Reasons to punch Maya in the mouth.

# 1 07-08-2011 , 10:43 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2011

Posts: 126

Over on Vimeo Josh Robinson has posted a crit video of Maya and what, in his opinion, are shortcomings.

He has entitled it 'Reasons I want to Punch Maya in the Mouth'. Reasons why I want to punch Autodesk Maya in the face... on Vimeo

I have replied that a few of his assertions are wrong but he stands by his arguments.

Another Vimeo user has made his own rebuttal video: Can't punch Maya, because she's a girl;D on Vimeo

So what do you guys think.

Last edited by clearairstudios; 08-08-2011 at 11:17 AM.

Quote

# 2 07-08-2011 , 04:20 PM

Super Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2006

Location: South FL

Posts: 3,522

Some of his gripes are quite reasonable while others seem to come from being accustomed to a different workflow. I usually snub 22 min videos but his comments alone made it worth watching.

- Genny
__________________
::|| My CG Blog ||::
::|| My Maya FAQ ||::

Quote

# 3 07-08-2011 , 05:49 PM

yes...you dont sound not non double negative
Join Date: Jun 2009

Location: Norfolk, VA

Posts: 91

that guy is completely mental, sounds like one of those people you wouldnt want as a co worker. im sure AD is well aware of maya's modeling toolset weakness, theyve been aware for 20+ years, this guys is just making moot points that everyone already known for sometime, and he has been in the industry for sometime too. youd think hed have his own toolset or workflow to make his life easier, instead he rants about weakness in an app thats something noobs would pull, not a veteran , we could do this for all 3d apps on the market, no?

level 3 luchador!

image dump

Last edited by septopus; 07-08-2011 at 05:53 PM.

Quote

# 4 07-08-2011 , 06:05 PM

Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: Michigan, USA

Posts: 2,998

Mayas modeling tools still are in need of being updated and many of the users complaints are valid. Maya's modeling set 20 years ago was state of the art. But for the love of god 20 years have gone by and Maya's modeling tools have remained virtually unchanged.

It is almost a curse that Maya has good animation and dynamics because the developers seem content to let Maya's modeling tools languish sighting "but we have great animation tools". In fact I have an internal marketing document intended to defend Maya against Modo and that is the extent of the argument they put forth "When confronted about Maya's outdated and inferior modeling tool set remind the customer of Maya's superior animation and dynamic tools".

I can understand people arguing that new packages like modo have an advantage because all their tools were written recently. But then why have packages like Lightwave and Max that have been around just as long a Maya managed to get their modeling tools out of the dark ages! Little things like distribute edges, make planar, loop and ring pattern selection, true action centers and falloffs, better pivot orientation control, background constraints, just to name a few. No not only do none of these exist but we still have to deal with bugs that have been around in Maya since version 4!

For hard surface modeling Maya is a pain in the ass to work with and I genuinely hate modeling in Maya. If I was not addicted to the user interface I would switch packages in a minute. All I find maya really good at is creating basic geometry to feed to zbrush and creating crappy all positive geometry models, you know, the ones where you just cram lots of boxes into other boxes.

You really want an exercise in frustration just try to build a surface model with holes and fillets and rounds. When and if you can get the crappy nurbs tools to work, then you have to play with surface tessellation for hours to hide seams. It's a waste of time!

You just have to spend 10 minutes in Rhino to understand how worthless Maya's nurbs are. You just have to spend 10 minutes in Modo to understand how useless Maya's subd's are! So what is left polygons? Just look at the polygon tool set in Max to see how dated Maya's poly tool set is!

Studios continue to use Maya because for every seat they spend thousands of dollars adding custom addons like nex that should be standard tools in Maya or they use custom in house addons to add the missing functionality or they just use maya for animation and have started using other packages with modern tools for modeling.

Maya's modeling tools are outdated and need to be updated. Also, if they do not intend to properly support nurbs and subd's do us all a favor and remove them rather then piss on us and try to convince us it's just raining!

