hello everybody what's up it's me robyn today's
video is about autodesk's 3ds max and maya the differences between these two very similar-seeming
programs and which one is better suited for your purposes a lot of people wonder why autodesk would
make two applications that seem like they're just twins but in actuality once you really get to
know them you see how different they really are maya you always have the best jokes and you're
always the life of the party and you 3ds max you're so great at telling stories and you just
you always make people feel comfortable with you and of course they are still the most
commonly used apps in the animation and 3d graphics industry they really are just like
hot twins they're always popular both can be used for everything in the 3d pipeline modeling
texturing rigging animation particle simulations dynamics rendering camera tracking everything
you need for 3d animation graphics production media and entertainment speaking of entertainment
this video is sponsored by modern media and entertainment to provide content creation
and production solutions to the media and entertainment industry join the community submit
your work and sign up for their webinars at www.moderne.co.za at the end of this video
i'll also be letting you know how you can enter to win tickets for the cape town
international animation festival this year and also how you can submit your work to the
worldwide autodesk area community for possible inclusion into the gallery and showreels so make
sure you keep watching to find out about that and also download the trials for 3ds max and
maya so you can play around with them yourself the link will be in the description of this video
so let's look at system requirements and price for 3ds max and maya both are currently 1 620 per
year or two hundred and five dollars per month in terms of cpus 3ds max needs a 64-bit intel
or amd multi-core processor and is for windows users although you can install macs on a mac
with boot camp they no longer provide support for troubleshooting for apple mac maya on the
other hand also requires a 64-bit intel or amd multi-core processor and it's also supported for
apple max with an m-series chip under rosetta 2 mode and you can also use it on linux 3ds max
requires a minimum of 4 gigs of ram but 8 gigs is recommended and maya requires a minimum of
8 gigs of ram but 16 or more are recommended to install 3ds max you need at least 9 gigs of
free disk space and to install maya you need at least 4 gigs so let's look at the interfaces 3ds
max has a pretty friendly looking interface you've got your modeling tools and you've got these dope
modifiers that can really help in the process a lot of people seem to find 3ds max less
intimidating than maya maya is a little more complex i think it's got a lot going on when
you first open it the tool shelves are pretty chock-a-blocks so visually it can be a little
overwhelming and a lot of the time you don't use a lot of these tools but i think it's subjective
so maybe that's why when i went from maya to max i didn't find it that difficult because i started
in the supposedly more complicated program i don't know but it might have been a different story
going from max to maya if you learned a different program and then you had to move into maya let me
know what that experience was like for you in the comments okay in terms of modeling you can do
pretty much the same things in both both have great modeling tools and max has these modifiers
which i actually got frustrated with at first when i was still new to it because i wasn't used to
them having come from maya but i love them now the way you work with them and stack them makes
the workflow really nice and simple 3ds max is actually the preferred app for modeling precisely
because of these modifiers and it is more widely used in archbis product design engineering
construction manufacturing and also game design because it's just a lot easier to model stuff
especially when it comes to hard surface modeling maya is considered less user-friendly when it
comes to modeling some of the tools are a little more complicated to use and it doesn't have as
much stuff making the process easier the way max does with the modifiers so you know if you are
looking to get into one of the industries that i just mentioned like archbis or interior design
or construction or engineering that sort of stuff then 3ds max is probably the best app for you to
use in this case but there are still animation companies that use 3ds max for animation and games
which is why i also had to move to 3ds max after i'd already learned maya because the studio that
i was working for used 3ds max and that was for animation so talking of animation let's look at
the ease of animation in each of these apps maya is more commonly used for animation heavy projects
because it has a better tool set for keyframing and curves and the workflow is a bit easier which
is why it's the industry standard for films and tv maya is definitely hands down the
favorite when it comes to actual animation that's not to say you can't animate nicely in
3ds max obviously you can it's just that maya is a little bit better set up for it in maya you
also get greater flexibility and opportunity for customizing with mel and python so if the work
you're doing is very animation heavy then your best bet is probably maya so let's take a
look at the materials and the texturing now max has an easier simpler material and rendering
setup and it uses the material editor there are two modes for the material editor which
is the slate mode and the compact mode the slate material editor uses nodes and gives
you more freedom with your materials and settings while the compact is for convenience when you
just want to apply already designed materials that don't need to be fine-tuned that much and this
is really great when you're doing architectural visualizations or product designs and stuff like
that because they are these really great presets maya uses the hypershade and it's pretty different
from the slate material editor and the compact editor in 3ds max maya is a little more technical
in some cases with the shader network construction although it does have some sick presets it's not
set up to use as easily as 3ds max so let's take a look now at particle simulations and dynamics
maya has bifrost which is this really awesome visual programming environment which enables
you to create really dope effects pretty easily so fire smoke snow explosions i'm sure some of you
would have seen this video from autodesk already showing what it can do it's got physically based
solvers like aerodynamics and combustion and if you're making effects like smoke or fire you
can even choose the fuel like methane or butane so it's really cool and it's pretty easy
to use 3ds max has particle flow which is an event-driven particle system they also have
a non-event-driven system which basically just means that the particles are not driven by any
events so they just stay consistent throughout now particle flow is cool for things like water
fountains and explosions and it's fine for fire and stuff like that but it's not like bifrost
so if you do a lot of work with particles and simulations and stuff like that then you might
want to consider looking at maya because it has the bifrost extension so let's look at rigging a
lot of people find it a bit more difficult to rig in maya because it is a little more technical and
it's really beneficial for you to have knowledge in mel so that you can create really complex rigs
but that's also the beauty of it because if you know what you're doing you can create some really
fire rigs that's the thing with maya you can do so much with the rigs and you can make them really
versatile 3ds max on the other hand is a little more limited in the rigging department i mean
you can still create really nice rigs but you don't have as much flexibility for customization
as you do with maya so if you're really into rigging if you are a rigger or you want to become
a rigger then it's probably better for you to get stuck into maya because there's a lot more
room for flexibility and customization there so basically in a nutshell as you've probably
seen by now 3ds max is used more for 3d design so if that's the industry you want to go into so
architectural visualization game design product design construction engineering that sort of thing
then 3ds max is your best bet on the other hand if you're really into character animation and you
want to work in the specific industry like if you want to work in film tv series game animation then
maya is your best fit 3ds max has a more efficient modeling workflow and easier to use textures while
maya is better for animation and rigging but you know why don't you just trial both of them and see
which one you prefer like i said before there is a link in the description of this video where
you can go and download those free trials for both 3ds max and maya and a bunch of other order
these products too if that tickles your fancy and you can just take a look at them and see what
they're like and maybe just get used to both of them because if you want to work in this industry
it's just in your best interests to at least have a basic working knowledge of these apps but you
know you don't have to marry your software there are no wrong decisions here it's more about the
artist than the paintbrush if you know what i mean i've used 3ds max i've used maya i've
used blender there are no wrong answers you can also submit the work that you create with
these trials to the modern media entertainment gallery they're looking for the best animation
artwork created with autodesk software you can even use the free downloads like sketchbook which
is totally free each month all submissions will go into a random draw and the winner will receive
two tickets to either the virtual or live event of the cape town international animation festival
which is commencing from april 2021 they're going to be highlighting the best and featuring the
artist of the month and also submitting the work to the worldwide autodesk area community for
possible inclusion into the gallery and show reels so you know i hope this video was helpful for you
i hope it helped you better decide which software would be better for your purposes hell why not
just try both hit the like button if you did actually like the video i mean you can also if
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thanks for watching guys love ya bye you