can anuy one compare between maya , 3ds max,softimage , houdini
and which is the best?

Blender. Blender wins hands down.

Wolfwood
Blender. Blender wins hands down.

yeah, id go with that

I haven't tried blender, but I have used Maya and Max and I switched to Max since I thought the interface was more intuitive for a generalist approach.

Max and Maya have in my opinion an advantage over softimage just because they have a larger user base, But I would think the tools for each of these apps would be pretty equal.

I think for Houdini to be practical you would need to be using it for things like effects / rigging / crowds, etc. I'm currently trying to switch to Houdini because the majority of the work I've done with Max has required extensive render-passes and scripting, and Max (and probably Maya) just aren't procedural enough.

I'm already seeing that I could have done just about everything thus far in Houdini without scripting and only with expressions. The other disadvantage of scripting as opposed to proceduralism, is that a script is very difficult to implement for things it wasn't designed for, wheras a procedure can be changed very readily.

aracid

Wolfwood
Blender. Blender wins hands down.

yeah, id go with that

I can only interpret both those comments as “snarky” .. “while you're comparing software why not include the worst thing on the market”

I stand to be corrected.

I'm just a hobbyist at the moment but have spent some time using Blender, Max, Maya, Houdini, XSI, Animation Master and probably a few others

My interest is in character animation and at the present Blender ver 2.42a compares very favorably or even exceeds the capaibilites (IMO) of some of the other packages.

I have a low end system (1gig / 256meg WinXP), but manipulating a fairly complex rig (constraints / face shape key animations) and playng back that animation happens in real time easily on Blender.

As opposed to the dreaded “cooking ops” message I see with Houdini any time I change the frame, let alone try to play an animation.

Blender also has a nice NLA system that compares favorably with XSI's and Maya's .. AFAIK Max and Houdini both don't have one. (I've read snippets and mentions of implementing something similar using CHOPS, but “roll your own” is not the same thing as ready made interface.

You can download the FREE Blender program from Blender3d.org

There are links to rigs here (check out the Horse Rig !), the “Bunny”, “Mouse”, “ManCandy” and “Ludwig” rigs all have facial animation as well.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showpost.php?p=598593&postcount=1 [blenderartists.org]

Mike

mstram
I can only interpret both those comments as “snarky” .. “while you're comparing software why not include the worst thing on the market”

Actually I wasn't being snarky at all, I hold the Blender (and Aqsis) project in very high regard. It's free, open source and has a strong community.

The point of replying “Blender” to a “which is the best?” post is to illustrate that the “best software” is relative to the person and that person's needs. What may be the best for one person may be the worst for another.

Wolfwood
Actually I wasn't being snarky at all, I hold the Blender (and Aqsis) project in very high regard. It's free, open source and has a strong community.

The point of replying “Blender” to a “which is the best?” post is to illustrate that the “best software” is relative to the person and that person's needs. What may be the best for one person may be the worst for another.

My apoligies for over reacting

I agree about “which best”, … one of the reasons why some other forums don't even allow “best” threads (a bit of an over reaction IMO) but they tend to become either flame-wars or same-old same-old arguements.

It is hard to tell the differences between software unless you are either very proficient in all them, or have a specific need and X,Y,Z software all suposedly support that need/feature and you can then test them for that feature. …. which with most companies supporting trial/demo versions that's becoming easier to determine.

Mike

Everyone gets mad when you compare 3d programs because no one wants to think of one as better than the other, that's why you haven't gotten a real response. All 3D programs can be used for all things, but each have their specialty. If you're into character animation, use XSI. If you're into architecture, use Max. If you want to be a 3D generalist, use Maya or Lightwave. If you want to do complex particle effects, learn houdini and C. Once you learn one, it only takes a few weeks to convert to another so it really doesn't matter which one you choose.

I'm on the autodesk threads a lot and there are quite a few maya/max wars that pop up from time to time. I think anyone that gets too emotional about it doesn't quite understand that all 3d programs eventually go back to geometry class in high-school (actually I didn't do too well in those as I recall).

Acutally, even though all these programs are more to learn, I'm so glad a “photoshop” of 3D hasn't emerged yet, that would be bad. CG/Games/ArchViz are expanding too rapidly for one-size fits all solutions I think.

Anyway, Mike, have you tried motion builder for character animation? It actually is extremely procedural, and has both advanced motion clip editing, as well as (in my opinion having used biped and standard rigs) .. the most advanced FK/IK rig animation techniques. It also does data-flow similar to what I'm learning about VEX, which can handle the most complicated constrains without scripting. I think it's main professional use right now is for motion caputre of game/movie character animations, but since it's autodesk's new animation toy I expect it will grow in the industry.

andrewlowell
Anyway, Mike, have you tried motion builder for character animation? It actually is extremely procedural, and has both advanced motion clip editing, as well as (in my opinion having used biped and standard rigs) .. the most advanced FK/IK rig animation techniques. It also does data-flow similar to what I'm learning about VEX, which can handle the most complicated constrains without scripting. I think it's main professional use right now is for motion caputre of game/movie character animations, but since it's autodesk's new animation toy I expect it will grow in the industry.

