(Because Maya 8.5 doesn’t have a standalone review, we gave additional space for 3D artists Ralph Caldwell and Mike Muwaganzi to show more of the Pros and Cons in depth.)
Pros:
There are so many different features that I love about Maya that it would be difficult to describe everything that it offers. However, there are three particular features that makes this software stand out the most.
The first thing is the shelves, which makes navigating so much easier than in most 3D programs. The shelf editor gives you the ability to create and customize your tab in order to suit your needs.
The second thing is the Hypershade, which gives you the ability to link a large selection of Nodes together, using Maya and mental ray nodes. This is a very complex editor that can make your models much more realistic.
The third thing (that I absolutely love) about Maya is the capability to create your own plug-ins. Have you noticed when your creating an animation you run into an issue where a plug-in would make things so much easier? With Maya you can create that plug-in, using the script editor. More than likely there is someone out there that is experiencing the same issue as you and would be willing to buy your creation.
Cons:
Maya is pretty expensive on the microfilmmaker budget and it does have a significant learning curve until you get familiar with it. Additionally, it lacks a lossless file format for sharing models with the universal 3D Studio Max, as well as the strong sculpting tools found in Modo and Mudbox. Aside from that, there are three things I can think of that I would like to see improved in a future version.
The first thing that can be improved with this software is lighting. Having the ability to change and edit the properties can make it slightly difficult to get a specific desired effect. I found that I spend more of my time making adjustments to my lighting, than working on my animation. In comparison, Cinema 4D has presets that make lighting much easier to adjust. If Autodesk made the shadow properties and all the light properties more simple to use, this would definitely streamline the 3D workflow.
The second thing that should be improved is batch rendering. When I first started using this program in school I was very confused by the batch render option. When I asked my instructor how to do this, he told me, “that is a good question,” and went on to explain that many new users found this to be a very difficult area to understand. Unfortunately, since I learned this program in school, it hasn’t improved in the newer incarnations. Probably the best way to improve this would be to have specially designed shelves as a preset.
The third thing is having a detailed help option for scripting that explains in detail on how to create your own script in Maya. I have been working with Maya for years and still have trouble with scripting it.
Conclusion:
If you can afford it and are willing to put in the time to learn it, Maya is a great program that can generate some very powerful results. However, if you need to readily get 3D models from Maya into other programs, then you’ll need to get Okino’s PolyTrans, as Maya’s proprietary file types are virtually impossible to open losslessly in other programs without it.
