Anyone using Maya?

[Creationtwentytwo]

Hey guys, just curious if anyone here is using Maya for the bulk of their ArchVis pipeline?

 

I've worked in vis for about 5 years, and always used Max/VRay. I also have been using all Macs both at home and at work for the past 4 or so years. Up until now, I've just Bootcamped Windows and ran Max just fine, but every time I boot OS X at home, it makes me want to just run OS X and ditch Windows.

 

So, obviously the first issue is my main 3D app. I bought Modo recently, and whilst I LOVE the modeling tools, the scripts available as well as the UV tools, the renderer is slow... and noisy.

 

I've tried C4D and can't get into it. It looks like it could own the motion graphics world (if it doesn't already) but for vis, it's never performed fantastically for me. It doesn't like complex scenes, and I don't like the 'instancing' system when using hundreds of tree models for example. The renderer is pretty nice but very very slow.

 

So that really only leaves Maya, which I've never tried for visualisation.

 

So, how does it handle the usual stuff for architecture? DWG imports? Proper scaling and unit handling?

 

I've just seen this, which apparently is all Maya (and PaintFX???!!!) which kind of instills a fair bit of faith in the strength of Maya and MR, but it's also important that it can handle the points above too.

 

Thanks

[Scott Schroeder]

It has nothing to do with Maya. Zero, zip, nadda. It is the user at the software, nothing else. Why are you messing around with various softwares? It seems like a complete waste of your time, money, and resources.

 

Can Maya model? Then, that's your answer if you can use it for arch viz. It's not overly used in arch viz due to it's limitations with Revit and various CAD formats, but it is used heavily in games and films for environment creation.

 

Gnomon has a crapload of environment tutorials for Maya if you want to toy with them: http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/category/5/

[Creationtwentytwo]

It has nothing to do with Maya. Zero, zip, nadda. It is the user at the software, nothing else. Why are you messing around with various softwares? It seems like a complete waste of your time, money, and resources.

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I don't agree, and I don't think it's your place to say what may or may not be a 'complete waste' of my time, money or resources.

 

Here's the thing, assuming you're a professional, you'll know that deadlines rule the work in our industry. Now, if I've used Max for 5 years, and come to rely on the scripts, plugins and tools in Max, then what I want to know with Maya is not if it is capable of producing arch viz, of course it is, rather if it is capable of handling an arch viz workflow at a pace comparable to Max, in terms of file handling, units and plugins, as I asked in my OP.

 

I bought Modo because I'd heard great things about its modeling toolset, and you know what? I'm glad I did, it's lightning quick for modeling, and will save me time on future projects. Sure it was an outlay to learn it and buy it, but I did that in my spare time and consequently, it paid off.

 

I really feel like you approached my question like I'm a fresh faced teenager asking 'Max or Maya' for the 50th time before I'd even modelled a box. That really isn't the case. I'm just a Mac user (simply because I love the OS and admittedly the hardware) who is looking to make the switch but still be able to work at a comparable pace.

[Nic H]

Buy a professional grade PC workstation and use 3dsmax

Industry standard for a reason.

[Creationtwentytwo]

Well, thanks for the helpful reply.

[Nic H]

No problems mate!

[Chris MacDonald]

I wouldn't sacrafice my max workflow, etc for the sake of an OS; especially if it's getting the job done for you. But perhaps that's just because I hate OSX & macs - so I can't really put myself in that situation.

 

That said, I have never used maya so have no idea of its capabilities with regards to the arch vis workflow? I have always assumed that due to the way it's used in films/games where people model "Freeform" for lack of better words - less importance given to correct scale/accurate measurements it always struck me that it may lack in this respect. But I could be talking out of my arse, having never used it. Purely an assumption.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Macker

[copain]

Hi guys

I use Maya for my freelance bits, using Max in the office.

 

-Tom that project you linked to is in Mental Ray, but personally i dont like using it, especially now Vray is well implemented( as good as in Max in my opinion).

You can easily get the same results in Maya as in max.

Workflow wise I developed something that works for me.(real world scale,cad import, connection with Max,...)

 

In the end It can work for you, but you will still have to deal with the fact most people work in max.(like if a client gives you files or expects them back in a certain format).

You will also need time to get use to maya and its workflow.

