ZBrushCentral

Maya 7 pro or XSI advanced

Community
#1

Hi everyone!

I have a question for the community. I’m having trouble in deciding which is the choice package to purchase and learn. Maya 7 pro or XSI advanced. Over the last year I have mastered Lightwave and have realized, although a great package, that it falls a little short in the modern 3d world. I have tried Softimage and Maya and cant make up my mind. Both packages do everything I would want a package to do (i.e. Particles, animation, etc.) But I keep jumping back and forth between the two. Both seem to be cutting edge with similarity in features and are priced similar as well. I know Maya is used more often in the Special effects world (i.e. Weta). But with the recent merger of Maya and Max, is it time effective to learn Maya? Is Softimage the future?

I will be using the package in pretty much all areas (i.e illustration, animation, special effects for film etc.)

I guess it comes down to which one has the most promising future and gives the most bragging rights j/k =).

It would ofcourse have play nice with a Zbrush, Motion builder and Realflow pipeline…however, they probably both play well with those packages.

Just looking for everyones opinions.

Thanks!

By the way,… sorry for the novel sized post. :wink:

#2

i hate to say it, but there’s no answer. it’s like asking whether pencil or charcoal is better. then someone will jump in and ask why you’re not including pen and ink in the question. cash or credit? paper or plastic? if you can do whatever you need to in both, like you said (and most people will agree with you on that) then it’s just a matter of preference. i go back and forth between maya max and zbrush. i know people that do the same with silo or lightwave or blender or whatnot. programs are tools, nothing more.

sorry for being blunt and possibly rude. it’s been asked and answered similarly for ages, and the answer is always the same.

#3

without getting too philisophical; i would go with maya. i get the impression that it’s the industry standard right now and that more people use it and if this is true then you have a larger more talented community to learn from and you’ll ultimately be more marketable in the industry. also with recent aquisition of alias by autodesk, there’s going to be a ton more money going into maya’s development than XSI. i’ve been using maya for a few years now and i love the extensibility/customizability of it. i also love marking menus and (new in v. 7) context sensitive marking menus. it’s probably the best interface design ever… lets you work really fast… and thus learn faster… and make more money. but i’m still a student so what do i know…

#4

Andrew Raz-

Thanks for the input. :smiley:

Your response is of course anticipated and expected. I guess I should of phrased my question more towards the communities opinions, which is important to me and many 3D artists.

And your right. The software is only a tool for the artist…However the tool being purchased takes a little more consideration than the purchase of a Prismacolor Professional. :wink:

Thanks again friend.

#5

sammokablamo -

Thanks for the input! This is exactly the type of productive input im looking for. No flaming packages. Just the trial and error pros and cons of both packages and over all choice of zbrush artists. :smiley:

#6

Maya for all the reasons above plus…
Consider you have bought either one and wish to
look for books, tutorials, dvd’s to supplement your knowledge.
Do a search of Amazon, Gnomon, etc, see how many learning aids
you find for each. Maya is clearly the winner.
Also, due to money management issue, future of companies must be considered.
Will you be spending quite a bit of money on software whose very future is
in doubt?
Softimage has had money issues in the past.
They are currently spending money on reasearch and development on projects and technology that may never show a profit.
Just a few years ago, they were facing financial issues that threatened their very existence.
Restructuring and a new marketing strategy ( cheaper versions) is being
attempted now.
One of these strategies,( fortunately and unfortunately for us,) is a partnership with zbrush.
The fortunate aspect is that other companies and individuals will see what
zbrush can do with their product. ( I was at two demonstrations of xsi here in New York in the past few weeks, best thing there was zbrush)
The unfortunate aspect is that zbrush is being promoted by a company
who may have a dubious future and is not the industry leader.

If you wish to throw caution to the winds and fly on your own
instincts, may I point out that fortunately both companies provide
excellent demo versions.

Best of luck, whatever you decide.

#7

With all due respect, I think that you can never be sure what future any company has. Being industry standard now doesn’t mean that it will remain so and big companies that everybody had thought could never go have disappeared almost overnight. I would argue that there are two ways to approach this: if you are wanting a job in a big studio then you need to know as much as possible about all the options; if you are working for yourself (and obviously budget isn’t a problem here) then use the software you are most comfortable with, when the deadline is close that’s what will matter.

#8

Marcus, agree up to a point.
I would guess as I grow older I grow more cautious in approach and advice.
In this case we have someone who, as in the case of forums, we know
nothing about. Their talents, finances, age, education, etc.
I am assuming the member is about to make a committment in buying a program, seeking all the information he can about it, and above all 'spending countless hours learning it. From the tone I imagine the member is not doing this for a hobby point of view. Future employment seems a large criteria and has been addressed. Maya is now the industry standard.
Softimage, has/had financial problems. This can be researched on the net.
There are stories about their past, present and future.
Perhaps the measures they are taking now will lead to a brilliant future, perhaps not.
In their recent shows in New York, much time was spent demonstrating and talking about features that would improve facial animation. When pressed, they said it was not ready yet, and when it was it would be priced well above the average individuals ability to purchase it.
In other words dollars spent on research and development with no outlook for return on investment.
I congratulate them on their initiative.
However it would appear a continuation of something that may have gotten them into difficulty before.
If we can imagine that we have two equal programs available and there is a
remote possibility that one will not be around down the road, that is something that must factor into the members decision.

