Best place to look and see what's going on is check out the Game dev AD's on Gamasutra:
Just checked the last 14 days of listings, and most level design, animator, character animator, character modeler, environment artist, level designer, lighter, game designer, and tools programmer positions require knowledge of either Max or Maya.
XSI and Lightwave are barely mentioned at all. Not saying they arent used, With the Game devs I worked at in the past few years/. I used Max in the UK 1997-1998, lightwave and maya at the same company for 2 years in 1999-2001 and Maya and Max 2001-2002.
Maya was pretty poor for level and environment design until fairly recently but had very good spline and nurbs tools. It's caught up with max in this respect and judging by the currently avaliable about 90% of the positions on Gamasutra required either Max or Maya and only a couple mentioned lightwave and XSI as a viable alternaive.
It's unfortunate that game devs don't have the time to train staff in new tools, at the end of the day it's really hard to get a job if you don't have the right skills and at the moment it seems there are only 2 3D apps that will give you a sure shot at the majority of art and design related positions.
Just checked the last 14 days of listings, and most level design, animator, character animator, character modeler, environment artist, level designer, lighter, game designer, and tools programmer positions require knowledge of either Max or Maya.
XSI and Lightwave are barely mentioned at all. Not saying they arent used, With the Game devs I worked at in the past few years/. I used Max in the UK 1997-1998, lightwave and maya at the same company for 2 years in 1999-2001 and Maya and Max 2001-2002.
Maya was pretty poor for level and environment design until fairly recently but had very good spline and nurbs tools. It's caught up with max in this respect and judging by the currently avaliable about 90% of the positions on Gamasutra required either Max or Maya and only a couple mentioned lightwave and XSI as a viable alternaive.
It's unfortunate that game devs don't have the time to train staff in new tools, at the end of the day it's really hard to get a job if you don't have the right skills and at the moment it seems there are only 2 3D apps that will give you a sure shot at the majority of art and design related positions.