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Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 13 Mar 2014, 22:41
by forton
Hey Hirazi, why don't you just go the houdini way?

I know I would if I had the budget (checking this out right now, probably will do anyway with the HD version), for you, since you don't do any commercial work it would be only 99 dollars a year for apprentice HD, and it looks like you will soon meet allot of known faces in that community also :)

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 13 Mar 2014, 22:54
by Hirazi Blue
Over the last couple of months I have tried to befriend Houdini Apprentice. Tried being the operative word here. Fascinating software, but not for me...
;)

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 18 Mar 2014, 01:29
by WolfSpinach
I'm originally a Maya guy and I made the transition to Softimage easily enough and at the moment I work in Maya again. I think you'll be fine, except that you'll be pressing 's' and keying things you don't want to for a long time :)

If I were to recommend anything, I'd say the Art of Rigging. It's pretty old now (2006) but it was the first book/DVD that helped me understand rigging properly. Another good one but face specific is Jason Osipa's Stop Staring. I'm pretty sure there are second-hand copies around since it's on it's third incarnation.

I'll admit I don't use much of the Maya feature set in my day job so I don't know if things have progressed since I learned them. I do think model > model in one package or the other there's stuff that you'll find works better in one or the other. I still prefer Maya's UV tools.

One thing I'm not sure about is Maya's particle/dynamics system. I got a pretty good understanding of it but they keep updating. I learned it before nCloth/nParticles was added, then I kind of got the hang of that (it was pretty simple to be fair) but now they're doing the whole Naiad/Bifrost thing. I'm not sure how well they play together. I'm really going to miss ICE, it's such an elegant solution.

The really nice thing about Maya is it's so ubiquitous you'll find resources incredibly easily. There are plenty of little scripts and plugins around that will automate little steps along the way.

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 18 Mar 2014, 11:06
by Hirazi Blue
Very helpful. Thanks.
Now do you perhaps have any suggestions how I can get rid of this bitter taste in my mouth? :p

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 18 Mar 2014, 14:59
by WolfSpinach
Hirazi Blue wrote:Very helpful. Thanks.
Now do you perhaps have any suggestions how I can get rid of this bitter taste in my mouth? :p
Yeah, that's the worst bit for me. I learned Max and Maya at college and my first job was in Lightwave so since then I've tried to maintain a flexible attitude to software. The thing is, I can use a lot of software but I'm really confident in Softimage - there's stuff I know I can do that I have no idea of in Maya. I always thought AD would kill Softimage but I thought they'd strip it and put the really good bits in Maya. That would make the transition a no-brainer. As it is there are really big questions for a lot of people. If I had a good number of licenses I'd seriously hold on to my XSI for 2 years and see where Modo and Houdini are. If you're having to transition your pipeline anyway I think it's worth taking your time, this change might put the cat among the pigeons and spur some real development. I think this move has confirmed AD's future plans are far too opague to be relied on. If they keep making a loss there's nothing to stop them cutting their media division altogether in a few years time without consulting their clients.

Anyway, my pessimistic view of the future to one side, I think the best advice I'd give is to remember Maya is not Softimage. Approach work the way it wants to be approached. It's near impossible to copy workflows direct from one to the other. Your knowledge will never be lost but you have to adapt it. The most frustrating approach is to maintain the attitude that 'but it's so easy to do this in XSI, you just blah blah" because you're not in XSI.

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 18 Mar 2014, 20:37
by amitr
You said its a Financial thing using maya after AD slaped you in the face, so :

1) maya cost 3600. | modo cost 1500$

2) maya need Vray that cost 1000$ | modo alrdy have renderer equal to Vray\finalrender\other fast renderer

3) you will need Zbrush that cost 800 $ | modo can do most of your sculpting & painting tasks

4) with both packeges you will need to add marvelous designer to have good cloth simulation. (Ncloth sux compare to MD3)


Maya pipline: 5400$

Modo Pipline: 1500$

Good luck with maya....

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 18 Mar 2014, 20:53
by Hirazi Blue
Your insulting tone is rather annoying. And your numbers do not add up in my case. I've moved your other thread to the "Open Discussion" forum and if you must you can continue there, this "Migration" forum isn't the place for these kind of posts...
[-x

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 18 Mar 2014, 21:58
by amitr
Hirazi Blue wrote:Your insulting tone is rather annoying. And your numbers do not add up in my case. I've moved your other thread to the "Open Discussion" forum and if you must you can continue there, this "Migration" forum isn't the place for these kind of posts...
[-x
Everything i wrote based on facts (as for prices)

the slap is ofcourse Metaphorically : )


That thread you mention, You decide by yourself that the Arguments I brought as reasons to Migration are not related to Migration, and you wrote a reason for the move that where base on nothing, because i did not attcked any reason of no one in that thread. I presented new reasons.

in this post I gave you some solid reasons and from all I wrote you chose to adress the Imaginary tone from the text.

Eventually I want to help not to upset you, but if you are going to to that mistake and give AD more money for Maya, be sure its a public forum and i have the right to say my opinion about it.

I apologize if the things i say harm you in any way.

good luck.

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 18 Mar 2014, 22:08
by Hirazi Blue
There is ONE rule for the "Migration" forum
This is not a place to criticize the choice someone has made, this is a place to gently help him/her on his/her way.

That is why I moved your thread, as I explained in my "Moderator edit".
The fact that you apparently want to criticize my choice is one thing, but if that is the case do so in the "Open Discussion" forum.
As to the numbers you keep mentioning: you are wrong, but I am not going to explain why...

