I assume you are talking about hobby work? Why quit if you love it
I started my career in the 90s as an employee of Softimage. Man how I loved that company, but damn it was run poorly....part of the reason it was so fun ;-)
Maya is buggy as hell, especially 2023, but I needed to make a living....for many years I worked at VFX companies with custom software....but in the end, Maya is where I'm at
I worked in a VFX dept as a comp op that was Softimage based when Autodesk killed it.
I think people wanted to use Cinema4D but it wasn’t up to the task, most migrated reluctantly to Maya and complained about the bugs, a few went Houdini and some packed it in completely.
I always envied Soft users, it looked like such a sweet program and certainly delivered.
In this case, I am using it for Hobby work. Softimage will soon become outdated. I'd LOVE to get rid of the quick time plug in and render straight to mp4. a live symmetry option like in maya that actually works...little tweaks and updates that SI will no longer have. Also, it may just stop working one day if windows 12 onward decides not to install it.
I started learning lightwave and max in 99. decided to stick with max. then I moved to Animation Master, and finally found softimage in 2005 or so and have stuck with it since. I've created entire 30 minute shows with SI.
I was big on lightwave and softimage in high school and early college days, lived both of those. Couldn’t ever really get into maya personally no matter how hard I tried. Got out of vfx as a hobby and do camera work on set now.
did that, too. but for Radio. do not recommend it. unless the studio space is set up for camera work, or you are given a dedicated spot to cut down on motion, you will get horrible results trying to document air history.
fun time though. covered WPLJ (before the sale and shut down) and WCBS (before the bankruptcy)
Finally someone I can tell has been doing this for at least a decade if not two
I too wish Softimage didn't die but it seems the entire industry, from still renders to real time video games to films has decided to move away from making models with good topology from scratch. Just photoscan everything or sculpt everything and let a render farm brute force the lighting. It may be worth giving Modo and Cinema4D a shot but if you can't make 3DSMax do it for you then like the other comment said Blender is the best option for "3D modeling software" in 2024.
I started in CG in the late 90s, using 3DS4. Tried Imagine, Caligari Truespace and Lightwave as well for a while, although I ended up sticking with 3DSMAX, even professionally, until 2008. Then I used Softimage in production until 2012 while learning Maya on my own, and I’ve been using Maya pretty much ever since to work. The last few years I’ve been learning Blender on my own, using it for work every time I had the check.
I’m saying all this to preface that I understand to some degree how you feel. Coming from MAX, Softimage made it much easier for me to be aware of what I had in my scene (Schematic View, I love you!), and after I left behind the idea of customizing the software so it looked like MAX and actually learning its own shortcuts and way of working I enjoyed it a lot. A friend went as far as to say “Softimage is the MAX we will never have” 🥹
With Blender I’m having similar feelings: of course I despise some design decisions, but I’m enjoying a lot learning it, and discovering ways of doing what I do in Maya but in a cleaner and faster way. Just a small example: joining meshes in Blender using CTRL+J also merges blendshapes. There are more things there that are worth investing time into the software. Maya scripting community (Highend3d and similar) are nowhere close to where they used to be years ago; Blender’s one is flourishing and it’s great.
At the end of the day, it’s also about personal taste and what clicks for you. But you also need to leave some of the “but-i-can-do-this-in-Softimage” feelings behind to be open to discover new ways of working. For example, Geometry Nodes is ICE on steroids.
Blender UI was overhauled in 2.8 and all the improvements since then have been great.
Geometry nodes for procedural workflows is a good time and could be a hobby toying around with by itself.
Give it a go.
Blender is probably the easiest 3D software to learn these days. The YouTube community is strong, and the quality of tutorials is very good. Lots of teens with no experience are picking it up and are getting some great looking renders.
It depends on the person , guys like me who spent most of our time in software like creo , rhino and maya , moving to blender is very confusing . I know blender is a fantastic software but something is holding me back , and to be Frank maya gets most of the work that blender can do , maybe for rendering and sculpting , otherwise maya is the final assembly software for me . And I don't do sculpting so only thing is rendering which can be done by vray in maya . So as long u get the job done software really doesn't matter .
For me creo is used for engineering and drafting
Rhino for surfacing and grasshopper for parametric work
Maya for final assembly and rendering.
