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# 1 13-03-2008 , 04:05 AM
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Tutorials For Maya 5.0 Needed

Hello-

To you all. I have a request from the past. I know that Maya 8.5 is out now, however I still have Maya 5.0 and now want to get back too modeling or learning how to go about doing this with my current version.

I do understand that I may be on my own at this point, however there might be someone out there that can direct me to where I should be looking regarding my issue here.

I decided not to upgrade because of me not learning Maya when I should have at the time of the release of Maya 5.0.

My point is that I allowed this software to etimadate me so I put it down for all this time because I got discouraged, thinking that I will never learn this the way I should.

But now I feel different and need help in get me up and running. I know someone out there that's reading my words now, "may be saying" I on my own, however I am counting on that one or two person out there that might understand where I am coming from, with this request.

I want to model cartoon characters, that my target!!!!!

Thanks,

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# 2 13-03-2008 , 04:13 AM
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To be honest I really doubt that you will have a problem, I ve used maya since V6 and tbh a lot has changed, but not that much that I use day to day so I think that you'll be ok unless its a new tool or feature.


"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle
# 3 13-03-2008 , 04:25 AM
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Gster-

Thanks for the reply. Is this the place to request tutorials regarding version 5.0.

To honest, it bothers me that Autodesk has changed this software up so much that we the consumer has to keep up with the newer versions out there. I feel as though we are all the slaves to this software. Why so many changes? I do realize that thing get improved over time, but my God!!!! when does it stop. When will there be a version that we can count on for at least a year or two. Are they that greedy to keep making us all change as fast as they keep making up tools that should have been created in the earlier versions.

Man,,, I tell yah this confuses me to no end. We are trapped with the turn around versions 6,6.5,7.7.5,8,8.5 YOU GET MY POINT!. Why can't we request that they stop this and just give us a version of MAYA that we can at least have two to two and a half years before we purchase a new copy,,,, Just my thoughts, but seriously think about it.

Am I wrong for feeling like this or am I alone on this, never mind, this might turn out to be come a conversation that I might regret, with someone that don't mind spending and spending there money. So please forgive me being the small guy here.

Thanks,

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# 4 13-03-2008 , 04:36 AM
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trust me man, i feel ya, but at the same time, this program (and this company) is catering to the businesses that purchase and use this program for commercial/professional grade applications. they want progress. they want new tools and new capabilities. they want a faster turnaround and faster (AND better) results.

for us, it's sometimes annoying, until a tool or methodology shows up that we ourselves can embrace and are thankful for.

at the same time it's difficult if you could only afford maya once and are stuck with that version, because they sometimes do stupid things like change the names of menus or rearrange options into different menus or update the interface, so if you're watching a newer tutorial it's definitely frustrating to try and recreate what they're making, especially if they're using a tool or altering a value that isn't available to you. it's tough, sure, but if you can get good at maya 5 (or whatever version you've got) you'll be better off, cause you're using a version that doesn't have all the cool new tools and easier ways of doing things, so you're probably more able to also get around a problem that a new user only used to version 8.5 or maya 2008 doesn't know how to get around cause that's all they know and they're not aware of workarounds or doing things 'the long way'.

just hang in there and remember that the help files are pretty decent when it comes to learning what tools do. also, a lot of the free tutorials on this site came out earlier on, close to or maybe even before your version of maya came out. check them out. and don't forget that you need the divx codec to watch them.


Accept no substitutions.
# 5 13-03-2008 , 04:37 AM
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hehe, thers a lot of peole that thing like that.

I'm lucky I get a subscription upgrade with where I work, but if for any reason that went I wouldent be to bothered, theres probably loads of great things that have been added but I probably only use about 3 things on a regular basis that you could proabably get a MEL scrip for anyway (slide edge tool for one) since version 6 that I started with, other than that its just a bit more work!

I think that Autodesk (alias too when they had maya, not pointing fingers) just keep up with pretty much everyone else on the update stakes, says a bit about the times we live in (look at cars now, theres always a new version of a model).

The only big thing that I can thingk that you mighe see is that the names ofthe menus have changed, modeling has now gone to polygons and another menu called surfaces (for nurbs)

Suppose that at the end of the day you dont have to upgrade, but you just might feel a bit left behind (like buying a computer and then a few months later a newer one with .1 of a gig faster processor comes out, or a mobile phone that has a better camer etc etc)


"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle
# 6 13-03-2008 , 05:00 AM
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See my point!

We are slaves too this product, my God! how can we as the users change this to make things better as for keeping up. I mean do we really need that many version of Maya, 2 a year, come on man be honest, do you really see my point or are you just jazzing with my head here, ha ha ha, but really it upset me that with Maya, we have to change, and upgrade and change again, meanwhile that company drain our pockets, by making us believe that we are missing out on something better.

