discouraging trends in maya

# 1 01-04-2007 , 01:26 AM

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a couple discouraging trends ive gone through while using maya:

the sheer size of the program is daunting enough. then you realize that it really is as hard to learn as you initially thought. it's impossible to learn the program on your own. you cant even jump in and play around with it unless you have some basic knowledge of maya.

the cost of learning maya takes the fun out of it. video tutorials are great. but damn will they set you back a couple bucks. and all sites are the same. you have to sell your kidneys on ebay to get enough cheese. books are cool (imho) for once you have learned the basics and you have questions.

tutors and schools ask for your firstborn.

the length of time it takes to complete a project is ridiculous. im currently battling with this one. no matter how good your workflow is, youre gonna have to invest 1000 hours to model a character.

just some personal thoughts

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# 2 01-04-2007 , 02:19 AM

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just with any program, practice makes perfect.

hell i still have to remind my mom that she doesn't need to log into her yahoo mail account to print something... <sigh>

the more you use maya and the more you log in hours of modeling and the like, the more efficient you'll be able to do things, and the less time it'll take you the next time around.

it's like typing on a keyboard. unless you start off with a typing class, you start off with a finger or two circling around trying to find the 'G' key (as i did lol) before you remember where it is.

edit: i think books are the way to go at first. they usually tell you what things do, where you can find them, and how to go about doing the simple things. video or text online tutorials are good too because they take you step-by-step through a process and you can take as long as you need to get to the next step.

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# 3 01-04-2007 , 03:45 AM

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I agree, the book is so good. I got some books off of the alias website before they merged and those books helped me out a lot. I thought i knew the whole programs lmao even tho i prob touched 1% of it lol it give you a good base to start from and then once you have that base, you can get into modeling. What I like about the books is they arent trying to keep it under 20 mins lol so they really explain what you are doing and why. But like Neo said, anything you do, it takes time and practice, the more you use it the faster you get and better. soon you will use all the hotbox commands instead of using the menus

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# 4 01-04-2007 , 06:41 AM

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Some people learn quicker than others. I've only been using it a month now but I already feel like I can model almost anything. I haven't spent any money (yet) except for the program, so it is possible.

I've been successfully learning by 1) figuring out things on my own 2) reading other threads 3) The help file that came with my software and 4) getting feedback from others on this site. I also can't stress the IMPORTANCE of trial and error. It's amazing how much I've learned just by playing around with things. You can always reset a tool back to it's default settings.

Finally, I have indeed heard that there are other programs easier to learn. You just have to find out what program your comfortable with and stick with it (just repeating what I've heard from others). I can tell you personally though, that I'm Maya all the way!

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# 5 01-04-2007 , 07:13 AM

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i learned through watching some gnomon tutorials. i dont think i could have learned without them. unless someone showed me. but i dont know a soul that uses maya. and i live in LA!!!

i tried around maya 5 with only books and gave up. now i feel like i can also model anything. until i actually start modeling it at which point, i realize how long it's gonna take. ive been modeling a couple hours a day (sometimes as much as 6 hours in a day) since november and have yet to complete a whole character. i have a dozen half finished characters.

the books only became useful once i had an ok knowledge of modeling. so for me it's been video tutorials and forums.

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# 6 01-04-2007 , 07:22 AM

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After hearing about gnomon, and joining SM, I have no idea why I went to college and raked up almost $100k in college debt to pay off...

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# 7 01-04-2007 , 07:24 AM

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Originally posted by severinianthony
After hearing about gnomon, and joining SM, I have no idea why I went to college and raked up almost $100k in college debt to pay off...

Originally Posted by

damn that sucks. hoped it paid off.

and here i am crying about 42k for two years at gnomon.

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# 8 01-04-2007 , 08:56 PM

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not really sure why the size of the program is a 'discouraging trend' - why is that a bad thing? - and i don't really see why that should be putting you off.

Obviously whatever field that you go into, you should expect to always keep learning new techniques or new advances in technology... and the fact that something is hard to learn - well what isn't? I mean if it only took you a short time to learn than there wouldn't be that much to the program and you likely wouldn't use it.