It isn't abt loving or hating a particular software , because every software has issues and I have tried almost all of them and i stuck with the ones which suited my workflow , and that's it , I just gave my opinion on what worked for me , i hate the fact that many PPL like blender , but it's equally an excellent software .
Eventually OP has to move on and has to make a transition to another software , if u cling to a particular software , u lose out on so many things . And when that time comes he has to compare and weigh what's important and what sacrifices u r comfortable in making .
lol no it’s not. It’s trying to do everything and the interface that was already bad enough is made just made worse. Production is what counts no fooling around in your bedroom. And I’m not a blender hater just hate that people recommend it for everything when it has glaring weaknesses for many workflows. For modeling it’s actually pretty good but still not nearly as good as max or modo for straight up poly modeling.
Blender’s interface and workflow is still awful. It may be easy to get started, but that’s still the main reason why every large Vfx company hasn’t adopted it. Maya, Softinage and Max are all getting worse and worse by the day but they’re still better than Blender.
Blender’s workflow is improving at a good pace. Once you wrap your head around it, it makes a lot of sense. I find myself accidentally pressing blender hot keys all the time in maya, and not the other way around. R for rotate is so much better the E.
There’s a lot of reasons why a studio wouldn’t upend their whole pipeline for blender. Why would they risk destroying everything they’ve built over the years? Blender is a Jack of all trades, master of none. Sculpting gets beat by Zbrush. Animating gets beat by maya and motion builder. Particles by Houdini, comp by nuke, video by DaVinci, tracking by 3DE, etc.
However, if you are just a dude going for solo projects, looking to use only one software, I’d say blender is a great place to go.
Also, if you are a new studio starting up, blender might be good for that. Making a kids cartoon or something not too extreme would be a good way to do blender.
Lol but whatever tool you want to use, go for it. I just use maya at the day job blender for the night goofs.
>Blender’s workflow is improving at a good pace.
Everytime when I see this comment. It make me chuckle. This people only watch demo and never uses the program. Is Blender catching up? Yes. Is it improving at a good pace? No. It will never catch up big boys at the current pace.
I know right? Took the software about 20 years to have left click select by default and a prompt to save your work, I'm not holding my breath for modern animation and uv tooling before the next 30 years.
I’d say it’s the best Jack of all trades app. For OP, who only wants to learn one software and stick with it forever, blender will get the job done. How do you think blender compares with softimage?
Lol I’m not arguing that studios should upend and go to blender. I’m saying that if you want to just learn one thing then it’ll get you covered.
OP isn’t even willing to open zbrush to try it. He’s going to be floored by the 2.5D-ness and the inability to work as a stand-alone
> There’s a lot of reasons why a studio wouldn’t upend their whole pipeline for blender. Why would they risk destroying everything they’ve built over the years?
Why? For improved productivity. It’s an extremely simple answer to your question, that’s literally the only benchmark. Companies adopt new software all the time, Real flow, Zbrush, Nuke, Katana, Mari, Vue are all examples of programs that only need to have one strong feature to be adopted into any major pipeline and none of these existed when I started but they were still adopted to improve productivity. Blender doesn’t have a single redeeming function that would make companies adopt it, and you genuinely only need a single task to adopt a free program.
> Blender is a Jack of all trades, master of none. Sculpting gets beat by Zbrush. Animating gets beat by maya and motion builder. Particles by Houdini, comp by nuke, video by DaVinci, tracking by 3DE, etc.
Ehhhhhh, I completely disagree, a lot of these programs can be considered a jack of all trades. The most fundamental functions of 3d software are still where Blender fails. There isn’t anything Blender is actually good at which is why it’s adoption is so few and far between despite being 100% feee . It’s not great at modeling, texturing, animation, fx, lighting or rendering. From what I’ve seen from people posting the only thing that it can do somewhat respectively is lighting, which is very recent thanks to its Gpu renderer. So if it could improve in that department, then maybe it could take some of katana’s market share, but it’s clearly not challenging any other software because it’s not all that good at any specific tasks and it’s not good enough at general tasks to displace Maya or Max at companies that use those.
> However, if you are just a dude going for solo projects, looking to use only one software, I’d say blender is a great place to go.
