I noticed about Maya actualy was that it used the interface from the game "Perfect Dark"....then I thought a moment, and realised that game must have nicked it from Maya. (and I checked, the company did use Maya to make that game).

Yes, Its certain you can get the same results in Max or Maya, they are both advanced enough so you can do the same thing in many different ways. The preferances simply effect the speed you can do certain things.

Gobbles ~ What puts Max/Maya above most of the rest if their advanced animation abilitys. For still images, you can get very advanced 3D apps very cheaply indeed.
Truespace is my personal favorate low-end app.