Which package to choose?

[kingsoz]

Hi there!!

 

I am faily new to this architectural vis stuff, but it is an area which I plan to branch off into. I am currently working in the movie industry as an effects TD, using a software package known as Houdini Master to achieve our effects. Although in my opinion, it is an extremely powerful package, it is not a feasable solution for architectural visualisations.

 

Now before I spend much time learning packages I would like to receive honest opinions from others on what their views are for the 'best package for architectural visualisations' is. The 2 I had in mind and couldn't choose between was either 3Ds Max 9 or Maya Complete 8.5.

 

Either case I would use the mental ray rendering engine, since I am familiar with this. Maya Complete is cheaper than 3Ds max, but does it have all the features which would be requires to make certain things like grass, curtains, table cloths and the use of photometric lights?

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and I am sorry if this question has been asked before.

 

Thanks in advanced...

 

Sotiris

[AJLynn]

Maya is as good for rendering and lighting as Max, but the advanced hair and cloth effects are in Unlimited only and that's expensive. And it's probably overkill. Last I checked Max was much better at importing from AutoCAD, which is important to some people's workflows (others don't use it at all) but both have nearly identical mental ray capabilities (but with somewhat different interfaces) and Vray as an option, so they're basically equal as rendering platforms.

[kingsoz]

Ok cool, one more question though, max has the advantage of being able to draw doors, windows, stairs etc straight from the control panel, are these actually used in production or does everybody draw them from scratch? If so I might as well use Maya since I prefer it for modelling, unless Maya has these objects for import as well?

 

Does Maya have the photometric lights? like with realworld kelvin settings as max does?

 

Sotiris

[AJLynn]

I haven't tried those button for a while but unless they've made major improvements since they did, you're better off modeling your own.

 

As for photometric lights, if you'd RTFM'ed or Googled it would have taken about 15 seconds (really, that's how long it took me) to find that the answer is yes, at least when using mental ray.

[BrianKitts]

I'm sure there is a large user base for maya, but as for architecture.... specially on this site you will probably find more users/help/reference for max. Don't let me sway you from maya if you are comfortable with it I've seen quality architectural work done with the program. But something you should also research is third party plugins and libraries for your software. Things to consider are foliage, people, vehicles, furniture, and lighting engines all should be factored into your decision. As a max user I can say that there are a lot of great options geared towards architecture with Max, however with Maya they may exist but not being in that world I couldn't answer that question, so that's one thing you should look into.