Maya

Ok, so i want to work with 3D modelling at a professional level, and hopefully in the game development industry. however, to do so, i think i will have to adapt to Maya as it is the “standard” software out there. however, to be honest, i think that software is TERRIBLE when it comes to modelling. and i was open minded when i first tried it, but cant stand it at this point… here is why:

they dont have a keyboard shortcut to move whatever is selected, so you have to use the arrows. witch is frustrating caue you have to keep your mouse close to the center of the model all the time.
in order to do special actions such as extrude or adding loopcuts, you have to find it in a menu, and click it… THEN you can press G to repeat…
they dont seem to support modifiers such as subsurface… i saw a speed modelling, and the guy did something that made the model smooth and high poly, just like a subsurface does. but he pressed Z to undo it, to continue modelling…
they dont support ortographic viewport other than top side and front, and you cant easily swich between them without pressing space and selecting witchever window you want to work in.
they use window popups, witch takes up space and COVERS THE REST OF YOUR SCENE! the guy who did the speedmodelling could not see the model while working with textures… he had small windows all over the screen and had to move them around to see the model behind it. and if he clicked the model he had to manually get all the windows back… as for blender, we just split the view into whatever we need.

WHY is maya standard? i really dont get it…

i also saw a comparesent video where they spoke a bit about the two softwares in general, and they said mayas timeline is a lot better, but their dopesheet sucks… wait what?
so the most basic simple thing, the TIMELINE is what they get right, but not the critical and most important component of animating? the dopesheet? really?

Hey,
…erm, didn’t you post almost the exact same thing a couple of months back? I just happened across this thread as I was looking for a discussion comparing Maya to Blender… and saw your other post too. anyway. I think I may be able to at least shine some light on a few things for you. firstly, I’m no Maya fanboy, but I am a long time user, as you say, it seems to be industry standard. ( been using it for maybe 15 years now).
ok. to start, the more software you know the better. full stop. If / when you get employed at a studio they aren’t really going to care if you LIKE using the software or not. If you’re LUCKY you may get a choice of which software you use, this is usually between Max and MAYA. (I’ve been given a choice ONCE in 10 years as a professional 3d artist in the games industry). So if you’re asked if you can use Maya… you say YES! I lOVE IT! :slight_smile: ( seriously once you get used to it it’s not that terrible, but in all fairness, I am here to check out Blender coz Maya annoys the hell out of me )

onto the maya stuff…

  1. there is a key to move selected without using the arrows, it’s called TWEAK MODE or something like that. (tho i never use it) i think it is the ` key… it’s also in the new modelling toolkit. It’s not the same as blender but it does help. but if how far your mouse is away from the model is your biggest worry then you must be a master at everything else.

  2. Most things in Maya can have a hotkey assigned to them. including all the modelling tools. or you can make custom Marking menu’s ( those radial menus that pop up when you press certain keys)… or you could add an icon to the custom shelf… or there is probably already an icon for that tool on the POLYGON shelf.

  3. subsurface modifier?.. 1,2 and 3 will switch between normal, smoothed with cage and smoothed without cage. you can set the subdivision level in the attribute editor.

  4. you can have any orthographic view you like. hold space so that the hotbox appears then hold lmb on the box in the middle that says MAYA and you can choose all views from there. you can unlock the cameras somewhere so that you can tumble in orthographic view too, tho i can’t remember where that is off the top of my head.

  5. yes it does have pop up windows. but you can save layouts and they get placed on the toolbar to the left under the move, rotate etc tools. or if you have 2 monitors you can layout the pop ups on the 2nd monitor (and if you are serious about games art etc then you WILL need 2 monitors… i just bought a hd monitor yesterday for like £70 cheap as chips) I never have a problem with windows overlapping but i do like Blenders method better. I’m pretty sure you can set hotkeys for each view too. the guy in the video was probably recording with a lower resolution so had very little screen space to play with.

6.the reason Maya is industry standard is probably a combination of things. A) a lot of people know how to use it B) It’s really customizable so writing inhouse tools for it is quite easy (if you know mel or python) . C) It does pretty much everything you would ever need in a 3d art environment and it does it pretty well.

Personally, I think it’s just got over bloated with old stuff, new bugs emerge and dont get fixed. Because it has EVERYTHING it doesn’t feel very streamlined.

The issues you have with it seem to be little niggles that would have been ironed out if you had read the help files. It feels like you are trying to run in software that you haven’t learned to crawl with yet. You won’t become a good modeller by watching some other dude speed modelling. You need to learn the tools properly , coz one day some one will ask you to do something out of your comfort zone and if all you know is how to model like that youtube guy showed you … well, it’s gonna be pretty embarrassing for you. And there’s no rush to learn it all. I’m still learning new things in maya 15 years in.

anyway, hope some of the helped with your maya problems.

