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 [email protected] On 22 May 2014, at 14:25, "Leendert A. Hartog" <[email protected]> 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 Was this just myth or is it just outdated info?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 >
