Autodesk Maya 8

[highenduser]

SOO , what do you think about Maya 8 ?
Did Autodesk ruined Maya ?

The difference i noticed are:
- they messed a lil with the menus...
- "interactive creation" of primitives ! what they think ? we are beginer kids like 3dsmax users ?
- some import export tools to exchange models with 3dsmax ! we dont need it !
- well , ex alias developers made some good tools for polys...

What else ? What you think ?

[deke-kincaid]

they messed a lil with the menus...

They are more organized and less nested. I don't have to go 4-5 menus down to do something. Also they are now fully customizable in the gui without using mel scripting.

"interactive creation" of primitives ! what they think ? we are beginer kids like 3dsmax users ?
You can turn this off with a click of the mouse and use the old behaviour. Also some people like this method of creation.

some import export tools to exchange models with 3dsmax ! we dont need it !
Where? The only thing I see is improvements in FBX, which is always welcome.

[joojaa]

QUOTE(beaker @ 10/07/06, 05:08 AM) [snapback]249416[/snapback]
They are more organized and less nested. I don't have to go 4-5 menus down to do something. Also they are now fully customizable in the gui without using mel scripting.

well, i can now live with the new organisation but not with the way the new menuitems work. Its not optimal but i could live with that. Form my point of view the new menuset just makes even more menus on screen, and are definetly more a hinder than benefit for me it slews my workflow by 4-5 secods evey time (ok if i use hotbox i still have too many menus to discern from). thing is if they were to make a custom menuset example wy would hey force the normal user to rearange

BUt i realy still have to regress the menuitems for extrude. etc. because i do work by hitting "g" to repeat al the time sn you nolonger can set all the creation options form menuitems. So i can't go g clikking in the scene to do crain pattern.

However this is gui gimic, so everything maya was is still there underneath. So you can still build those things but the thing is default gui items that worked in my advantege are now abstraced behind mel that may or may not be optimal fo rthe task at hand.

Now i need to defeer many stuff to shelves i proviously didnt have to. wich kindof eats my space!

Interactive creation:

waste of development resources. Nobody realy uses promitives for anything anyway.

onscreen messages:

mainstream users realy must have regressed for needing this

speed:

the new multithreaded skins realy sves the day every day, the hsli shaders now are much faster, and the 64 bitness is a boon. just theese meka the rest no contenders. Even without a gui id use maya. Tis one makes8 a nobrainer.

Help:

help is now yet again a step backward like weve come around the globe, however alias never could gfet this to work either, becaus they too tried adn tried to force tis untiill they settled with what they had proviously.

Overal rating: 4:5 very strong release

PS the addition of manuitem editting without mel is wellcome but nothing NEW, most maya users i know had a editor for this allready.

[bradon]

anyone know if maya 7 has anyproblems opening files created with maya 8, or vice versa?

[joojaa]

mayas not backsward compatible but yes it works upwards most of the time as long as you dont rely on this. DONT swich betweebn versions its asking for a blody nose.

[resist]

A tool for transfering UV coordinates, weighting, selections and vertex maps between objects of different topologies would have been nice like Gator in XSI and VAMP tool in C4D.

and stability with at least 2 million polys when others support 10 millions. (32bit speaking)

[joojaa]

i can push more than 2 mil on my box (about 6-8). Just cant get maya to export it to mr on 32 bit.

But thenegain why would you need those mil polys on screen anyway.

[resist]

you pushed it to 6 or 8 millions. So you did need it.

I agree that 10 millions is not that very often needed but i'd prefer not having to ask myself why i would need it like 3dMax or XSI users.

well, if your stable at +/-7 millions. I'll have to look at our sustems cause we absolutely can't support that and we have good pc.

anyway... I don't always want to deal with a displ. map. We've just played 2 days with XSI 5.11 and we get good result we verry little effort. We import our 1.5 million mesh, plug the texture and play with the compositor. no photoshop needed.

We are currently evaluating in detail all the major package and to answer the question of this post, I'm not satisfied with this release. At the release event last week the guy on the stage presented the jiggle deformer cause he thinks it's a cool feature and not usedenough! Missing some material ?

Yes ther is somme good things ( toxic look's nice btw) but IMHO, I think Maya have the less interessing release this year.

[joojaa]

QUOTE(Resist @ 10/12/06, 05:36 PM) [snapback]249826[/snapback]
you pushed it to 6 or 8 millions. So you did need it.

Not realy they were spheres to tested how much i could push.

I think the multithreading support is much more fundamental than any goodie i could get. Anyway i have a renderman rib pipeline so for me the options are beasicaly maya or houdini. XSI could do it but id just need too much glue for that.

