Back in the day Maya was not designed to be, nor intended to be, a generalist 3D app. In a lot of ways its still indistinguishable from its original design 20 years ago. And one of the things any Maya user should never presume is that it is a generalist app. Sadly its not and never was an app for generalists.
The need to build things such as scripts, as you have described, should not be viewed as a workaround. It is the workflow. Maya was created by its original AW engineers that way by design. Back in 98 I called tech support to complain that invert component selection was missing. I was told bluntly that is why they created MEL, so that I could make the things I need. I was told that I would need to make invert selection myself. Being a generalist, and knowing nothing of MEL at the time, I complained to AW that such an expectation was unreasonable. One of the tech’s, after getting more than his share of my opinion why such a philosophy was illogical and lacked significant foresight by their engineers, relented, wrote it, and sent it to me. I’m not agreeing with the philosophy nor promoting it. I was floored that something so simple and rudimentary was apparently just left out of the application. I thought it was wrong then and I still do now. But the way to think about Maya, the way they wanted people to think of Maya back in the 90s, is that it was intended to be a shell. A shell that each workgroup could mold into that workgroup’s own unique animation system. But it wasn’t designed with generalists in mind. Can a generalist use Maya? Absolutely. I did that for more than a decade before I returned to XSI. But the Maya “generalist” has to accept that they are going to have to be more than a generalist. They are going to have to be the “workgroup”. In Maya simple things are hard, hard things are simple. It’s the equivalent to using a sledgehammer to drive a thumbtack. -- Joey __________________________________________________ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Anto Matkovic Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2017 5:34 AM To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com> Subject: Re: OTish - Soft2Maya transition list Well it's not that serious, I'd say it's more something between lobotomy and permanent headache. Depends on level of immunity of user... Now seriously, it's not bad at all when it comes to some traditional tasks like rigging and animation. Despite the horrible ergonomics of Node Editor (unit conversion node jumping in range of 1-5 K pixels around, or deleting nodes in groups by own criteria, skyscraper nodes..), still it can do things not possible to anyone else, and it's doing this fast. Well, as long as someone had a time to build scripted procedures for every aspect of such, custom setup. But, beside that and a few solvers like nCloth or Naiad, I can see only problems, compared to any normal 3d app around ('normal' includes Houdini, too). Things like separated control of transform - shape node, separated reference mesh for deformations (come on, even Houdini hides that), or 'legendary'' hierarchical behavior, all that makes it impossible to compete to others as an unified 3d app fo generalist. In 2017 update 3 they added 'auto parenting' mode to lattice modifier ( otherwise, you get *two* nodes in global space, not following your object), but, but, when you apply let's say Bend over that, there is a double bending because Maya applies Bend to mesh, *and* lattice, because lattice is now parented bellow. That is, result of all these pathetic trials in last few years, it is only more and more confusion, putting it even more in position where it always was in hands of 3d generalist , something on level of Lightwave 8 or like (that is, no nodes, no stack, in reality), and kind of SiloX when it comes to modeling. Shame, but true.... By the way, for those who are able to live without Linux, there's 3d app called 3D Studio Max, which perhaps is not 'joy' to use, but, in last few years it got the all Maya modeling features that worth something ( brushes, Maya live), today it is a way stronger than Maya with huge scenes, never ever had problems with basic tasks like second UV ( it's just displayed in list). Houdini is better and better, but it's still far a way of general 3d app, Maya is constantly in 'half disintegrated' state. So, for those who want to stay on Linux, and they can not afford a brigade of TDs, very very bad days are coming, I'm afraid. ________________________________ From: Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com<mailto:facialdel...@gmail.com>> To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>> Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2017 3:28 PM Subject: Re: OTish - Soft2Maya transition list You may want to join a suicidal-group hotline, or maybe turn yourself to a religion ? Sorry, couldn't resist :)))) Good luck ;)
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