Older (less demanding) Maya PLE for my kid?

# 1 14-07-2008 , 12:44 AM

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My high school daughter will major in animation in college (in Fall 2009).
This summer, rather than her watching endless re-runs, I wanted to let her come up to speed on Maya.
And nicely, Autodesk offers a PLE version for just that purpose.

EXCEPT, I'll have to buy a new PC or Mac for her to run it!
I'll do that eventually, but would rather put that off as long as possible.

For now, is there somewhere where I can get an OLDER version of free Maya that won't require 2GB of RAM?

I have an old P4 PC with 1.128 GB RAM... I'd love to put her on that.

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# 2 14-07-2008 , 12:49 AM

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It should run on it, might be a bit sluggish but if she gets a taste for it hten it might be worth investing in a new PC (I would go windows as your have more choice of specs and upgrades if needed.)

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 3 14-07-2008 , 12:56 AM

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I was running for ages on an amd 3200+ (a single core) and only 1 gig. It was fine, until I tried to render heavy scenes. So for modelling and animation practice I reckon you'll be fine.

cheers

gubar

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# 4 14-07-2008 , 01:44 AM

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i still only have 1Gb, and its fine..

Environment Artist @ Plastic Piranha
www.joopson.com

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# 5 14-07-2008 , 01:52 AM

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Well I'll top that, I used 512 of Ram on a 3ghz P4 until last year and it was fine!

Jay

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# 6 14-07-2008 , 02:06 AM

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It would run on that spec all be it not lighting fast, if you are having problems with that PC it is more than likely the graphics card rather than the CPU or the Ram. If it is a motherboard built in card or an older 64 mb graphics card then it might struggle, i know i had problems with my laptop on a 64mb card.

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# 7 14-07-2008 , 03:43 AM

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if she's going to be learning maya - then she really should have the latest version to practise with otherwise you're just giving her unnecessary headaches. if she's a student then you can get an educational version for under $400.

arran3D

arran3D blog

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# 8 14-07-2008 , 04:32 AM

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Yeah, latest version is generally best, because if you want to learn to get into the industry, you should ALWAYS be up-to-date, since it is pretty...let's say...fast in changing. In other words, if the older version has most of the features like the newer version, than it's OK. But in other cases, you should use the newest version.

And about the specs, I ran the full version of Maya on a comp with 300 MHz processor and 478 Megabyte RAM.

You just put everything on layers and your fine.

W.I.P's
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Finished work
Mech

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# 9 14-07-2008 , 05:16 AM

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Thanks for all the great responses!

I just assumed Autodesk's system requirements were minimums, not larger-than-necessary suggestions.

I'm loading it up for her now.

user added image

Cheers.

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# 10 14-07-2008 , 02:53 PM

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Originally posted by amoeba
Yeah, latest version is generally best, because if you want to learn to get into the industry, you should ALWAYS be up-to-date, since it is pretty...let's say...fast in changing. In other words, if the older version has most of the features like the newer version, than it's OK. But in other cases, you should use the newest version..

Originally Posted by

Not really, most workflows that are used today have been developed over a number of years, as long as the software has a basic toolset then thats all you need to make a good model, same with PC hardware, its nice to have all the bells and whistles but unless you can push the hardware and software to its limit your not getting anything out of it, in fact with software using the latest and greatest could put you at a disadvantage as you've not had the hard slog of doing it the old fashioned way. Having a flash car does not make a good driver.

Lets put it this way, I started on Version 6 and now use 2008, to be honest theres not that much I do thats different and if I went back to 6 I dont think it would affect my workflow.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 11 14-07-2008 , 04:30 PM

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gster123 has a perfectly valid point.
when learning something the more abstract you can think the more flexibility you have at learning new things

its like the tutorials you find anywhere, if you just do whats in the tutorial and dont think "so how can i apply these techniques to other things" then you end up having the tutorial "hard coded" into your brain.
i find it faster to learn if i apply the ideas in a tutorial to something not in the tutorial or i just forget...

that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

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Older (less demanding) Maya PLE for my kid?

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