Furthermore, it's not like you have to learn the whole program - some people are modellers, others are texture artists, some do particle effects, some do animation, etc...

it's not completing a character that's important - I am sure that everyone here has dozens of unfinished projects - you don't learn anything by completing a character - you learn by making mistakes and starting again.

anyway, sorry for the rant...

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# 9 01-04-2007 , 10:31 PM

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Originally posted by the_brein
damn that sucks. hoped it paid off.

and here i am crying about 42k for two years at gnomon.

Originally Posted by

Meh, I'm about 7 classes away from graduating, so I have a ways to go, but the final sum will be in the vicinity of $100k when I am done.

And it's not that school didn't help (it did), it's that I have learned the same things from school that I could have learned through purchasing training DVD's or reading tutorials online.

That, and the cost difference between school ($100k) and the above mentioned is vastly different...seriously, how much for one of every DVD set S.M. has? I'm not going to go through the entire list, but I'd estimate $1k tops...and that's not counting Digital Tutors and Gnomon.

In a nutshell, the difference is the cost; I'll be spending somewhere around a decade paying off my loan.

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# 10 01-04-2007 , 10:40 PM

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It wouldn't be any fun if it was easy!! Where would the buzz be without being able to casually drop into conversations that you are a Maya master? Oh...right...nobody does that ever.....:p Just me then...it's good for shutting up the graphics snobs. One only needs a little it of jargon to look good and influence people..throw a few verteces, split polygons and conjuvial attribute detailing* around and people tend to not question you too closely. Shallow? Yes...but damned effective at parties
Seriously though folks....for me, and granted I'm very new at this...it is Maya's complexity that makes it worth trying to learn. Even if i never create anything stunning I'll have a fun, challenging time.

*yes...I did make that last one up....sounds good though, you must admit

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# 11 01-04-2007 , 10:46 PM

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I don't know about you guys, but in my opinion, the more useful features a program has, the better. And all the features in Maya are useful. Anways...

the_brein > '...the cost of learning maya takes the fun out of it...'

Yeah, I agree. I went to my local Borders, found that they only had about ten books on Maya and three whole shelves dedicated to photoshop (seems to me computer arts is 2D-centric) and nine of the books cost more than hundred. The Alias 'Maya Basics' was I think $105, so in the end I got the books on the more advanced books and tried to figure out the basics myself, which wasn't to difficult. I find that you can learn a lot about Maya if you tried to make something and figure out how to make it by using what you know, the books, Maya's help and of course, experimenting.

the_brein > '...the length of time it takes to complete a project is ridiculous. im currently battling with this one. no matter how good your workflow is, youre gonna have to invest 1000 hours to model a character...'

I once read an article about pro who was discussing making really detailed sport cars in Maya. Most of the models, excluding texturing, took him over a month of full time work. So I guess its pretty normal to spend a bit of time on making things.

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# 12 10-04-2007 , 01:25 PM

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I don't like the way Maya is becoming Autodeskized. The Maya menu's pretty much stayed the same from 1.0 to 7.0, streamlined and efficient. 8.5 has broken them up and makes the UI feel a lot clunkier. The help files were always the best in the business, but the new ones feel like they were probably written by the same guy who codes the software, and not by an end user. If you get a programmer with poor social skills their help files are a reflection of this. And why did they drop Shockwave? 3D Studio still supports it, but not Maya??

Last edited by luke119; 10-04-2007 at 01:29 PM.

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# 13 10-04-2007 , 05:41 PM

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it didnt take too long for me, a noob, to get used to the new menus. i would be watching a tutorial with the old menus and would be completely lost. but after taking a look around, i figured it out. they are reasonably and logically arranged. i dont know if a change was needed but the end result wasnt bad.

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# 14 10-04-2007 , 05:45 PM

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To be honest the change, for me, makes it all a bit easier as polygon modeling has so many tools nont that it warrents a new menu all to its own, otherwiese it would end up being a right pain having to access all the tools using just a couple of menu's thats got Nurbs along side too.

Took me a bit to get used to it but I just read through the whats new and used the help files when I was stuck.

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# 15 10-04-2007 , 05:48 PM

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i hate the new menu system, I went back to version 7 because i really didn't like having the extra work when all the tools are not in one place user added image