I do not mean to complain but I just purchased over $9.00 dollars on Maya tutorials and most of them was not used with version 5.0, so I waisted the money because the tools are not the same anymore or they may have put the tools in another place, come on am I sick or what.

Thanks for understanding. So at this point I am wondering sense I am so behind on the version here. Can I model things in this version with the issues that I faced at the time of learning Maya 5.0 before I put it down years back. I missed out on the patches they made fro some issues that I am having. So I think that I am kinda stuck, for now.

I knew this might be a dead end for me.

See here's my problem. When I got Maya, and that I could not figure things out to the point of integrating it into my workflow, so I put it down and got ZBrush. The Interface confused me so I put it down and got Modo.

There were not a lot of training for it other then 3DGarages stuff, what I wanted was Cartoon Modeling tutorials, but there was nothing out at the time. And last I got LightWave. So at this point I have spent a ton of money trying to find the right package to integrate into things.

But I keep thinking that Maya is the one I should have stuck with because it's the industry standard, but when I look back I am still with Maya 5.0 which brings me back to my question from the start. Am I to late because I keep switching around, trying to find my way and just got lost in it all?

Maya 5.0 should I just throw all that other stuff away and just get into Maya by itself. Is this what I should do and never look at the others again until I have one of these figured out?

Thanks,

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# 7 13-03-2008 , 07:52 PM
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I wouldnt worry about the corporate crap, too much stress, I get your point but it wont help you learn maya,

anyways, I think the need for Maya 5 tutes has been gone a while now, but I wouldnt let that be of concern, the principles of Maya remain basically the same as ever, Ive been using maya 6 until just around christmas time when I upgraded to 2k8, theres a few bits to adjust to but nothing drastic.

Maya still has its frustrations LOL, I think just get your head around whats not in 5 and vice versa with 8 and go from there. Again there'll be plenty of help about if you get severly stuck.

cheers
Jay

# 8 13-03-2008 , 09:22 PM
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I'm not sure where your nearest book store is, or the quality of content that they normally carry, but from my school there are about 12 different stores, of both used and new content. I have found books dating as far back as maya 4.5 in my travels.

I might suggest checking out computer stores as they are often "blowing out" books. Whats great about this is that they are outdated books by software standards and while it takes time going through hundreds of books you will no doubt end up finding a book you need for about 10% of its original cost.

If you want me to keep an eye out on things here and see if I can't ship them to you I will see what I can do. But let me know.

Just found one you can order online for 25$
Inside Maya 5


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# 9 13-03-2008 , 10:28 PM
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Tutorials fro Maya 5.0

Alexander-


Yes lets see if you have something that I can but from you if you are willing to see too me.

I thank all of your comments regarding my frustrations here.

Jay-

I also here you as well. Ok check this out,, Ok so I started modeling a head of a person with the image plans in place, right.

Ok so when making certain moves to continue making poly's the picture would warp on me. I posted this on one of the Maya sites and I got no help at all.

I think it was a tutorial that I purchased from The GnomonWorkshop, one of there instructors, that I was trying to follow. but got lost when this happened.

So I finally got someone to answer to me regarding what might be wrong. What he said was there were patches that were made during the time that I put Maya 5.0 down that I missed out on, and it might be too late for me to find them so I just gave up on it. And purchase Modo, LightWave, and ZBrush
to find a simple solution to help me in my workflow.

The problem has been, when I would go too the site to find training materials for each of the software packages, I did not get very far.

But some how in the back of my mind Maya, would also way come up because one I spent a ton of money on it, and two - I would always run across a model out there the the user used Maya, so this is why I am back to Maya.

I will not give up on the others, I will try and integrate them as well into my workflow. You see this 3D Thing is me learning it on my own, without being in a class room. I work in the Cartoon Industry as a 2d artist, but wanted to create toys out of some of my designs. To create a reason that justify including it into our work environment. So far I am not able to make a move because of this learning curve that I am stuck in.

The tutorials that I am kinda looking for are all about cartoons, because cartoons is what I draw all day long.

The other issue is that I am on a Mac, and most people that I have run across work on a PC, so they would not help and said things like: Maya works better on a PC, without knowing how it work on the Mac.

I wish that most instructors out there would address both platforms when creating training materials for purchase, I mean these days both platforms are heavily used in the creative world these days.

One more thing and that is most of the tutorials that I get all excited about, I would start it and all of a sudden the instructor go and call up a plug-in that I can not find. He would mention a site but the site, when i go too it does not have what was mention at all. So I wrote too the place where I purchase the friggin DVD, and just ask "Is it possible for you guys to please!!! have the instructor to add the plug-ins" in a separate folder please.