I would strongly vote against MB, unless you're doing motion capture - I worked with it on several big projects and was beta tester since it's first version. While it has some great features, practically it's a VERY buggy piece of software an did only go downhill since Alias took over. Plus the price now is ridiculous.

I'm not a character animator and only took a few classes with motion builder at siggraph, but that isn't an opinion I've heard very much. I was very impressed with it with the little I've done with it … what type of software do you think is extremely good an efficient with character animation? I was compairing motion builder to 3ds's biped which I quite frankly have never understood (believe me I've tried)

*PS 3ds max has had full motion clip editing and motion retargeting since version 8

Well, MB is a salesmen's dream… the sort of software which is great to demo and play around with, but when you get into the deeper end you kinda find out all sorts of roadblocks and shortfalls you wouldn't expect beforehand.


It has some great ideas, but

it lacks stability, is full of bugs, FBX export often doesn't work as advertised, it's curve interpolation is counter intuitive, switching between FK and IK rig often gets you into deep troubles, your rigging options are limited, the interface is always in your way for more advanced operations… and on and on…

Kaydara had something great at their hands, it only needed a few more revisions in development. Unfortunately they choose to sell out to Alias, which rather preferred to add new ‘features’ into their software instead of fixing things. Also, they pretty much killed of the great MB community by requiring a membership to use their forums. Did I mention how it got like 4 times more expensive?

Sorry for ranting, I know this software better than I wished for, but will only touch it again if being offered a serious amount of money


PS. Oh, I still think it's the best (only) option for use with motion capturing projects - my concerns mainly are related to keyframe animation.

Oh, and considering character animation… Maya still seems to be king in most studios, while I think XSI is more user friendly.

I'm just starting to learn Houdini now, so I will make some judgement in a few months about it's usefulness as a character animation tool.

I talked to some people who worked on some big (not naming things ) Houdini animation projects who thought it as a great piece of software, but not up to things yet…. well I would love to find out myself.

What features features for character animation are basic / essential / missing in the “leading” software(s) ?

What features specific to char animation does XXX software have (that is a *useful* feature) that the others don't ?

..Oh I forgot Messaiah Animate, as another one I've messed with

All of programs that support char anim have :

- “bones” (or something similar)
- “skinning” / “mesh binding”
- some kind of animation curve editor

Maya also has “character sets”, which seem to be primarily useful for it's NLA (trax) editor.

Maya, XSI, Messiah, and Blender all have NLA editors. (Do animators really use them? E.g. in the Blender Project Orange short “Elephant's Dream”, the NLA was not used at all. Instead the film's scenes were divided into a number of individual files, usually not more than about 1 minute in length. How are larger full featured films produced? Similar ? .. except may 5minutes / file ?

Mike

This is an endless loop of arguments. It's like arguing OS's or the best pizza - that's why the sarcastic comment in the beginning. It's either a naive question, or a trollish one. Notice the original poster dropped the question and hasn't been back since?

I think if you have a *lot* of experience(not a few weeks) with other software, making a request for features is useful. Arguing what's best is too subjective.

J.C.

JColdrick
This is an endless loop of arguments. It's like arguing OS's or the best pizza - that's why the sarcastic comment in the beginning. It's either a naive question, or a trollish one. Notice the original poster dropped the question and hasn't been back since?

I think if you have a *lot* of experience(not a few weeks) with other software, making a request for features is useful. Arguing what's best is too subjective.

J.C.

Agreed…and New York style pizza wins hands down. :wink:

mstram
Maya, XSI, Messiah, and Blender all have NLA editors. (Do animators really use them? E.g. in the Blender Project Orange short “Elephant's Dream”, the NLA was not used at all. Instead the film's scenes were divided into a number of individual files, usually not more than about 1 minute in length. How are larger full featured films produced? Similar ? .. except may 5minutes / file ?

Mike

shows and films are composed of ‘shots’…of any length…a few frames to many minutes…basically every time there is a camera change, that is a new shot…then shots are grouped into ‘sequences’ and sequences into ‘acts’ - depending on how a production is set up…but it's usually something like this…

as for NLAs…I don't know of anyone who uses them to any extent…a ‘pose library’ however is IMO essential…

From what I've “heard” NLA systems get a fair bit of use in games. The animation blending is setup to mimic what the game engine does which makes it easier to prototype and test animation cycles.

Wolfwood

JColdrick
This is an endless loop of arguments. It's like arguing OS's or the best pizza - that's why the sarcastic comment in the beginning. It's either a naive question, or a trollish one. Notice the original poster dropped the question and hasn't been back since?

I think if you have a *lot* of experience(not a few weeks) with other software, making a request for features is useful. Arguing what's best is too subjective.

J.C.

Agreed…and New York style pizza wins hands down. :wink:

Nah. I like thin, crunchy crusted pizza. Not cracker style crunchy tho. Whatever style that is. :wink:

arctor

mstram
as for NLAs…I don't know of anyone who uses them to any extent…a ‘pose library’ however is IMO essential…

Agreed - I don't know any halfway serious animator actually using Maya's Trax editor….. go figure.


Oh, and there's nothing like genuine, thin based italian pizza… that's a FACT!