If I were a modeler, animator, or lighter, AND I was absolved of all TD responsibilities, I would absolutely love Maya. This is the vast majority of the artist experience. It is being in an established shop with tools already in place to get your work done or a team of TDs to make said tools. I'm surrounded by happy animators, modelers, and lighters. If they hit a problem, they just submit a ticket and a magic email appears asking them to restart Maya to receive the new goodies.
For non-departmentalized facilities where one artist need to wear all hats and FX artists, the Maya experience is a completely different one. Maya is the application I have the deepest knowledge in, but even with a medium to shallow working knowledge in Softimage or Houdini, I find myself being more productive over time in those application as a generalist/TD than in Maya alone. If I had a nickel for questions starting with... "In Maya, can you..." The answer is always yes. Getting to that "yes" more often than not is really painful. -Lu On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling < sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote: > Lol Lu > > It's amazing for this, this, this.... it sucks :) > > I believe qualoth has been discontinued. yes next person to offer a > feature rich cloth solution will be a rich man/woman, may the Fabric enginz > be with him. > > > On 22 May 2014 18:18, Halim Negadi <hneg...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> +6 Lu >> >> >> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Meng-Yang Lu <ntmon...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't >>> meant to be used by artists. Had they had that in consideration, we >>> would've had something like ICE or close to it ages ago. There are still >>> some cool thing you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy >>> compared to applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by >>> artists. >>> >>> Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff >>> and animate. Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what >>> animation could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features. >>> However, XSI never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of >>> animation performance. It is still king of interactive performance at the >>> cost of shoddy user experience. >>> >>> Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today. And a lot >>> of the early technology that went into the Maya side were far better >>> implemented than in any other package. The strength was indeed ubiquity, >>> and it was attractive to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max. Shave had >>> more functionality in Maya before it was integrated into XSI. Syflex had >>> more functionality in Maya than the XSI integration too. nCloth is still >>> used in both conventional and unconventional ways because every other out >>> of box cloth solver just isn't good. We still rely on nCloth heavily and >>> it's second only to something like Qualoft. nCloth is definitely a >>> strength to leverage. >>> >>> Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed. Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles, >>> and now FE/Splice. Anything that seems promising usually begins it's early >>> stages as a plug-in for Maya. No guarantees that these fledgling tools >>> would be production worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a >>> plug-in and blindly marched into production many times. >>> >>> Maya's other strength is it's large user base. If you want a CG army >>> that puts ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya. You are almost guaranteed >>> you'll find someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one. And >>> though that pool may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other >>> packages, you definitely have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick >>> to your hearts desire. To be fair, there are good Maya users out there >>> with their own Maya knick-knacks that can still put up good work. And to >>> that point, if you're a Maya user, you're almost never out of a job if >>> you're smarter than the average bear. >>> >>> I still don't like it. >>> >>> -Lu >>> >>> >>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling < >>> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever >>>> made a fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full >>>> potential. >>>> >>>> >>>> On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau <luceri...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> 20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;) >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> > Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and >>>>> a long list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned >>>>> by >>>>> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the >>>>> party, which was a death sentence and big facilities by then did the full >>>>> switch (not all but the majority). >>>>> > >>>>> > The genius side (and the part I don't like) was the viral nature of >>>>> Maya in which you have to write stuff for pretty much everything which >>>>> meant everybody was building tons of software (and complex ones too) on >>>>> top >>>>> of Maya so by the time XSI was starting to pick up pace it was an >>>>> impossible fight. >>>>> > >>>>> > Was maya great for character animation? Yes, It has always been very >>>>> good at that because the animation editor and dope sheet were very nice, >>>>> also very fast with multiple characters and some versions very robust. >>>>> Manipulators made life a pleasure (remember XSI introduced them late) so >>>>> it >>>>> was not a myth, but today it XSI is imho way superior for animation, shame >>>>> the envelop deformers were never looked after properly. >>>>> > >>>>> > Jordi Bares >>>>> > jordiba...@gmail.com >>>>> > >>>>> > On 22 May 2014, at 14:25, "Leendert A. Hartog" <hirazib...@live.nl> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> > >>>>> >> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that >>>>> Maya was the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting >>>>> Softimage from the equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated >>>>> info? >>>>> >> >>>>> >> -- >>>>> >> >>>>> >> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue >>>>> >> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com >>>>> >> >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >> >