So they would not listen they would make up reason why they can not promise that and I would get upset and move on to the another software, which was not the right thing to do, now keep in-mind that all of this was under the Maya thing so there were other reason why I put it down, and moved on.

So now I am back, but this will be my last stop as for Maya, through SimplyMaya.com

You guys seem to be more open to giving good advice.

So too the rest of you, thanks, but are there any patches that Alias made that I can go and find that I may have missed out on, that one of you may know about?

Was I right to come back too Maya, yes it was I think.

Thanks,

Savnac:bow:

# 10 13-03-2008 , 11:11 PM
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Hey Savnac,
A quick search yielded some results for me about your patching maya.
The Alias Site Seems to have what you're looking for with mac specific patches.

As far as working on a mac vs PC with maya, well if you get a chance go to a store that has 3d world and read their article.
Pixar uses macs. Need I say more about the cartoon industry, and Macs?

Personally I use Maya on my Macbook and my windows destkop computer. I find that the mac works just as well, if not better than Maya on Pc. If someone wants to hinder your progress by saying that its because you are on a mac well fear not, many more plugins are being created for both pc and mac, and some now are strictly mac only. The only thing that may hinder your ability now is being that you are running 5.0. But keep your head high and do your best, I'm sure we here will help you as best we can.


-Alexander


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# 11 13-03-2008 , 11:31 PM
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Pixar using macs, Steve Jobs CEO of apple and founder of Pixar, sounds like there would be a bit of bias on what they would use...

As for the differences theres non, other than if you dont have a 3 button mouse, everything works the same, I cant really think of anything that would work differently. The only thing that you might get is that if theres a software in a workflow that you cant get on a mac, but cant you just install windows under bootcamp anyway?

As for people thinking that maya runs better on mac vs windows, in my experience theres no difference at all on similar specd machines.

alexanderH - What are the mac only plug in's??


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# 12 13-03-2008 , 11:59 PM
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Originally posted by gster123
Pixar using macs, Steve Jobs CEO of apple and founder of Pixar, sounds like there would be a bit of bias on what they would use...

alexanderH - What are the mac only plug in's??

I believe Pixar converted to Macs in 2003.
As for mac only plug-ins I've yet to find any, nor have I looked. But articles in 3d world and around the net indicate that there are a few out there and increasingly more as several highend shops have converted to mac and as such have started to write for them. Though they say they are easily ported between windows and mac as they are all on a similar architecture now that the macs are intel powered.

So they seem to be in-house for the most part and that what makes it to the public will be easily written for both mac, and pc.


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# 13 14-03-2008 , 12:25 AM
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Ive never seen or heard of a plug in thats mac only, if they were and were commercially available then I really doubt that they would be mac only your alienating about 70% of your user base the only time I could think that you would is for a mac only piece of software (like FCP).


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# 14 14-03-2008 , 12:51 AM
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Yo Alexander-


I clicked on that site and it's saying that I can not get to it. I am using Safari as my web browser.

How else can I reach these patches? Is it possible that someone can download them and send to my email if possible. Now I know this might be asking for too much but on my end my search engine will not allow me to go there.

Autodesk has a block on it from my end. I saw there logo at the top of the page

The issue that I am faced with as for the PC users that's doing the training

only uses the PC. so for these companies that allow the instructor to train us, using the PC, should say to the instructor to mention to us Mac users the equivalent commands. So that we would understand what to do when faced with these issues.

The bottom line is when your new to all of this, we are lucky to run into a few good people, like yourselves and go from there. Cause I tell you the 3D world is full of guys that a scared of competition, seriously there's the sense of keeping info away from other talented people, with the fear of someone else out shinning them.


I have ran across tons of them on other sites.


Dare

# 15 14-03-2008 , 01:05 AM
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Hmm, unfortunately the site requires membership. And I am now remembering why I do not have membership.
It costs money.
I'm running student everything until I get out of school so unfortunately I do not have access to any of the autodesk downloads. I'll see if I can find your fixes anywhere else.

I have found at least one tutorial so far for that was written while using 5.0 which may be of some helpuser added image. Here It Is.

Also I looked around the Digital tutors website and they have lots of content that is available for Maya 4.5 and up. If you cannot find something you are looking for and care to purchase from them why not contact them and see if they have anything for mac or from their older tutorials that are done in 5.0?
Here is an example of digital tutors. They have a bunch of free videos on using a lot of different tools that are good from 4.5-7 and such.


Still no luck on the mac patch for 5.0 anywhere free:<


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