whale

I am a very good user of Max,, .. and i have had various arguements with people who dont even know anything about 3d that maya is better and stronger than max and that max is very easy and has limits...

i want to start this thread so i can hear the opinions of others. doing this will make me be able to face any opposition..... Thanks

Exellite

if max is easy i must be a retard

Ghan

Same here...i could be retarted 2 then

Sketchup is easy...not Max!

Exellite

this question prompted me to jump on google and the consensus seems to be "it's not what you have, it's how you use it that counts"

hmm where have i heard that before...

something most professionals seem to agree on though is Maya is best for character animation

TheAllusionist

I think it is relative, compared to SketchUp it is complex, but compared to XSI it seems easier to use. I like XSI and think it does more but I am using Max the majority of the time because it is easier to use (for me) and there is so much out there for Max that is specific to arhvis as far as content and third party plugins, not to mention Max's core features for working with CAD files.

I don't have or know Maya, but I had been seriously researching it prior to buying XSI and somewhat follow along what is going on with it. Long term 3D officionados use to comment on how Max continually adopted features and workflows from Maya and were copying it in a sense, I am not denying or defending it, but Maya is the 'King of the Hill' as far as general CG goes, maybe not in seats sold, but in strength of what it will actually do. A lot of these features are over kill for the average user and it's built in render engine for a long time was it's achiles heel in the eyes of the general public, but large studio's had pipe lines in place to use render engines of choice that the average joe didn't have access to. If you look at places like HighEnd 3D and Autodesk's Area you will see that there is a kind of golden era going on for Maya as far as scripts and third party addons, some cool archvis related stuff as well.

My opinion is that Maya and XSI are stronger programs, but Max, in large part due to Autodesk's backing, is a stronger platform outside of Hollywood or large studios due to the 3rd party addons and render engine options, not to mention EASE of USE That is of course an opinion and everyone has one, but I think if you talked to people in big production houses outside of archvis it might be the concensus.

I think your argument should be that Max is the best at what you do, I don't think a generalized statement open to all fields of CG can be won by anybody, They all have their strengths and weeknesses and as far as relying on number of seats sold, that has a lot to do with being at the right place at the right time, MicroStation backed Unix in the early days and AutoCad chose to back DOS, the rest is history.

__________________
The Opinions Expressed Here Do Not Necessarily Reflect Those of a Rational Mind.
3DAllusions | 3DAllusions Studio | MrMaterials

pailhead

Max is much easier than houdini.

Anway, this is the whole point

"people who dont even know anything about 3d"


Maya is good, but t's not "stronger" or anything than max, it has is pros and cons. As far as us arch-viz guys are concerned, it was mostly the lack of quality 3rd party renderers like vray that made max a far better choice than maya or anything else for that matter.

afterglow

Have used Maya, XSI and Max over the years and personally i much prefer XSI, followed by Maya, and only ever used Max due to the fact that (as u guys have mentioned) all of the 3rd party stuff tailored for arch viz is made for Max. Max definitely has the least intuitive interface.

anvaraziz

__________________
www.mukks.com

Koper

imo if you wanna look at it that way then its like comparing a pop band(maya) to a heavy metal punk rock band (max), i agree, max's UI doens't look as good but d@m, it works fine. hardCORE

whale

i think the whole point is that, in the Archviz world Max is the king of the hill,,, but when it comes to character projects and visual effects, Maya has more egde and stance...