mskin

I didn't know that Autodesk bought maya. When did they and what does it mean in terms of 3d max vs. Maya?

IC

Doesn't seem to have had much effect so far. A new release of Maya has just come out under Autodesk so they're obviously not scrappping it (immediately).

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mskin

But whats the point? Did they just purchase Maya to elliminate competition with 3d studio max? Will they continue to peddle both 3d programs - if so, why? How long ago did they purchase Alias?

Why would a company seel two competing projects... i mean, what would a sales rep tell me is the best product for me?

bricklyne

The purchase of Alias had more to do with Alias' Studiotools Nurbs modelling program than it had to do with Maya. Studiotools is the most widely used program used in the North American Automotive design market as well as in general freeform curvilinear Product design; especially as an alternative to CATIA and Rhino. So that alone should tell you why this was an important purchase for Autodesk.

Yes, as you've pointed out, although it doesn't make sense to have 2 apparently competing products under the same roof, they have so far managed to mainain the status quo and keep the development of both products seperate and alive. Don't forget that this isn't he first time that they're doing something of this nature; they also have Revit and ADT, with no signs of discontinuing either despite the fact that they are both marketed as BIM solutions.

Besides which, MAX and Maya are not exactly direct competitors in the sense the they each have strengths and tools that the other lacks which give them niche marketbases. Maya is stronger with animation and organic modelling, and more widely used in the movie industry, whereas Max has greater strengths in AEC modelling as well as a plethora of plugins for Archviz rendering and visualization that are currently not available to Maya users.

In any case, I personally don't believe they'll keep it this way for long, since it's not financially feasible over the long term; and Autodesk are nothing if they are not astute business people first and foremost. I foresee a situation down the road when one of the programs gets swallowed up by the other and it's features are integrated into the other,( This could also apply to the Revit-ADT scenario); as to which one swallows the other, your guess is as good as any - although it doesn't take much to figure that out, given Autodesk's history.

Justin Hunt

The same senario has been speculated about Max and Viz, yet there is no slowdown in devolompent of the two. Remeamber when the two did start to deviate too much , there was an outcry from users so they were brought back in line.

Considering the Maya user base I think the samewill hold true. Maya will be around for a while yet. Give it 5 years at least before anything will change. But there again 5 years is a long time in this industry.

JHV

NeonMojo

It was my understanding that they have no plans of abandoning either title any time in the near future.

If anything they should focus each title to its own market niche while improving compatability and workflow between the titles. With each release they can make subtle changes to the GUI and scripting languages until they are uniform. That way each can have specialized tools for its own market niche and still allow users to switch easily between programs to maximize the benifits of each.

Antisthenes

this is just more of autodesks sick marketing capitalizing tactics

don't be fooled into giving them any money i say.

as i see Rhinoceros was mentioned as the competition to Studiotools, So is rhino competition dirrectly to Autocad itself, at least the beta 4 under dev.

who here remembers the last time autodesk people did a forced upgrade at uptgrade cost or if not pay the full version price thing? they have done this each year almost as i remember
and for them to have many packages doing the same stuff it only helps them to make even more money and do more forced upgrade arm twisting , all for what asthetics. we know adobe does this too.

so my advise look to solutions like progecad rhinoceros paint.net gimp and others be they small buisneses or open source to subvert the preditory monopoly tactics of autodesk(sic)