You want proof! Try to model this in Maya! https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5501128/subd%20gun/ACRLow01.jpg

I have been part of this site for years and have never seen a model even close to this done in Maya! This is all unified subd mesh, not boxes stuffed into boxes! Not pure organics where you don't have machined edges with tight corners. Try to get the negative spaces modeled within a unified mesh in Maya and not destroy your surface continuity trying to spread out all the control edges throughout your entire mesh! Go ahead model it in Maya and tell me how that works out for you! And this is not even a particularly difficult form as it conveniently has many planar surfaces. Add something with lots of compound curves and the difficulty in Maya increases several orders of magnitude.

I tire of this argument from people willing to live with mediocrity and defend AD and the previous owners Alias for allowing the modeling tools to become so completely outdated. I love the user interface but the modeling tools are weak.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 08-08-2011 at 06:28 AM.

Quote

# 5 07-08-2011 , 06:17 PM

Head of 3d Admedia
Join Date: May 2007

Location: nairobi , ken-ya

Posts: 1,340

I don't upgrade maya regularly maybe once in 4 years cause there hasn't been anything revolutionary for my workflow since mia materials but its disappointing to get errors from maya 7 showing up in maya 2012 i think its out right laziness and embarrassing

Quote

# 6 07-08-2011 , 06:51 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

Jeez, Im not gonna waste 20 plus minutes on a mentalists rant, but on reading the comments I can see both sides of the coin. I've been using the Maya modelling toolset for a long while professionally and to be totally honest, its been very rare to hear in a studio (at least where Ive been) about how bad its tools are to model with in Maya -very rare. In fact its usually been how bad Mental ray is and 'why arent we using Renderman goddamnit!!!'

So who are these people that are complaining LOL? I'll tell you...I recently finished a gig as Supervising Modeller and generally I found the negative comments have come from other software users, who have had little experience of Maya, who then go on to comment about this plugin or that plugin that max et al offers to do for the modelling work flow. So you have a plugin, great, so its not something that the base package actually offers. It all seemed a case of what they were used to and not wanting to learn what was in front of them. Also let us not forget about what under the hood in Maya, its API is there for the taking to customise and make it work how you want it to - thats Mayas most powerful feature, which in essence shows that its really made for the Industry and not really Joe the HomeUser. It isnt, it really isnt. Despite what AD says about price dropping for everyone to afford, etc blah blah.

Yeah I think some of the comments by Rick are valid, like holes cutting etc, should be sorted, and Nurbs...jeez I cant remember the last time someone used nurbs in the studio - maybe a few curves as a guide (like myself) or a quick extrude on a path, but thats about it. But please keep Subds LOL.

And as Vlad commented we could say this for most of the apps out there, not everyone is gonna see everything in the same light.

After the various differences and complaints and things myself and the Lead Texture Artist would come to hear, we made up a saying in studio....'Those who can, do. Those who can't, make excuses'

cheers for now
Jay

Quote

# 7 07-08-2011 , 07:29 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: Bolton - UK

Posts: 2,457

I love modeling in Maya, why because the interface is out of my face. And have my shelf with all my tools and the rest of the screen clear.

I watch the whole video and thought - hold on thats not how you do it - then watched the second video going - thats more like it.

I hated the workflow in Max for poly modeling its why I switched to Maya in the first place, Max can get my a*&

Maya is not perfect but neither am I

Quote

# 8 07-08-2011 , 07:33 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2011

Posts: 126

Josh hasn't replied to my video showing that you can indeed bevel as I suggested.

UPDATE: Josh has replied and has conceded that I appear to be able to get Bevel working as it is intended.

Maya 2011-2012 Bevel tool. on Vimeo

Last edited by clearairstudios; 16-08-2011 at 06:46 PM.

Quote

# 9 08-08-2011 , 06:11 AM

Lifetime Member
Join Date: Feb 2010

Location: Australia

Posts: 4,255

I watched about 5 mins then switched it off. I am not a hero modeller or work in the industry, yes even I know Maya has some foibles..especially with booleans ans offsets. I...a simple noob however MOST of the time work around this...like for instance edge loops...I want to create them...all the same offset from edges. I did this and then went into the AE ans checked out its weight, I then altered these accordingly and got what I wanted.

