What can anyone tell me about the Maya program? It's an animation program right :confused:

all i know about it is that it is expensive...and a long download that turned out to be a waiste of time cause it requires Windows NT and I'm running 98....

its cool, i was gonna take a few college classes in it but i decided not to, but its still fun, its a 3D software program, some movies that used it are... Final Fantasy Perfect Storm Hollow Man and a few more but i forgot but those are the ones that were pretty much the first motion pictures to use it

I believe Lord of the Rings used it...along with alot of games as well however i can't recall the list of games...

i know none of the star wars movies used it, but that does not help much =)

yeah didn't figure they did....nice signature Mac

Final fantasy the spirits within had amazing affects didn't it. Oh has anybody seen Linkin Park's points of authority video??? Yeh the one with the cool FF:TSW style.

Lucus Arts actually makes most there own software for there movies and games, its kinda weird =) thanks i made it awhile back, im gonna make a new one soon i think... i was mad about the FF movie, but thats cus it was not like the games, but i will admit the movie is huge jump in technology and it was a work of art

i actually saw a video where someone took the audio from the trailer of FF and used it over shots they took out of Halo, it was amazing, it fit so well, and they used alot of the shot in Halo that were very movie like, i swear if no one knew about Halo they would think it was a real movie coming out, you dont even notice it is a dub over from the FF trailer, its so great

I think Maya is complicated for no reason...It's layout and interface isn't my cup of tea...I use XSI for my 3D and I think yeilds much better results....It's expensive to license, somewhere around $7000, so that's why most companies use 3DMax, it's not expensive to license and it has more plug ins than any other 3D software out there....If I were to create only characters, I would use Maya, the facial configuration for Maya is excellent, but I think the rest of modeling is downhill with that software...My opinion, I could be wrong.. ruM's OUT...

Lucas Arts features an amazing team of Special Effects, that grew to be the masters on the business. While most of the stuff you think its made by 3d, they actually use hand work to do alot of stuff. For example, the water falls in SW Episode 1, it was made using white sand.

except for the fact that episode 2 was more than 90% digital

Originally posted by MacPanda except for the fact that episode 2 was more than 90% digital

Episode 1 was also alot of digital. The battle betwen the bots and the sea creatures. Totaly digital. The underwater part. Etc. I was just saying that they dont resort to PC for everything, and they have alot of tricks in all the areas.

oh ya sorry if it sounded like i was trying to like be a smart ass, i was just saying alot of it was digital, and lucas said that episode 3 may all be digital except for the people... but ya luas people are the masters at special effects, i have a few art friends who went to classes with me and then went on to work for lucas arts

Originally posted by MacPanda oh ya sorry if it sounded like i was trying to like be a smart ass, i was just saying alot of it was digital, and lucas said that episode 3 may all be digital except for the people... but ya luas people are the masters at special effects, i have a few art friends who went to classes with me and then went on to work for lucas arts

Yea, New Zeland isnt big enough for so many movies.

Another 256MB of RAM, and I can try Maya learning edition. For anyone who's got a tight budget, and wants to start modelling low-poly models, and learning the basics of animation as well; I recommend you try Milkshape 3D. The download at download.com is only a couple hundred kb (not mb like they say), and it's only $30 to register.

nah ill stick with my studio max, maya, and lightwave....

Illegal I presume? Milkshape is an easy way to get into 3d modelling cheaply AND legally.

well is it illegal to barrow them from a friend who bought them? im gonna buy some soon anyways

I wish I could afford that. Heck, I wish I could afford Visual Studio, but whatever.

Well, they really dont mind you use a pirated copy. Really, I'm not joking. They even give you a fully operational version of 3dstudiomax, but watered down if you want. They dont mind, as long as you dont take any profit, and use it only to learn how to use it. Later, if you work professionally with it, you are supposed to buy it (then they will mind). But its a great way of people get familiar with a 3d program.

For those in college/school, go to journeyed.com. They have a 75% discount on Maya. It only costs $695 over there as apposed to $6999. Maya is "the best 3D software package ever concieved" in my opinion. The interface is free, easy yet complex and has a vast array of tools that work very well and cut a lot of time to make an animation in half. It renders fast and also in real-time. And yes, it did make StarWars Episode 2 and many others. Here's a video showing all the films, shows, and commercials that used the most awesome program. Click Here to download the movie!!