I agree quite a lot with your last posts, podperson.
Yup, the non integrated interface of Lightwave will shock those used to integrated ones...Funnily, I was used to that with that old 3ds for DOS in '96. I did a course/master. I had 2d shaper, to build splines, 3d lofter, to make birail skinning, just lofting, and otehr ways. Then that went to the mesh editing main thing, and yet u had the IK mode (unconnected parts yet! no weights) , material editor...
But somewhat made an organized flow...
I really did hate when smashed all in one in Max1, and did those rolling menus. SO much... I stopped learning.
Now I'm used to the other way and can't switch back :D
But u'r al th etime doing so...I learnt Blender's UI...I had to learn Max and cs...I'm learning now XSI that I purchased....
XSI 4 foundation has way more than the usual game developer tool. i don't care any of the supposed ripped functions.
hair rendering, but not for games, just as I enjoy that. Could test in a job the lovely shag hair(free demo available) rendering , animation and gravity settings, and I'm told XSI hair is much better.
The joint pinning in XSI, the ik handling and bones building is lovely, really nice. The built in obj import and export, the more seamless I have. The dx *.x import and export downloadable addons, fully working here. :) (no other package that i used fully imports dx anims.)
I'm REALLY happy with it. yet though haven't put mor etime in it that checking i can do all what I needed, previous to purchase. I'm modelling with WIngs, and doing other stuff in ultimate unwrap and other tools, as of yet.(will keep so, probably...)
Polygon reduction..I have an old version of Vizup freeware(before) optimizer, which works quite well, metasequoia, and qslim, all them help me reduce the models, but i rarely do so , and never for games.
the game engine integration..that's a plus that no other package has...but if lacking in xsi, I don't care. besides having already obj and x great support, dotXSI ascii format excels for game engine exports, is quite easy for a coder, tons of doc available, sdk, etc...
Looking a bit more carefully in job offers...seems animators are asked often to use Maya, already, while character modellers, lightwave, Max. And level editing people, in blizzard and other places, I read Max. But non exclusively. Some years ago, Blizzard offers where clear. Max and only Max. Now they say "Max or equivalent package". And as I say, in animation job, they say clearly Maya.
Yet though, animating in Character STudio is so easy...of course, a custom Maya rig would surpass that, but...It depends on the needs. To make several already Max based modellers help with anims in an overloaded team, is quicker and easy teach em some notions bout CS than learn a whole new package like Maya.
Indeed, some of the greatest game animators I've seen, prefer Max bones +ik+helpers+dummies, in complex workflows (more similar to Maya's ways) than CS.
Skullbox prefers Max bones and still use the Character Studio weighting tool, Physique. And I can tell he's a real kickass animating guy...He puts such lovely secondary animation in his beasts...and amazingly quick.
While I do can animate with Max bones, I personally prefer using cs biped for speed reasons (have animated with raw bones&weights in other packages(character FX, Blender, Anim8or)) while skin modifier (strongly improved in max6 and 7) for skin weights.
I have seen in two companies that max simply will cover ANY need in game production. When u'r a gfx slave, that's really apreciated.
For the place where it comes from, Maya imho is making a huge effort to get the shape of something it was not made for . It was made as a real professional tool for film making. Still, I see how a lot of studios (funnily, the price thing may not be so important, many of em are the ones with more money, demanding way more animation quality, and they know several kickass animators are flowing from film industry towards gaming; I guess some houses may have maya to use those guys...Others simple need the flexibility of Maya in animations (nodes relations, etc))
One package I would have REALLY loved to have used in game dev, is Mirai. I wont speak about it, but the ik, the modelling everything is so sweet (Ray Baitts did work on Gollum, and other beasts in LOTR with it)
IMHO, any of these Mirai, Maya, Lightwave, can be used in AAA game developing. Is a matter of...most were not done with mainly games in mind, but higher targets. Max is already customized for that, and to keep in competition, has added a lot of work in postediting, fx, etc...
i see there's a lot of ppl don't know the whole set of features of max..heck, I don't either...is too big :) But I realize...the ui is shocking for many people... others find it easier to learn than Maya.
yet so, I wouldn't recommend using Max "as is" .there's aloads of plugins there. Modelling organic with old Evak times in game dev he refers too, sure was moe painfull. You can get many Mirai like modelling , right click floating menus stuff, edge loop modelling with things like meshtools Script, Orion, Polymagus, Unrapper, etc...Using a "clean" max for organic modelling could be a pain, yet though, I've done so, and I see it quite functional, anyway. Max 6, and mostly 7, has took note of that, and now modelling in Max7 is rather better than ever was.
I think u can model weherever..only I dig for is packages that wont leave me out in the rain for a total lack of a feature. I prefer to do it hardly than not being able to do it at all; is proved that an artist can learn anything. But can't do one thing that the package can't do.