I can assure you it factors into the decisions of production houses ,film productions, and graphics companies when they buy it.

In looking at all of this, it is the same approach as anything really expensive is it a worthwhile investment now and in the future.

As he said, apologize for the novel length

Edit: jrodarte, this is not the first time this subject has come up, you
might want to check here for a more “pro” xsi opinion.
http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=22453

#9

Wow! Thanks for all the responses!

Here are my thoughts so far:

It looks like it wouldn’t be to difficult to learn either then be able to switch skills to the other in a month or two as they both have a graph based material system, both use mental ray (and despite what Softimage say’s the implementation seems to be very similar), both have a reasonably easy to use scripting language (though MEL can go further before having to switch to the SDK/API), both have pretty similar feature sets for everything else (XSI does NLA better, Maya has better particles and fluids, Syflex is the better cloth sim, Maya does fur/hair very well).

As for industry use, Maya appears to be more widely used and tends to be the most requested in a job descriptions. Ill think I will purchase and learn Maya then if an XSI job pops up I’ll say I am willing to retrain (after all, XSI is supposed to have an excellent Maya->XSI tutorial and UI setup). The thing Im not sure of is if it’s far too early to start writing Maya off. Just because the owners have changed - every medium to large cg house has a massive investment in proprietary bits of software and code, changing a production pipeline has got to be one of the most expensive things a company can do.

After looking at some history, Softimage is the best of the ‘old school’ 3d apps - product led development where the devs give you tools and you’re expected to use them x y and z ways. That would be fine until I would need that tool to do something it hasn’t been coded for, or to link it in ways the devs hadn’t expected you to. Maya’s node based system (like Digital Fusion) would give me the end user far greater access, making it easier to change the way stuff works. This makes Maya’s capability far more flexible. Maybe that’s why I see more MEL scripts and fewer ‘plugins’ for Maya than other 3d apps, and why Maya is so heavily used in the biggest cg pipelines.

#10

Why not compromise and buy Silo?:smiley:

Best of luck whatever the choice.
By the nature of your response, you didn’t seem
to need much help:+1:

#11

softimage doesnt have any financial problems. they are owned by avid, and they not lacking as far as money goes. infact id say that they are probably in a better shape than maya is now ( and has been for the last few years ) because avid keeps pouring money into it( and shows from how much better, while maya has been sold around a number of times. meaning that funding for innovation hasnt been a part of the plan for a while now, while softimage has been putting a lot into its innovation so they can grab some of the market from maya/max ( behavior/face robot, etc are a sign of some of that tech that the soft guys have been doing )

and i really doubt that autodesk will want to bother making maya better, considering its age,( and maxes for that matter ). most likely what will happen with maya is that they will add the rpf format into it and stuff to make it more compatible with their compositing applications and max itself.

for some reason, i also doubt that maya is the reason why autodesk purchased alias, because studio tools is a part of a much larger market, and probably makes alias much more money than maya does to begin with. knowing how hard it would be to get into the industrial market, its just easier to buy pieces of it up.

#12

Ambient: ok

#13

I had the same question in April. And I tried all demo’s available. Max, Maya, XSI, and a plethora of single components. I ended up with XSI as it included the most functionality for the Buck. When others need plugins I found little to no need in XSI. The Non Linear Philosophy from Modeling all the way to the rendering is making me happy every time I use it. So… I truly like to work with XSI. There is no lack in documentation, tutorials and the like.

And… XSI is running on my box as stable as ZBrush.

Lemo

#14

A few things are evident from this thread and ones like it.

  1. If you have it ( Maya vs XSI), you like it and stick up for it.
  2. The proponents of each are an intense group.

I think that we can also agree on a few things.

  1. That the purchase of any of these programs is a major decision.
  2. That extensive research must be done in areas like support, future.
    job options, etc
  3. That fortunately, in each case ,demo versions are available, which
    is no small item.
  4. Lastly,that the decision rests with the buyer alone and is
    his decision.

Threads like this are useful but the replies are not totally
without bias.:smiley:

#15

read all the previous, as i’m not a professional yet, i’ll keep one foot on each shoe and try to learn both XSI & Maya and my next job will tell me which one to focus onto…
but anyway all this will be pointless because by the end of 2006 ZBrush will surely become the definitive 3d application, featuring character animation, rigid/soft-body&fluid&gaseous dynamics, unbiased rendering, not to mention the psionic user interface…:eek:

#16

its a nice dream isnt it;). but theres soooo many things pixologic should fix and add support to it first, before even starting to think about expanding like you said.

#17

I know, i know, just dreaming… in the end they’ve created such an amazing program so far that if they keep this rate I won’t be wrong for much longer…