[highenduser]

Yeah, 64 bit support and multi core is important.
Soon we will have 4 or more core CPUs...

[user_deleted]

if 8's multithread skin support able to use 4 threads or just 2?

also does twice the threads mean really twice the speed?

[joojaa]

QUOTE(holographix @ 10/13/06, 05:31 AM) [snapback]249864[/snapback]
also does twice the threads mean really twice the speed?

Not necceserily, but if the scenes heavy the more likely its to give you more benefit than in a scene whare ist not that packed. Usualy you can expect 1-2-1,.8 the speedup.

HOWEVER, since theres no ammount of money that can make your computer faster on a single proc level this is a take it or leave it improvement. Basicaly the thinking is PROCESSORS arent getting faster at the astounding pace of few years ago, sure the bottlenecks will be looked into but also you get more cores to compensate for this. More cores + no multithreading = no significnt speed improwements in the GUI by upgrading the computer.

Wich basicaly means no multhithreaded skin, no benefit of new machine.

the future for this software that dont have this is looking preetty darn dark! Its also niot something you implement oevrnight bey the entire core needs to change.

[user_deleted]

since we're on the subject joojaa you keep saying don't switch versions during production, can you elaborate?

I know this is generally a terrible idea, just wondering what makes it so with maya specifically...

mel scripts upwards compatibility problems?
functions disappeared?
previous version scenes not opening up correctly?

I'm on 6.... but I am really in need of more speed so dual-threaded skins would be great, and beyond that, I really need the world-space UV transfer function... I know there's dbUV.mel but it also only works on 7 or 8...

[user_deleted]

QUOTE(highenduser @ 10/06/06, 04:44 PM) [snapback]249412[/snapback]
So, what do you think about Maya 8 ?
Did Autodesk ruin Maya ?

While I was worried when I heard Autodesk had acquired Alias I'm actually impressed with what they did as the new owners in such a short time with Maya 8.0. The GUI is more configurable to suit the needs of each artist. Maya is finally 64-bit supported on Linux, not just Mental Ray. I also like how they've included in the menu links to Autodesk Toxik which clearly shows Autodesk's intention to integrate Maya with their product line offering more solutions for studios. I could continue with the improvements but I have to get sleep before another busy day at work. Besides you can find out more in the "What's new" in the Maya Help Docs.

[theshade]

did autodesk ruin maya?

In my opinion, for what it is worth, the latest release was more frustrating than it was helpful. I have been loosing valuable time with extra clicks for the sake of "better organization." The supposed "better organization" has forced me to click more to get the job done than it used to. I will admit i am quite fond of some of the new features that have been added, but to force the new menu structure on me has me very irritated. I absolutely HATE WITH A PASSION how the "modeling" module is now broken into 2 sections (freakin polygons and surfaces) so that now i have to continually switch between the 2. The industry completely RELIES on how fast you can get the job done. This new release has slowed me down more than anything which i am very resentful about.

I used to use 3D Studio Max years ago because i didn't know any better. Once i migrated over to Maya i was on "cloud nine." I felt that everything made sense (in terms of logic) to an artist. In other words i felt like maya was developed by artists and 3D max was developed by programmers. As an artist, maya just made sense. The last thing i hoped to see was Autodesk implimenting it's concepts into a beloved package. I did find that maya is, indeed, underneath some of the new, extremely cheesy defaults, but i was very irritated to have to get used to a MUCH LESS efficient menu structure that is costing me time and valuable screen real estate.

I am all for change and open minded when it comes to new ideas, but i am also very concious of efficiency and doing things as quickly as possible. The new release has slowed me down. Unfortunately, maya 8.5 is giving me more frustration and headaches than bennefits. I can only hope and pray that it does not loose its artistic appeal. I didn't use autodesk's software for a reason. I have never cared for their approach. I am a bit nervous about what the future holds.

[naughty]

TheShade.. basically you are using it wrong..

the main reason they changed the menus/modules around is because they've made them FULLY customizable. If you don't like the new setup, you simply open the Menu Set Editor (select the "customize" option in the module drop-down) create a new menu set then add all the menus you want to it.

how this can be in any way be described as a "MUCH LESS efficient menu structure" is beyond me.

When you move to a new version try looking at the "Whats New" page before you start bitching!

:nathaN

[theshade]

lol. awe...did i hurt your feelings nathan?

i am very aware of the cutomization feature. I suppose having to spend my time completely resetting up the structure would be considered efficient?

i thought, for sure, i was entitled to an opinion. Not sure why my opinion would be taken so personal. sheesh.

[joojaa]

I actually agree with above poster, the new organization dont make sense. And neither do all the buttons thet were combined into one.

Well atleast they force you to get knowing this feature