Just a different way of working, I personally prefer it and use it in Blender as well (I remapped G/R/S to change manip handle type). Use the Q key to show/hide the widget, and W/E/R to toggle handle type. You can hold down Q/W/E/R and left click to get a tool options marking menu.

in order to do special actions such as extrude or adding loopcuts, you have to find it in a menu, and click it… THEN you can press G to repeat…

Use the marking menus to quick access these. For those particular tools, you can shift+right-click

they dont seem to support modifiers such as subsurface… i saw a speed modelling, and the guy did something that made the model smooth and high poly, just like a subsurface does. but he pressed Z to undo it, to continue modelling…

Maya doesn’t work that way. Every action is linear, but stored in a tool history so you can go back and make changes. Sometimes this works better than Blender system, sometimes it doesn’t. Different software is different. For subdivision, you can use smooth mesh, hit the 3 key to enable it (or go to the shape node), hit the 1 key to disable it. (Pressing the 2 key will enable it, but continue to show the mesh cage in the viewport). Controls for smooth mesh are located in the shape node, you can adjust things like subdiv level, crease effects, etc.

they dont support ortographic viewport other than top side and front, and you cant easily swich between them without pressing space and selecting witchever window you want to work in.

Maya doesn’t have viewport directions the way Blender does, those are just pre-made cameras. You can add new ortho cameras where you want.

they use window popups, witch takes up space and COVERS THE REST OF YOUR SCENE! the guy who did the speedmodelling could not see the model while working with textures… he had small windows all over the screen and had to move them around to see the model behind it. and if he clicked the model he had to manually get all the windows back… as for blender, we just split the view into whatever we need.

You can split the view in Maya too, use the “panel” menu in the header, look under layouts. You can also toggle the panel to a different window type (outline, dope sheet, whatever). Select a camera to send a panel back to 3D view.

WHY is maya standard? i really dont get it…

Because it is incredibly flexible and easily extendable. Whatever weird requests your director/boss/editor/designer/whoever throws at you, Maya can contort itself to make it happen. Linked asset that has a different material on one object in one scene? Done. Rig that drives material color by a tracking constraint? Easy. Need a custom plugin for your rig? Just write one. Particular object needs to be in a different location and only cast shadows on one render layer? Flip of a switch. I could go on and on with these. Try doing any of those things in Blender, and watch it choke.

Maya isn’t perfect (I prefer Blender for polygon modeling, personally). But Maya gets the job done in the end, and that’s why it gets used. And different software is always going to be different. If you’re jumping in to Maya expecting it to be Blender with more features and power, you’re going to be frustrated. Not every single thing is going to be better, and sometimes you’ll end up using a totally different method for a particular task, just because they’re fundamentally different in a lot of way.

i also saw a comparesent video where they spoke a bit about the two softwares in general, and they said mayas timeline is a lot better, but their dopesheet sucks… wait what?
so the most basic simple thing, the TIMELINE is what they get right, but not the critical and most important component of animating? the dopesheet? really?

Lastly, what?

I’m just guessing here, but it seems that Blender is the first 3D program you used right? If that’s the case I can understand that you’re having a bad time trying to make your way through Maya (or any other 3d software for that matter).

As J_the_Ninja said, different software is different; and you can’t expect it to be like a slightly different version of Blender, they’re just different softwares! The same happens to the users that came from another package and expect Blender to be like this or that… It doesn’t work that way.

I started with Amapi when I was in highschool; then learned 3dsmax in college, then Maya because a friend of mine said that was the new standard (like 7 years ago), then Softimage, Modo, and I don’t know what else. And eveytime I had to open a new software and tried to learn how to use it the best thing I could do was to forget everything about the previous one and look at it like a newbie.

The general knowledge about 3D always remains, like topology, quads vs. tris, texturing, uv unwrapping, etc… But the specific use of a software has to be looked in a different way, like learning how to drive a bike, a car, or a plane. They are all different, and share some common ground but you can’t expect a bike to have 3 pedals right?
Nothing is perfect, every single software have strong points and weak points, learn to identify those things and use them in your advantage.

In fact, you should learn the basics of both maya and 3dsmax if you’re serious about getting a job in the videogame industry.
Anyway, if you have a REALLY good portfolio, you’re employer will probably skip the software you used and tell you to learn the software they’re using at the moment.

i actually did make a post about maya not too long ago… totally forgot about that. anyway that was more to see what others thought about the software. i’ve tried it out for a while now and figured some of the issues i have with it…

what is the major diffenrece between maya and 3ds max by the way? i’ve heard that autodesk will remove 3ds max and only focus on maya, but im not sure where i got that from so might be false…

also to Rob, i watched a few speedmodelling videos to get an idea of how the workflow is. like in blender you usually add a background image, and start extruding edges along the edge of the image, and then start shaping it in the 3d viewport.