 

Steve

[Creationtwentytwo]

Chris - Yeah I see your point, I also get the 'freeform' impression from Maya in that it's not normally aligned with the 'real world scale' CAD workflow we use in arch vis, which is why I was curious as to how it handles stuff like DWG's and proper units.

 

Steve - Ok great, thanks. I actually didn't realise VRay was available for Maya and it'll be good to continue using a familiar engine.

 

Regarding the Mac thing, I know it's a personal preference thing and I don't want to turn this into one of those debates, but for me, I want to make the switch for a few reasons.

 

Firstly, as I mentioned, I use Macs at home. Primarily because I do a lot of music production in my spare time, and have all my music equipment hooked up to the Mac (not to mention the fact that Logic is Mac only) so it would be nice to keep one machine with which I can do everything.

 

Secondly, I also work quite a lot on a laptop, again a MacBook, and I'm often taking it to client meetings etc so being able to keep everything sync'd together on the same platform would be a plus for me. Another thing is software, if I'm using two OS's, some licenses aren't cross-platform which would mean I have to shell out for packages twice.

 

I don't think Macs are that uncommon in this industry. I've been in a fair few architecture studios, especially smaller 'boutique' firms that use Macs.

 

I appreciate that PC+Max is industry standard but at the end of the day, it's me spending 8+ hours a day working on these tools and as long as I can get the job done and please the clients, then I just want to make my workflow as comfortable as possible to me.

 

With that said, it sounds like it's worth exploring. I'll download the trial and see how I get on. I do want to clarify though that this isn't just me buggering around with new software for the heck of it, it's just me being a bit OCD about the 'streamlining' of my work environment.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Creationtwentytwo

[Chris MacDonald]

Funny you should mention music & Logic... That is the reason I wouldn't switch haha. Nothing against logic, but I used it and macs for 2 years at college and it was the least stable platform I'd ever used. Cubase all the way for me. Horses for courses!

[Creationtwentytwo]

Yeah I have a love/hate relationship with it. I used to love it, but it's been neglected and if we don't see version 10 this year I'll probably switch to Cubase simply for the stability issues you mentioned, which are increasingly a problem.

[Chris MacDonald]

Shame, because some of the stuff that comes as standard in logic is excellent, especially the ES2.

 

[edit] Sorry to hijack your thread!

[Sketchrender]

I can see Max and Maya melding in the coming years.

I know there are subscriptions and different revenue streams for both, but if you were to look at the industry as a whole, I think it would make sense, but that's not the way the world moves.

[arnoudschoofs]

Hi,

We’re using Maya ( mental ray ) for 5 years successfully now.

And thanks to online courses like digital tutors we can keep updating our skills.

 

Lately we inscribed for Max courses because we believe it has some advantages over Maya that will improve our workflow:

-There's a lot more available on the web that is plug_and_play for Max and Vray. Think 3d models, plugins, tutorials, blogs, Revit compatibility, etc.. We've spend many hours in 'transforming' things to Maya

-Most students, freelancers over here use/are trained in Max

 

This does not imply that we're going to throw away all the Maya experience and libraries. But we just can't ignore that Max is the market standard and therefore we have to acquire and master those skills.

 

It will just depend on the project which software will be used. We're convinced that the choice of the right software is mainly based on optimising our workflow. But it's not the choice of software that will determine the artistic value or quality of your final product. That's HR managment.

[Creationtwentytwo]

Thanks guys.

 

I don't think it's gonna happen after all. There's too many plugins I rely on almost every project like Floor Generator, Bookmanager, GrowFX etc. I've also read some people have had issues with Mayas bridge/append tools which are kinda fundamental to the way I work. For example if I have 100 windows on a facade and I'm modeling them all at once with inset/extrude, I bridge the polys to create the opening, and it looks like Maya can't do this without 'twisting' the bridge due to normal direction.

 

I'm sure there's workarounds and scripts to cover most things but it doesn't seem worth the effort at this stage. Guess I should've listened to you guys at the beginning!

[johnrygielski]

Are you going to be using Maya to model, or light/shade/render? I've bee using Maya for the last 3 years at work. I just started learning modo and, woah, loving the modeling tools. If you use modo for all modeling and Maya/Vray for the rest, you could potentially stay on the Mac platform. There are always going to be plugins. Archviz is a sweetspot for Max, so if you really depend on some 3rd party tools and model libraries whose equivalent doesn't exist in Maya, it's probably not worth it. But if you can find some alternatives, it sure is nice not fighting an OS at home. At work my Mac Pro was permanently switched to boot in Windows. I would go crazy if they hadn't also given me a Mac Mini to go with it. Myself, I don't have an archviz workflow yet (I'm just now trying to get back into it), so I'm gonna give modo a shot for everything. The preview render is pretty sweet.

