Maya modelling or Max modelling?

[Rony_Autodesk]

Hi, I am a 3dsmax user. Been told to move to MAYA because people said modeling in MAYA is much more intuitive since it has the NURBS compatibility and powerful scripting, may I know what is the benefits of using MAYA compared to 3dsmax? I am talking about the modelling process. For animation, I know that MAYA is much better than 3dsmax.
Please give some clearance, thank you

[pudbawl]

If somebody is telling you that modeling in one software is easier and better than another one it's probably because they are just more familiar with one piece of software than the other.  NURBS are great for their specific purpose, but the poly modeling tools have gotten so powerful these days that even tasks you might have used NURBS for in the past can often be done more easily with polys.  And if something is going to go into an outside sculpting package for further work it's going to have to be turned to polys anyway.

The scripting in Maya is great.  But in focusing on the area of modeling I wouldn't consider it a major selling point, if your focus is the sculpting then really the scripting would just be for simple little tasks, and I think the scripting in Max could handle that sort of thing just as easily.

Learning Maya would be helpful because it will expand your skill set, there may be a job possibility in the future that needs you to use Maya.  There is a very big possibility of that since it is so widely used, especially for visual effects, and for that reason it is definitely worth learning.

So, basically I would say given talented artists neither software package stands above the other for modeling toolset.  Expand your skill set by becoming familiar with Maya, but don't choose to use it unless you at some point find it has a tool or workflow that could help you with something that has been specifically holding you up.

[Rony_Autodesk]

Hi, thank you for your generous reply. I agree poly modelling is perhaps the way to go for intuitive modelling, since poly can easly be modified, unlike NURBS where it always consist of 4 sided "patch" and stitching those patch with predefined continuity making it harder to modify. I have been using Max poly and i believe MAYA poly offers similar tools.

but the thing that holds me up is the limitation of Max NURBS. i need a precised control of NURBS because of my work doing archviz. For instance, in NURBS i can specify a series of isoparm in U or V direction (after UV reparameterization) , extract Subsurface based on specified UV distance, adding parametric changes to those subsurface. UV isoparm is very very very useful because from that I can go onto algoritmic panelling.

Curently I am using another software to cater my need for NURBS and generative algoritmic design (Rhino+grasshopper) but Rhino doesnt accept mesh poly from Max very well. And I had to rebuild the Poly into NURBS in rhino before i can take it to further scripting and it is so annoying.

i want to use MAYA because of the compatibility with Max. And I heard Maya node editor with python is immensely good. ( u can basically create anything in there) but learning curve is rather steep, since I have to learn python before I can take full advantage of MAYA scripting...

On the other hand, grasshopper in Rhino offers a scripting interface that doesnt require any knowledge of any computer language.

I wanted to do the same or even more in MAYA, do you have any preferences where to learn more about MAYA node editor and stuff? Been looking for that tutorial so far i can only find few Hypergraph and node editor tutorial for character animation and rigging. Havet yet to see MAYA scripting implementation in Architectural parametric design. Any clue?

Thank you

[callumblackall]

As I am sure you are aware by now neither one is better then the other they are just slightly different and if you have pleanty of exzperience with one and it does the job for you easily then I would say just stick with it unless you just have some free time to kill and want to try out the other.

[pudbawl]

The node editor is nice for assisting you with tasks, it's kind of like Hypershader 2.0 so it's good to become familiar with it and if you've found tutorials regarding rigging they've probably taught you a majority of what you need to know about it.

If you want to be serious about scripting in Maya also get familiar with the script editor, and when you really want to get serious check out using an external editor such as Eclipse with Maya.  Everything happening in Maya's GUI is a mel script running in the background, so learning Python is good, it's got an intuitive syntax and handy functions, but knowing MEL is still an absolute must because even when using python your going to use it to call a lot of mel commands. 

Check out digital tutors, they've got a free trial and I find they have a lot of introductory level tutorials that could be especially useful for the node editor and scripting.

[Rony_Autodesk]

I see, so it is better for me to concentrate on MEL first. with MEL we can basically perform any kind of complex panelling for architectural object right? if MEL can produce smthing similar to or overpower Rhino+Grasshopper. it would definetly be worthy to learn MAYA. thanks for all the supportive reply. Ill try to get my head to MAYA then..

peace 🙂