Maya|Personal Learning Edition - Free

Nomad

Maya|Personal Learning Edition is a completely free version of Maya|Complete for non-commercial uses. It's for people who are looking to possibly move from one program to another, begin learning 3D, or just fool around for a little while. The download is only 113 megs and all you have to do is fill out a bit of information about yourself. I'll be doing a review of it later being as this is the first time I've used Maya in a long while.

RWB

Hrm... is it the full version? Or is it dumbed down? If it's dumbed down, I tend to think that wouldn't help too much in the way of learning.

RWB

Almost every feature found in the full commercial version of Maya Complete™ 6 including new character animation technology, Adobe Photoshop integration, enhancements to modeling and dynamics and numerous other features.

NM I skipped past that by accident

Justin

I will be interested in seeing the review as I would like to learn 3D among other things.

primesuspect

Well one major difference is that it watermarks all renders.. So I'd say that's pretty significant, meaning you can't use these images for anything other than learning.

Other differences:

Maya Page wrote:

1.4 What are the differences between the Maya Personal Learning Edition software and the commercial version of Maya?
Maya Personal Learning Edition includes most of the functionality of Maya Complete with the following principle differences:

Performance

* Maya Personal Learning Edition is limited to using a single CPU. The commercial version of Maya takes advantage of multiple CPUs, resulting in faster performance in areas such as software rendering, IPR and Paint Effects.

Watermark

* A watermark text image appears across all rendered images and in some Maya Personal Learning Edition panels. The watermark does not appear when working in wireframe mode.

Rendering and Image Output

* You cannot render using mental ray.
* You cannot render using the vector renderer.
* You cannot output 16-bit rendered image formats.
* Camera's film fit offset and film offset are limited to 0.
* Rendering is limited to a single CPU.
* Images from the following tools have been limited to 1024x768:
o Software rendering output in Render View and batch mode
o Hardware rendering output in Render View and batch mode
o Hardware render buffer
o Paint Effects canvas mode and scene mode
o UV snapshot in UV texture Editor
o 3D Paint Tool
* Mac OS X: The command line rendering utility has been renamed from "Render" to "Render5PLE" to avoid conflict with the commercial version of Maya if it is also installed on the same machine.

File Format and Data Input/Output

* You cannot write standard Maya software files (.ma, .mb); only the Maya Personal Learning Edition file format (.mp) can be saved; however, you can import standard Maya software files.
* Particle disk caching is not supported.
* Text dump from the Blind Data Editor window is not supported
* Exporting skin weight maps and character maps is not supported.

API and Plug-ins

* The API developer's kit is not included with Maya Personal Learning Edition.
* It is not possible to load plug-ins from the commercial version of Maya or third party plug-ins.

MEL

* The scriptEditor - writeHistory option is not available
* The following MEL commands are not available: system, fopen, popen, fwrite, fprint and cmdpipe.
* The script editor output section is limited to 75 lines of output.
* The script editor > Save Selected menu item has been removed.

User Interface

* The background color's value (in HSV space) of interactive window is limited to [0.3,0.9].

RWB

bah. I'll use it to learn of course, but man that really sucks. I plan on buying it anyways if it is any good for me.

Nomad

I don't really mind the watermarked images, because it's the only way for them to stop people from just using this as a corporate tool.