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 18 Mar 2014, 22:49
by Mathaeus
Hirazi Blue wrote:Very helpful. Thanks.
Now do you perhaps have any suggestions how I can get rid of this bitter taste in my mouth? :p
Some drink perhaps :)
Maybe it's early to say from my side, but it's not THAT bad this Maya thing. On emotional side, I'd say, everyone has to recognize, which part of love or hate belongs to authentic, personal experience, which part is a blind following of 'common' attitude. These days I feel as complete idiot, listening the word of condolence from people. Sounds like some human, my relative, died. But it's NOT damn human. Most of these people tried XSI sometime around Foundation times, but they did not switched to XSI.
I hated Maya through years, even I should not hate the piece of software I didn't used at all, nobody forced me to use it through decade or so. So after long thinking :), I got conclusion :), that this hate was a kind of transfer. Actually I hated a good number of thing in SI, but obviously it was more elegant to put the negativity onto closest neighbor .
And that closest neighbor is the key - after long time of Softimage, everything else except Maya, looks like a huge step back, with perspective of leaving 3d at all. Simply as that. I tried .. I think everything, during these years. Houdini is special story, not really standard 3d app, more a sort of platform.
As professional, I simply can't ignore the software, which became more and more popular, instead of Max, in games and probably everything else except Archiviz.

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 19 Mar 2014, 22:06
by Daniel Brassard
Short list to start your Maya Transition.

Maya Tutorials
• Getting Started
http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/Ma ... index.html
• Maya User’s Guides
http://download.autodesk.com/global/doc ... index.html
• Maya API Guide and Reference
http://docs.autodesk.com/MAYAUL/2014/EN ... index.html
• PyQT for Maya
http://download.autodesk.com/us/support ... ya2014.pdf
• Other Guides
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/it ... d=16707768

Training
• Digital Tutor
http://www.digitaltutors.com/software/Maya-tutorials
• Lynda.com
http://www.lynda.com/Maya-training-tutorials/255-0.html
• Gnomon Workshop
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/category/5/
• CGArena
http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutori ... rials.html
• SimplyMaya.com
http://simplymaya.com/
• SolidAngle
https://support.solidangle.com/display/ ... +Tutorials
• 3DTotal
http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/tutorialsalias.asp
• CG Motion
http://www.cgmotionbox.com/maya/
• cmiVFX
https://cmivfx.com/store/
• 3dBuzz (old stuff)
http://www.3dbuzz.com/training/view/mas ... troduction

Books
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_ ... +maya+2014
• CG Toolkit – The Art of Rigging vol 1, 2 and 3
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_sabc? ... ng+ritchie
• Mental Ray
http://www.amazon.com/mental-ray-Maya-3 ... l+ray+maya
• Rig it Right! Maya Animation Rigging Concepts By Tina O'Hailey
http://www.amazon.com/Animation-Rigging ... 0240820797
• Jason Schleifer Animator Friendly Rigging Master Class
Part 1 ftp://c-67-172-127-180.hsd1.ca.comcast. ... rt%20I.pdf
Part 2 to 4 https://courses.cs.washington.edu/cours ... reference/


A few essential Plugins
• abSymMesh
http://www.supercrumbly.com/3d.php?sid=112
• The Rigging Toolbox
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/scrip ... ng-toolbox
• Houdini plugin for Maya
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option= ... Itemid=392
• Thinkbox Software Deadline
http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/deadline-downloads/
• Soup
http://www.soup-dev.com/
• Gear for Maya
http://jeremiepasserin.com/blog/index.p ... ear-beta-1
• Mootzoid Plugins for Maya
http://www.mootzoid.com/plugin/empolygonizer4
http://www.mootzoid.com/plugin/emreader
• Jason Schleifer Rigging Bundle
http://jasonschleifer.com/2008/12/15/ja ... wnloadable/

Game Engines
• Valve
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Maya
• Crytek CryEngine
http://docs.cryengine.com/display/SDKDO ... Maya+Tools
• Unity3D Engine
https://unity3d.com/
https://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ ... tMaya.html

Forums
• CGTalk
http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=7
• The Area
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Maya/ct-p/area-c2
• Maya mailing List
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/maya_he3d

Blogs
http://www.braverabbit.de/playground/
http://elementalray.wordpress.com/

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 19 Mar 2014, 23:19
by forton
Wow! :ymapplause:

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 20 Mar 2014, 11:31
by Hirazi Blue
The training list looks rather impressive. thanks for compiling it, but sadly doesn’t answer the most pressing question, i.e. where to actually begin from the perspective of an eight year long Softimage user. And your book list somewhat bewilders me, as only your first and your last pick seem to be currently available. In case of the Mental Ray book that’s not much of a problem for me personally, as I already own it, but while everybody seems to rate the Art of Rigging series to be among the best, there doesn’t seem to be room for a reprint.
:-s

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 20 Mar 2014, 15:49
by Hirazi Blue
Okay I finally got around to actually install the demo version of Maya 2014 and as a result of that I am currently seriously rethinking my position of going for Maya. One thing I was wondering though is, if there is a convenient way to utilize a dual monitor setup in Maya like the one I’ve learned to love so well in Softmage?

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 20 Mar 2014, 17:44
by angus_davidson
Hirazi Blue wrote:Okay I finally got around to actually install the demo version of Maya 2014 and as a result of that I am currently seriously rethinking my position of going for Maya. One thing I was wondering though is, if there is a convenient way to utilize a dual monitor setup in Maya like the one I’ve learned to love so well in Softmage?
In Maya it normally means having your training / tuts on one screen and Maya on the other ;) Thats what I have currently at work anyway.

Re: The road to Maya (yes, Maya)?

Posted: 20 Mar 2014, 17:49
by Hirazi Blue
That right there would seem to be a serious deal breaker.
My dual monitor setup is one thing I don't want to give up. Hmm...
Thanks, BTW.

Must ask the guys from Shade if they support dual monitors out of the box... :p (that was a joke, really!)