[Creationtwentytwo]

Yeah I'm definitely going to continue using Modo for modeling, it is plain awesome for that as you say. The renderer is capable for sure, and it is possible to get nice results but the thing that puts me off using it as a main app for everything is really that the renderer is slow and very noisy, and I've found it very difficult to eliminate noise completely without getting impossible rendering times.

[johnrygielski]

Yeah, the noise requires tweaking to get rid of. Reminds me of learning the ways of Final Gather with mentalray (although we eventually cut our losses and went to renderman). Have you watched any of their training videos? They just released a new one (http://www.luxology.com/store/rendering/interiors/) with updated interior workflow for modo 601. Their training videos can be very helpful.

 

Not sure how far you've come with modo's system but, sometimes throwing more render samples and rays at a problem isn't the answer. I like that you can give a material its own shader with increased shading rate so you don't have to up it for the whole scene (good for blurry reflection materials).

[Chris MacDonald]

What is it that makes Modo so good at modelling then chaps? On the surface it does look like a better package than max, but as mentioned max has a critical mass behind it, producing plugins, tutorials, blogs, scripts, etc.

[Creationtwentytwo]

It's a combination of a few things really.

 

There's a feature called 'work plane' which is kind of like AutoGrid in Max but it's super quick to customize and you can align stuff to it as well as model off of it.

 

You can do custom falloffs for a lot of tools which is kind of like a customized soft-selection which can be tweaked after the fact.

 

All of the tools have intuitive ways of working and are bound to hotkeys (although obviously most people set any app up with hotkeys).

 

The 'action centre' is completely customizable for every action too, which basically means the pivot point of each command can be set on the fly or just left to centre by default, or of course switched to local/normal/origin etc etc.

 

It's hard to explain, and it is a very different way of working. It felt completely alien to me at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy to love.

 

The shader setup however is another story... Some people love it, I do not. At all. It's called 'Shader Tree' and basically rather than applying materials to meshes like you would in any other app, you have a kind of 'bottom-to-top' render system which works a little bit like the layers system in Photoshop. Rather than applying a material to a mesh, you apply a mask to the mesh and the shader just sits in the stack, so the mask tells Modo which meshes should have that shader. If it sounds complex and ridiculous, that's because it is, and I really think they've made it too complex, they should've just used a standard node-based shader setup in my opinion.

[johnrygielski]

In additional, the selection tools are just great. Selecting/adding/traversing loops is pretty sweet. Nice topology tool. I love the reflection viewport display mode that really helps me see how a mesh is smoothing. Replicators come in handy, too.

[matthewspencer]

Hey it sounds like you've got your problem basically sorted out, I think it sounds pretty logical.

Gonna comment on your C4D experience, though, because I think you may have quite a different opinion if you had changed some settings.

 

It doesn't like complex scenes

Actually C4D is famously stable, and can handle serious complexity. As an example, I recently added simulated hair to an object, animated it moving around, and was able to move and manipulate the object WHILE it simulated the hair and continued animating.

 

Optimizing the viewport is probably all you needed. There's a lot of fields to tweak, such as level of detail, OpenGL quality, etc.

 

and I don't like the 'instancing' system when using hundreds of tree models for example.

This might have been why it seemed to bog down for you. Instances allow it to save enormous amounts of memory. Once you know how to use them, they can be a life-saver, and a major efficiency boon. Did you have problems with the workflow of C4D instances specifically, or do you dislike instances in general?

 

The renderer is pretty nice but very very slow.

I am puzzled by this...C4D is actually my go-to "quick and dirty" renderer. If we were talking about Maxwell that'd be one thing, but AO+GI in C4D is basically lightning. So again I think this may boil down to settings. As a side note: VRay is also available for C4D.

[heni30]

You'll be in a bind if you have to collaborate with other max renderers on a large job. Happened on a project I worked on. Not worth the hassle. Also I've been given half finished max renderings to run with. Your workflow comfort is not worth the problems you may run into down the road.