Getting started with Maya

You all know me as the “pain in the a**” when something is related to Autodesk.

And for that reason I want to give my point of view about Martin and the max and maya dev teams, because I worked with those teams since Max 2010 more or less up until Max 2018 Beta, and I left the Beta when I decided to stop working with Autodesk software as much as I can.

They are in fact hearing the customers, they are trying to do their best, and they always want more for the software, they want to do the best job possible in their positions, and if Martin says he will look into it, he will do it, and he will try to assign the task to the correct developer in the team.

With that said, participating in Beta is working for Autodesk for free while you are paying them, a company that does not care about individuals and small artists or teams, but they use those same small artists and small teams in the beta, you will be giving them your experience and your knowledge in exchange for using pre-release software.
You are going to be like a second Q/A department, you will be able to propose features and to discuss them, but no matter how important all the beta team thinks a feature is, it won´t be implemented unless the big-heads approve it, and if it does not fit inside their “BIG-CLOUD-RELATED-PLAN” or if it goes against it, but benefits users, rest assured that it won´t be implemented.

(How is the evolution of ART going now that Arnold is the core render package of MAX? And how are the historically excelent unlimited network rendering licenses of MAX going?)

They are not responsibles about Autodesk politics, Martin could be “fired” at any time, and it´s not his decission to make, also people from R&D could be fired at any point in time, like has been done in the recent past, no matter how much R&D is needed, R&D is not important for Autodesk and it has demonstrated it several times purchasing parts instead of developing them.

IMO the problem here is that the dev team has their hands tied, and what do you think Martin could answer about his current position?

Person asks publicly: Do you like your work and the company you work for?

Fictional Martin public answer: I like my team, I love the software, but I hate that marketing people and people over my head that is completely ignorant about this business are making me take decissions and directions that are plainly wrong for the software or the users, they are just thinking in how to minimize investment and increase benefits without respecting any kind of balance in service provided against benefit gained.

Then Autodesk represetative calls Martin: Hey Martin, how are you? are you feeling well in your new job? not yet right? Ah ok… yeah, I understand that, because you don´t have a job anymore… bye!

I´m NOT saying that Martin would say that, not at all, and please, bear in mind that I have no direct connection with Martin and Martin NEVER said to me such words, but the reality is that he cannot speak freely because he would loose his job if he is not happy with what is happenign in Autodesk.

What I can say is that commercial Autodesk representatives have contacted me to convince me to give them my perpetual license in exchange for some absurd discount in ther absurd rental scheme, and in the end, they ended recognizing that they are against the Autodesk licensing scheme, they know that it´s bad for customers in the medium to long term, specially small and medium customers, but they can do nothing against it, and they have to do their jobs, and of course this has been in private conversation, but you can try and contact your Autodesk representatives and if they trust you they will probably tell you the same thing.

They´ve also recognized that they are loosing customers at a fast pace, specially in the small to medium sector of M&E, Technical Visualization, VFX and even Arch&Viz, and it´s not like the clients are removing ALL their licenses, nope, they are reducing the number of them, adapting to other softwares, no matter if it´s Blender, Houdini, C4D, or Modo, it depends on the industry and the studio.

Arch&Viz it´s the slower in loosing customers of course, because Autodesk has done a pretty good job creating a closed environment with Revit, but the bleed won´t stop.

So the fact is that many small to medium studios already changed, others are changing, check this talk about a French animation studio that completely shifted their productions from Max/Maya to Blender:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R8PduY_vV4

And their tv series are not second class cr*p, they doo pretty cool series.
Also one thing they say in the talk is that they are not the only ones, many French animation studios are changing to Blender.

If you want a software that evolves, that cares about their users, that really hear the users (and that not the dev team is the only one hearing the users, but the actual decission-maker team), if you want a software that won´t drain your pocket selling you that an Egg spline is such a big evolution and R&D effort that you should be grateful for it, if you want a software that you can trust, and specially if you want a software that you can enjoy again and that will excite you like in the past 3dsmax used to do, then you should check Blender.

Everything is transparent, EVERYTHING!
If you report a bug you see every step done, who is doing the step, you can talk to them, be involved in the solution or even fix the bug yourself so other users can enjoy the fix without having to wait to have a free developer that can tackle it (of course to be included in Master it needs to be reviewed to ensure code quality and stability)

It sounds beautiful, and it is, I´m not saying that you should abandon max or maya, well I am, but it´s absurd to think that many of you will do it anyways, but what I´m saying is that you should seriously test Blender, not just open it, watch it and close it, specially now that…

…brace for it…

…LEFT CLICK SELECT is the DEFAULT way of selecting in Blender 2.8 (something many of you were seeing as an entrance barrier, also an “industry standard” keymap is on it´s way, specially dedicated to some of you that are more comfortable with more “max/maya” way of doing things)

So there is a question that everyone can know with Blender, wich is: how many developers are in core developer team?, and how many satellite developers are related to blender and to wich features exactly?, and that is excluding generic things that can be applied to many packages, we are talking about actual Blender development, not addons (plugins)

And that is question that no one from Autodesk will be able to answer you…

How many developers are working specifically for 3dsmax right now in wich areas?

And the second question is… how is your subscription money being spent to actually improve 3dsmax?

How much of it is going to Maya development?

How much is going towards Autocad or Revit development?

How much is going to maintain a cloud that you may not want or need but you are forced to have and pay?

Too many questions that you will never know and answer for, and if you knew the answer Autodesk probably would feel ashamed if it could be ashamed, wich I think they can´t (meaining the Autodesk management team, like the CEO and the board, and they doesn´t care).

And BTW Blender IS FREE, BUT the content created with it CAN BE AND IS PRIVATE, 100% PRIVATE AND COMMERCIAL WITHOUT ANY RESTRICTIONS AND PROTECTED BY THE COPYRIGHT AND RIGHTS YOU WANT TO APPLY TO IT.

But IF you want to economically contribute to it, you can using the Blender Cloud or the Blender Development Fund, and you will be conscious of where is used each penny of your money:

https://fund.blender.org/

BTW The development fund is maintaingin just a part of the development team, there are other income sources that maintain other parts of the dev and production team, like Blender Cloud and other collaborations, like NVIDIA or AMD paying for full time developers to implement different things, or like studios like Tangent Animation (Next Gen) or Theory Studios (The Man in the High Castle or Silicon Valley) that are also donating for full time developers and that have their own development teams in house, and they share their developments with the Master build of Blender (like UDIM or Cryptomatte, or like OpenVDB in the near future, it was developed by Tangent and used in NExt Gen to have a proper interop between Blender and Houdini).

So in the end… I´ve finished talking about Blender in a Maya thread… sorry… I still think we need a Blender section in CGPress.org, we are many historical Max users that are now Blender users and that love CGPress.org, and this is not MaxUnderground anymore, this is CGPress, and Blender is now a main contender in the CG indsutry, like it or not.

Cheers!!!

OMG I totally missed it!!!
And of course, no one says that other channels should be reduced at all!

Thanks!

I could not agree with you more. 2.8 has changed my mind forever. I actually enjoy exploring it, trying to do the things I do in Max. Previously, trying to migrate from one 3d system to another was like recovering from a stroke, but 2.8 is actually giving me back that feeling of wonder and possibility we used to have in the early days of Max.

All Blender needs for me now is a Biped equivalent, and vray support. Maybe it already has these things…..