Hello, Im new here great site!

Here is my situation. I'm just learning 3d animation, but fast. i love it and am spending a lot of time with it. i originally wanted to start using maya but we had a foundation course on 3d studio max and have gotten quite comfortable with it. i tried maya since and have gotten frustrated becuase, i cant find stuff. i would have to leap another learning curve. i saw some stuff maya can do and it looks great. maya is also a mac program too, which i prefer over pc. my question to you guys is.... should i switch to maya and if so what are the advantages over 3d max? and, is maya difficult to learn??

thanks for all your help guys!

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Stephen MacNeil

Switch? Definitely, get rid of that Mac and get a PC.....oh, you mean switch to Maya from Max

Seriously, I started on Max and it was a great app to learn on, but it was a lot of wasted time I came to realize once I got into Maya. The longer you spend working in Max, the harder it will be to learn Maya. Max is a great learning app, but that's about it, it's not used much in the movie or tv industry, and the game industry is starting to use more and more Maya and XSI. I think eventually I will add XSI as a secondary app, but for the most part it will be Maya for me. Don't need a ton of plugins, everything is there

You should have expected this at a Maya only forum-hahahaha!

Welcome and enjoy your stay, think you'll like it here, really nice place with a bunch of fun characters

Darkon

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Red bellows of flame have blackened my stones
Convulsing my frame and cracking my bones
Hell's dragons of steel who roar in their chains
Crawl into my caves to suck out my veins.....

-The Mountain P.F.M.

Switch! Maya is the ultimate 3d programme amd 4.5 looks awesome!

I wasted 1 year on max also.... soooo glad i moved over, maya for me is easier and the amount of stuff for learning it is increasing ever since the PLE ...

but dont hang about, I never regreted it...

but its totally up to you mate.

good luck and welcome to the board!!

i m a newie in Maya but u must know one thing about Maya and the mac.
I HAVE A MAC (and i m proud of that) but maya is only on version 3.5 on mac (on PC it is v.4) :banana: but mac is very good to learn Maya (i think)

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Sorry but my english is very poor !
MaY ThE FoRcE Be WiTh YoU !

thax guys. i would love to hear more too. just know that i do have a mac and a pc, but if i have a choice to run apps. its the mac, its easier and more stable. period.
so is the learning curve for maya steep?

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Stephen MacNeil

SWITCH.. SWITCH.. SWITCH.. !!!!!
i mean come on stevemac.. what kind of question is that..?
max or maya..? isn't it obvious..? MAYA !! :p
i started out with max too.. was on it for about a year.. one day i decided to try maya out... just to have a quick look.. well.. i haven't opened max since.. lol
'n is maya difficult to learn..? well i recon that all high-end apps can be a bitch in the begginin' for everybody, but thats only if you let 'em.. heh
peace.

Maya.....nuff said

I've said it before, but I think it all depends on what you expect from the program...

I know people who love Max to death, then they try Maya and can't stand it... because it's not JUST LIKE MAX. Then, vice versa.

In my opinion (and everyone's got one), I like Maya better. I learned on Maya... it was the first program I used. So, I tried Max out (very briefly, I admit)... well, I was disapointed. It was not intuitive at all.

So IMO, Maya is much more intuitive. Is it easy to learn? No. But neither is Max, really. No 3D program I've ever used was easy to learn. But like anything, the more you mess with it, the better you'll get.

As for PC or Mac... I've always been PC guy. I just think they're easier. I understand the whole stability thing, but I've never had a problem on PC... any problems that have occured were always human error.

So, that's my 2 pence. Good luck!

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-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

my opinion is stick with Max buddy ......................oooooooops sorry was having a napmare

ment to say see the light GET INTO MAYA !!



:banana: :banana:

there are some things in max which is easier (skinning :p), but maya has a deeper toolset
im sure everyone here would help you find any tools ur tryin to find in maya

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- Simon

My Website: www.Glass-Prison.com

Max and maya both do the same thing... just differnet ways of doing it so go with whatever feels comfortable. I'd say Max is probably a little more conventional than maya but like mtmckinely said - Maya is alot more intuitive to use than max.. if youre artistic you'll probably find maya to be alot more friendly and productive once you have it set up to your needs.
One thing definatly going for Max is the size of the communities and 3rd party support - you can literally buy a plugin for anything and theres no shortage of books/tutorials avaiable which is why Max is often most peoples first 3d app which then leads to trying out SI/XSI or Maya.
my personal opinion - go with Maya of course! if i had the chance to start right off with maya then I would have jumped at the chance rather than spending a year or so mucking around with max and its clumsey awkward interface

Another really cool thing about max is the teapot primative.. what better way is there to make your raytraced chrome spheres over a checker floor (:wow: ) look even cooler than a shiny reflective teapot?! damn genius idea

Well first of all welcome to SimplyMaya!!, glad to see you around and asking questions. I will stick with these guys, go with Maya. I started out orignally in Max 2, and went through its add ons up to 3.5 Since my high school. It was a good program to learn on, it was rather simple to learn how to do simple animation and what not. But it got boring REALLY fast... I lost interest and never really thought about it again.


Then i got into lightwave (dont ask me what i was thinking therE) and it is actually a rather nice program, yet it wasnt for me.


Finally i came to finally get myself a copy of Maya, and it was Amazing!, i found it rather easy to learn, it was very artisticly inclined and you could create amazing things in just a couple of minutes, all of a sudden, i was hooked!


Also another good reason to get into Maya is that there are alot of courses out there in many colleges and learning centers that focus on maya & XSI, so you will have a headstart in those when it comes to 3d animation if you plan on taking any...


Anyways, theres my 2 cents,
Imperator!

I also used max for a couple of years, then I got maya and was not happy because it was not MAX! but know .... the more you work with maya the better you get. I still have max installed and sometimes when I launch the program I get confused because teh spacebar in max is not giving me the hotbox ??? so i ditched max.

If you like max and you get the job done stay with max, but .... try Maya for a while and you will forget that Max ever existed !

hey dude,
i have been using max since 1.5(i think).and still use it today.like somebody else said above maya will taste like a bitter gourd if youre completly up maxe's arse .
we use both at the studio.but logo work goes to max.since the renderers began flooding the market... final render, brazil and all,our max artists started putting the mayans to shame...so i guess it's the artist after all.
i use both...or rather am trying to get with the maya way,it's a bit frustrating but it'll pass.
i think going with maya is logical at this point of time because alias is looking at capturing a wider user base...i.e more individuals rather than big studios.and hence are really giving the user almost everything in one place.maya 4.5 is another big step for the individual...
go maya.
b