Learning...

[mattybyng]

Best part of learning is getting better at what you're doing.

My current WIP, C&C Very Welcome.
I'd love to get a copy of Maya or Some oher animation software...any other software that could be recommended would be appreciated.


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[mattybyng]

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[Ctrl-Z]

I'd love to get a copy of Maya or Some oher animation software...any other software that could be recommended would be appreciated. It all depends what you want to do with the software, and what resources you have available to learn it.

Maya is a strong contender these days, if for no other reason than the Maya Fundamentals (http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_info_mfc.php) craziness 3D Buzz unleashed upon the world this year. If you're looking to get a job in film, that or XSI seems the way to go. For games, it's still hard to beat 3D Studio Max, and their new Pelt Mapping feature is a god-send for creating sensible UV maps.

If you're just looking to make your own short films, Project Messiah is pretty incredible, and priced to sell. I believe it's still missing some of the flashier features of other applications (hair, cloth simulation, physics of any kind...), but the rigging capabilities are insanely cool, as are the materials, and it does a great job with ZBrush's displacement maps. (one of the lead programmers is a big ZBrush advocate, so you can expect this one to stay up to date with ZBrush's export features while the others are playing catch-up)

[billrobertson42]

I don't have direct experience, but from what I've seen Messiah looks like the easiest to get started with simple animation.

Softimage is probably more general though, and the price to get in on the ground floor is very reasonable as well, although I can't say if that provides you with enough of the extras.

Also, softimage's renderer seems pretty good too. Not sure about messiah's.