Anyway, a non distracting, quick, flexible UI for modelling is a need. I guess I'll keep using Wings wherever the job I go...it's so quick a powerful for characters. I used max mainly as the integration tool, even uvmapped with Ultimate. heck, I wonder how I never got the sack ;)
Yup, the non integrated interface of Lightwave will shock those used to integrated ones...Funnily, I was used to that with that old 3ds for DOS in '96. I did a course/master. I had 2d shaper, to build splines, 3d lofter, to make birail skinning, just lofting, and otehr ways. Then that went to the mesh editing main thing, and yet u had the IK mode (unconnected parts yet! no weights) , material editor...
But somewhat made an organized flow...
I really did hate when smashed all in one in Max1, and did those rolling menus. SO much... I stopped learning.
Now I'm used to the other way and can't switch back :D
But u'r al th etime doing so...I learnt Blender's UI...I had to learn Max and cs...I'm learning now XSI that I purchased....
XSI 4 foundation has way more than the usual game developer tool. i don't care any of the supposed ripped functions.
hair rendering, but not for games, just as I enjoy that. Could test in a job the lovely shag hair(free demo available) rendering , animation and gravity settings, and I'm told XSI hair is much better.
The joint pinning in XSI, the ik handling and bones building is lovely, really nice. The built in obj import and export, the more seamless I have. The dx *.x import and export downloadable addons, fully working here. :) (no other package that i used fully imports dx anims.)
I'm REALLY happy with it. yet though haven't put mor etime in it that checking i can do all what I needed, previous to purchase. I'm modelling with WIngs, and doing other stuff in ultimate unwrap and other tools, as of yet.(will keep so, probably...)
Polygon reduction..I have an old version of Vizup freeware(before) optimizer, which works quite well, metasequoia, and qslim, all them help me reduce the models, but i rarely do so , and never for games.
the game engine integration..that's a plus that no other package has...but if lacking in xsi, I don't care. besides having already obj and x great support, dotXSI ascii format excels for game engine exports, is quite easy for a coder, tons of doc available, sdk, etc...
Looking a bit more carefully in job offers...seems animators are asked often to use Maya, already, while character modellers, lightwave, Max. And level editing people, in blizzard and other places, I read Max. But non exclusively. Some years ago, Blizzard offers where clear. Max and only Max. Now they say "Max or equivalent package". And as I say, in animation job, they say clearly Maya.
Yet though, animating in Character STudio is so easy...of course, a custom Maya rig would surpass that, but...It depends on the needs. To make several already Max based modellers help with anims in an overloaded team, is quicker and easy teach em some notions bout CS than learn a whole new package like Maya.
Indeed, some of the greatest game animators I've seen, prefer Max bones +ik+helpers+dummies, in complex workflows (more similar to Maya's ways) than CS.
Skullbox prefers Max bones and still use the Character Studio weighting tool, Physique. And I can tell he's a real kickass animating guy...He puts such lovely secondary animation in his beasts...and amazingly quick.
While I do can animate with Max bones, I personally prefer using cs biped for speed reasons (have animated with raw bones&weights in other packages(character FX, Blender, Anim8or)) while skin modifier (strongly improved in max6 and 7) for skin weights.
I have seen in two companies that max simply will cover ANY need in game production. When u'r a gfx slave, that's really apreciated.
For the place where it comes from, Maya imho is making a huge effort to get the shape of something it was not made for . It was made as a real professional tool for film making. Still, I see how a lot of studios (funnily, the price thing may not be so important, many of em are the ones with more money, demanding way more animation quality, and they know several kickass animators are flowing from film industry towards gaming; I guess some houses may have maya to use those guys...Others simple need the flexibility of Maya in animations (nodes relations, etc))
One package I would have REALLY loved to have used in game dev, is Mirai. I wont speak about it, but the ik, the modelling everything is so sweet (Ray Baitts did work on Gollum, and other beasts in LOTR with it)
IMHO, any of these Mirai, Maya, Lightwave, can be used in AAA game developing. Is a matter of...most were not done with mainly games in mind, but higher targets. Max is already customized for that, and to keep in competition, has added a lot of work in postediting, fx, etc...
i see there's a lot of ppl don't know the whole set of features of max..heck, I don't either...is too big :) But I realize...the ui is shocking for many people... others find it easier to learn than Maya.
yet so, I wouldn't recommend using Max "as is" .there's aloads of plugins there. Modelling organic with old Evak times in game dev he refers too, sure was moe painfull. You can get many Mirai like modelling , right click floating menus stuff, edge loop modelling with things like meshtools Script, Orion, Polymagus, Unrapper, etc...Using a "clean" max for organic modelling could be a pain, yet though, I've done so, and I see it quite functional, anyway. Max 6, and mostly 7, has took note of that, and now modelling in Max7 is rather better than ever was.
I think u can model weherever..only I dig for is packages that wont leave me out in the rain for a total lack of a feature. I prefer to do it hardly than not being able to do it at all; is proved that an artist can learn anything. But can't do one thing that the package can't do.
Anyway, a non distracting, quick, flexible UI for modelling is a need. I guess I'll keep using Wings wherever the job I go...it's so quick a powerful for characters. I used max mainly as the integration tool, even uvmapped with Ultimate. heck, I wonder how I never got the sack ;)