3ds max or Maya?

miinkie

I have always fancied 3D design. Thinking of doing some short animations. I know about Maya and 3ds max. Thinking along those lines. which is the easiest to learn to build objects with and which is the easiest to use. Never have much time so it should be quick to learn and use.

Anyone got preferences between them?

Nolf-Job

3DS Max is generally regarded as being the easier packaged to learn. It also depends on what you want to do with it in the future. 3DS is more popular, but that is because it has tools for much broader markets, primarily video games and construction graphics. Maya is used in most movies, however, most large studios have their own software that they create in house.

My recommendation would be to use Maya for an animation. Its curves menu (which controls how objects are interpolated between keyframes) is far superior to that of max, which is important. If you're thinking you might want to make video games, then go ahead and learn max. Either way, once you become proficient at one, it doesn't take too much work to go to the other. I started in max and spent about 6 months using that before I switched to Maya. Been using maya for 2 years now.

miinkie

Thanks for those tips.

Main use .... ie to get to learn a bit more about is as a teaching tool showing molecular interactions of drugs with the brain.

Longer term i would love to be able to do short movies in my native language (which my 3yr old daughter doesnt speak - long story) as a learning tool for her.

Anyway these could be interactive?

Nolf-Job

You could export them out to an swf type format. They would still retain 3d-esque quality, but with a vector style shading. You would then need to take them into something like director to add interactivity.

RWB

If your willing to spend the money for 3Ds Max or even Maya, and you want interactivity, you might as well check out Macromedia's Director. I've gotten quite good at it's scripting language myself and is pretty easy to learn. It will allow you to export for web or just an execuatable in shockwave, and Max has shockwave exporters with it and good tutorials.

Director also costs about $1000 too though.

Some other things you might want to look into before making any desisions is to check out Garage Games at garagegames.com they have a fully featured game engine for only $100 and LOTS of documentation to go with it plus an amazing book that will get you in it alot deeper. It may be a "game engine" but with it you could possibly build whatever it is that you wanted to make interactive. It also has documenation and support from/for other cheaper 3D modeling applications.

There is also Cinema 4D, I think it's about half the price of both 3Ds Max or Maya at around $1500, I haven't used it myself, but it has a good fan base. You also should look at Lightwave, it too is cheaper at a similar price and it's wierd at first, but once you get your feet wet it's a great tool as well.

All in all, from all the selections you have, any of them can be great for anything you put your mind to... just one might be able to do it easier or quicker, it all depends.

miinkie

Thanks guys. Will have a look at 3ds max free edition and see how that goes.

Ohh also just found this SM thread which runs along the same themes.

Now spoilt for choice.

RWB

Speaking of FREE 3Ds Max versions.... I forgot I have something called GMAX. I haven't played with it much, but it seems to hold many of the good plugin's for earlier versions of Max, and do alot of the same things. Of course you gotta read the EULA to be sure you can use it for buisness purposes and such.