#3ds-max

I'm actually learning Cinema 4D and WOW! How can professionals work with autodesk products? #cinema4d and Blender #b3d are by far easier, more intuitive, more stable and with a better interface organization. That's just crazy!

Of course, I maybe talk a bit early because I still need to learn Cinema 4D more, but from what I saw and learnt to begin... WOW! I'll maybe send another article if my opinion changes when I'll go further with my Cinema 4D learning. I still have to see if Cinema 4D is good to symmetrize poses for example.

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If I’m saying all of this about Cinema 4D and Blender against autodesk products, that's mainly because I really have the feeling autodesk is craming full Maya with the most recent tools and don't really focus on implementing them well in their programm, which bring us to an anarchic organization of the interface.

To give you an idea, it came to a point that even following tutorials of Maya is INSANE! Not long ago, I tryed to start again with Maya 2014 and improved my rigging skills. So, as I didn’t learn this step at my school, I searched for how to make an IK arm twist in Maya. I found 2 tutorials about it in Youtube. I followed them. In the video, the rig works perfectly. But do you think that I would have the same result with my skeletton? Of course not. And that’s not because I didn’t try to think or to solve the solution by myself. I HAVE knowledges with Maya! Thanks to my school! I tryed to orient the joints to the world and not, to see what will happen if I change the relationship of my bones or of my IK solvers in the outliner or if I add / delete / modify some constraints, in case of. NO! That DIDN’T work!

And that’s not the only point! Maya is known as the 3D general software number ONE for animations! ... I mean, OK! Why not? But well then, where can I symmetrize the pose of my rigged models? For running / walking / ... cycles, isn’t it the BASIS a programm of 3D animations SHOULD have? How can I stretch a succession of bones or even just one bone easily? Why do I manage to animate a constraint value only on a locator and not on a nurb or joint?

Also, about the interface... I have a screen of 27′ and in 1080p resolution. But when I need your tools, the shelf, the attribute editor, the tool settings and the outliner (for rigging / skinning for example), how can I work with the ridiculous workspace I got? Seriously? Is it really necessary to have a 4K screen or at least to have a second screen beside!? In Blender, we can at least zoom in and out the panels (except the outliner) with CTRL + Middle Mouse Click and if we’re not satisfied we can zoom in and out EVERYTHING by coming to the “user preferences - System tab” and in “General” change the “DPI” value. There, with the maya interface, I have the feeling it was made for partially-sighted persons and that the persons who are not partially-sighted can go jump to the lake, to stay polite.

See? Small faults... that makes us wonder if they really THINK before implementing things in Maya and if they really care to their Maya users or if it’s just a philosophy of “Learn how we present and programm our software and shut up”. This kind of philosophy can suit to an office programm like microsoft office, libre-office, etc... but... not for a very complexe software. Especially from a commercial and professionnal-considered one. 3D IS complexe! If they can ask 4′000 dollars for a single license, they have to simplify their softwares.

For 3DS-max, I have the feeling that it's like an alpha version of Blender (even if apparently Blender is inspired by 3DS-max, not the contrary), it’s less stable, heavier and with less tools / options (example: where’s the outliner, the thing that every 3D general softwares has... except 3DS-max apparently). And also, why, while there are less tools than in Blender, 3DS-max needs at least 10 seconds to open while Blender opens between 1 to 3 seconds at worst?

And Softimage, I have nothing against it... except that it's just less used by professionals, like Cinema 4D and that I have the feeling that this programm is a bit left on one side by autodesk because of that?

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Of course, I'm just talking about 3D general softwares (not specialized ones like Z-Brush) I know. Houdini, for example, I didn't try so I can't judge.