3dmax vs maya vs softimage

[shinepillai1986]

Hi guys,
I love animation a lot, and am confused between using max,maya or softimage for animation i have borrowed all three software's tuts from some friends and my mind's got twisted watching all three of thm,from wht i understood is that maya is the leader but softimage is also a killer, 3d max rocks too! but in india which software has potential for a job."Totally confused ".
Please give an insight.
My next question i am interested in character modeling and animation and iam confused how is a fully clothed character rigged and animated, because frm what i see is that when bones r added and envelopes r given wont they deform any armor or stuff we might have made?

And btw are clothes modelled separately or with character and are they attached to the character.

Totally screwed up "Any help would be appreciated"
guys if u got any links to the modelling workflow in any tuts please post

thanks a ton guys

[RDx]

1) Pick between Max or Maya as that is sort off the industry standard, although Softimage isn't far behind. Can't say for Softimage but Maya and Max function pretty much same but the layout, tools, instruments and features are very different. I highly recommend you pick one of them and master ONE OF THEM at a time. Don't try to master all 3 at once, you will go crazy.

2) For character modelling, you can pick almost any 3 as each of them support exporting to OBJ which is a common popular format. However, character modelling nowadays depends a lot on digital sculpting softwares likes Zbrush or Mudbox. For example, if you were a character artist, you'd have to build your basic character in Maya, finish it in Zbrush and then return back to Maya for finishing touchs and rendering.

So I recommend you pick a good combo and learn to work with both of them ... like Maya + Zbrush for example.

3) I don't know a lot about rigging but as far as I know, you will have to add bones to the clothes as well so that they deform with the hands or legs. Rigging isn't just about adding bones and joints to the human figure, very often you have to rig clothes, accessories, kits, etc which can be tricky and time consuming if you don't do your concept work right.

4) Clothes are seperated. Common practise is to make a model, then duplicate some of the faces from the model and then seperate that to create the clothes. Its not as simple as it sounds but its still a neat shortcut plus it helps with the rigging and deformation. Some models with complicated clothing might need to be modelled seperately.

There are a lot of videos on youtube and although they might be long and not too well explained, they do the job. If you want very good tutorials I recommend you go through Digital Tutors stuff.

[omkarjere]

Originally Posted by shinepillai1986

Hi guys,
I love animation a lot, and am confused between using max,maya or softimage for animation i have borrowed all three software's tuts from some friends and my mind's got twisted watching all three of thm,from wht i understood is that maya is the leader but softimage is also a killer, 3d max rocks too! but in india which software has potential for a job."Totally confused ".
Please give an insight.
My next question i am interested in character modeling and animation and iam confused how is a fully clothed character rigged and animated, because frm what i see is that when bones r added and envelopes r given wont they deform any armor or stuff we might have made?

And btw are clothes modelled separately or with character and are they attached to the character.

Totally screwed up "Any help would be appreciated"
guys if u got any links to the modelling workflow in any tuts please post

thanks a ton guys

1. Software usage defers from company to company and is generally decided by taking into count specialties of a specific software.

For e.g. 3ds Max is most widely used for Architecture Visualization, Maya for Character Rigging/Animation, Softimage is rarely used expect for realistic face rigging it has a really cool feature called FaceRobot.

Its not that you can't use Maya or Softimage for Arch Viz but its like choosing to travel on a 4-lane highway or a small road both will get you to your destination but highway will be quicker and smoother

Many big companies have their own proprietary software, some use multiple software to get the job done.

2. Again for modeling base software maybe Max or Maya but most probably Zbrush or Mudbox is used in conjunction with the base software(max/maya). So if you're into modeling then learning Zbrush/Mudbox is very essential.

3. If you're using a fabric/leather based armor then certainly it can be skinned correctly to the character if using an full-body metal based armor then I believe the body movement would be a little restricted. other items likes bracelet, helmet can be parented instead of skinning.

4. There are actually 2 ways for clothing the character if the character is wearing something simple like shirt-jeans then they can be skinned, for little complex cloth like skirts or cape(like the one superman/batman wears ) the software built-in cloth or something like Qualoth can be used. But using something like Qualoth require a high-poly geometry for good looking results.

Hope it clears your doubts

[shinepillai1986]

Hey RDx and omkarjere both of u cleared lot of my doubts and questions.Thanks a lot guys i will go with maya and max and if any of u guys got link to any good character modeling production vids on tube that will be cool.
Tnx tnx tnx

[omkarjere]

http://poly-face.com/

That guy has many good tuts.

[shinepillai1986]

Thanks omkar for the great website on maya !

[krishv]

It depends on which one you feel 'comfortable'. Its not really about this vs that but an user's preference. If you are starting out, 3ds max is easy to learn and will suit you well. After you learn the nuances of Max stick to it if you feel it solves your problems. If you want to get into character modeling and animation for films, straight away start with Maya.

As the above posters said, Maya for animation and character development is great. But too heavy and a drawback for arch-viz. 3ds max and 3ds max design is modded for Arch-Viz. Besides all these tools can be enhanced by a variety of plugins.

So choose your industry wisely and stick to one software.