Yes all software has its ups and downs...I use Survey software constantly..and I have to get the shitty things to talk whilst I have $10 000 and hour of machinery and men waiting for me to map the roads etc...now thats pressure!

If Maya is so bad then why do so many companies use it? Mostly, probably the UI...same as my Survey gear...though it does function better tool wise but not all the time.

At the end of the day...if you dont like it, or cant use it to your advantage...dont f*****g use it....couldnt be simpler. Find an app that will complete you...me..at work..I use 4 CAD programs...if one wont do what I want...I use the next and the next until I get what I need. Im self taught in all of them...and use them whilst under great stress (usually Survey mapping)....so...if a hairy, Neanderthal, thick as a brick Bullet can do it....Im sure the experts can too. Or as I have just stated..adapt..LOL

cheers bullet

bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

Quote

# 10 08-08-2011 , 12:03 PM

Head of 3d Admedia
Join Date: May 2007

Location: nairobi , ken-ya

Posts: 1,340

I genuinely believe some of his points are valid and that Autodesk needs to do something about it . If no one complains Autodesk wont do a thing about it .

Quote

# 11 08-08-2011 , 12:29 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2011

Posts: 126

I genuinely believe some of his points are valid and that Autodesk needs to do something about it . If no one complains Autodesk wont do a thing about it .

Originally Posted by murambi

Agreed, but getting the facts right about some of the gripes puts you in a stronger position from which to argue.

Last edited by clearairstudios; 16-08-2011 at 06:46 PM.

Quote

# 12 08-08-2011 , 12:58 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2011

Posts: 126

I think I have got to the bottom of the bevel issue, at least part of it.

I think the problem is with the shelf button. If you right click and edit you can see that in the Mel command tab (Maya 2012) that it holds various parameters that are taken from the bevel options at the time the shelf button is created with the 'shift' + 'ctrl' action to add the menu item to the shelf.

Now the problem from what I can see is that they don’t appear to get updated when you alter the bevel options, for instance ‘fractional’ to ‘absolute’.

This fine if like me you don’t use the shelf button (never have made one until now) as I just set my parameters and hit ‘G’ to repeat the command on different objects.

From what I can see from the video Josh uses the shelf button which must carry the same mel command line from when it was created, however in Maya 2011 you can't RMB edit as in Maya 2012.

I agree this is a bug as the shelf button should be updated with the values, I didn’t see it as a bug as I work differently.

Only workaround is creating your shelf button with the bevel settings set to 'Absolute' and 'World' from the start.

Hope this sheds a little more light on this.

Kind Regards
Gary

Last edited by clearairstudios; 08-08-2011 at 02:28 PM.

Quote

# 13 08-08-2011 , 03:49 PM

Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: Michigan, USA

Posts: 2,998

I hear you about Mental Ray Jay that is another thing that is really bad in Maya. You practically need a PhD in pan dimensional quantum light theory to figure out what the 6 bazillion spinners do and since every one seems to affect every other one trying to dial the lighting in is just a miserable experience.

I sat there one afternoon trying to make sense of the documentation and it read like bad stereo instructions written in Russian then translated to English by someone that only speaks Chinese!

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Quote

# 14 08-08-2011 , 04:01 PM

Head of 3d Admedia
Join Date: May 2007

Location: nairobi , ken-ya

Posts: 1,340

I would jump to renderman but there doesn't seem to be much documentation and help as for mental ray........I could be wrong

Quote

# 15 08-08-2011 , 04:56 PM

SM Tea Boy
Join Date: Apr 2002

Location: Prague

Posts: 3,228

You practically need a PhD in pan dimensional quantum light theory !

Originally Posted by ctbram

That just about sums up mental ray for me

Dave user added image

From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"

Quote

Reasons to punch Maya in the mouth.

Posting Rules Forum Rules

Similar Threads

Topics

Free Courses

Full Courses

VFX News