I got interested in this topic again (I recently got a copy of Softimage|XSI), so I tried to find information on the market share of the various high end 3D programs.
You might like to check this link:
http://www.3drender.com/jobs/jobcount.htm
As you'll see, almost half of the jobs in 3D (according to these data) are for Maya operators, and over one third of the remaining are for Max. Softimage and Lighwave are roughly equal third.
Another interesting place to go is:
http://www.3dbuzz.com/
If you visit their 3d tools forums, you'll see that Max has about 1.5x as many posts in its forums as Maya (and everything else is in the dust). Again, if you visited a predominantly European or Japanese site, you'd see different statistics.
I should also add that I agree with all the posts saying that it's the user and not the tool that determines the quality of your output. Anyone remember the photorealistic images Ron Cobb put together using Pixelpaint Professional (think "Deluxe Paint").
Max is purportedly dominant in Video games (although you do see a lot of game companies migrating to Maya when they hit the motherlode), so I don't know if this means that a lot more artists are working for broadcast and film than games, or what (in terms of raw numbers, video games are quoted to be two to three times as "big" as film, but this ignores DVD and video sales, TV-rights, and merchandising ... so it's reasonable to assume that the total film economy is still significantly bigger than the game economy).
You might like to check this link:
http://www.3drender.com/jobs/jobcount.htm
As you'll see, almost half of the jobs in 3D (according to these data) are for Maya operators, and over one third of the remaining are for Max. Softimage and Lighwave are roughly equal third.
Another interesting place to go is:
http://www.3dbuzz.com/
If you visit their 3d tools forums, you'll see that Max has about 1.5x as many posts in its forums as Maya (and everything else is in the dust). Again, if you visited a predominantly European or Japanese site, you'd see different statistics.
I should also add that I agree with all the posts saying that it's the user and not the tool that determines the quality of your output. Anyone remember the photorealistic images Ron Cobb put together using Pixelpaint Professional (think "Deluxe Paint").
Max is purportedly dominant in Video games (although you do see a lot of game companies migrating to Maya when they hit the motherlode), so I don't know if this means that a lot more artists are working for broadcast and film than games, or what (in terms of raw numbers, video games are quoted to be two to three times as "big" as film, but this ignores DVD and video sales, TV-rights, and merchandising ... so it's reasonable to assume that the total film economy is still significantly bigger than the game economy).