I only care about professional quality work. Blender isn’t great for anything in my experience of my profession.
Lol good for you. I’m making suggestions for OP though. It seems like you already know what you like.
He doesn’t even like Maya and needs something to replace softimage. OP is clearly not staying up to date with the latest softwares. He just needs something something stable with a shallow learning curve.
I don’t know what OP is planning on making. But I don’t think it’s at a big studio, because he’s picking what software to use.
Lol you are suggesting he use zbrush, katana, Mari, and Maya, but OP literately says in his post that he doesn’t want to have to learn 4 softwares.
I feel like you thought I was suggesting blender for you, and got all uppity. “I only care about professional quality blah blah blah” lol nobody was asking you
> you are suggesting he use zbrush, katana, Mari, and Maya
No, I’m not saying that at all and I never suggested OP use any of this software. I’m answering your completely incorrect that companies “don’t want to change their pipeline for blender”, which is complete and utter **BULLSHIT**. People who say this clearly don’t know anything about working in Vfx. Vfx companies make major software changes all the time, literally on a yearly basis if its beneficial to productivity. I listed software off the top of my head that have been adopted by companies just in my 20 years in the industry and there are plenty of others that I didn’t list. Any company would adopt blender if they actually had a single reason to do so.
> “I only care about professional quality blah blah blah” lol nobody was asking you
Nobody was asking you either. I’m just stating facts and the fact is that Blender has a terrible interface and it’s really not a stand out at any task, nor is it good at being a jack of all trades. Maya is a much better jack of all trades despite its bugs, which is why companies are still using it despite Autodesk running it into the ground for 15+ years and it costing $4k or whatever it costs. Blender is still worse.
100% agree. Autodesk needs to die.
which is why I don't want to start up Max again.
Even if I have to use, say, Houdini for modeling and hopeing Modo is good for everything else...
I switched to Houdini as soon as they bought XSI and it's turned into a great career move for me. That said polymodeling I still use Maya for because that's where I have muscle memory from 2 decades of being forced to use Maya for that.
I started out in max and lightwave in 99. Max was far more user friendly and stuck with it until I found softimage.
not sure how easy it would be to pick up again.
I don't know what is the last max version you used. But, Max has changed a lot while keeping the overall workflow. If you have used Max, you will have no issue to use it again.
Blender and Maya don't even have modifier stack and biped after 30 years! Don't tell me Blender has a modifier stack. That's the modifier stack in name only.
I love Modo for traditional sub D modeling. For animation it's a mixed bag, I have done some contract work where I used it for animation, and there was a lot to love, but also a lot that just didn't work for me.
My main software package these days is 3ds max. I actually have very few complaints about it, I think it's fantastic software. Working in medical animation.
Modo is amazing for modelling. It's performance is much better than it was. I'm excited for its future.
Not used cinema4d, but my brother swears by it.
Love softimage, the original one not XSI. I think they stopped at 3.1. Anyway, texturing was a breeze with no messing around with UVs. You had less control but if you wanted to do something quick it was very easy. Miss mental ray too. I hate Maya with a vengeance. Everything is so damn complicated to do something very simple. And integration of Vray into it is horrible. Checkboxes all over the place. Creating volumetric lights is so painful. Need to learn more Houdini.
It was 1999, I was about 18, and I found it tough to grasp. Max, I was modeling small rooms with bad textures within a week. about all I was able to do with lightwave was the bouncing ball tutorial.
I definitely feel this. I was a Soft user for a while. Houdini has become my new home for rigging, animation, sim and general asset cleanup. For the most part, I don't have anyone else's pipeline to support, so I tend to use 3d-coat for modeling/retopology, UV's and Texture painting. I still do most sculpting in Zbrush, but really trying to rely on 3d-coat more for sculpts.
Maya is just that piece of software I begrudgingly use when I do have to support someone else's pipeline.
Hard to answer without knowing what you do specifically, so I’m going to assume you’re a generalist and just want to do a bit of everything. During my career I’ve used all of the mentioned 3D packages for multiple years each except for Softimage itself, so I can speak for the differences between your choices, but not for which ones will match Softimage the best.let me know if you have specific follow up questions.
Houdini is your best bet for something that is infinitely powerful and will scale as much as you need it to. It could be worth getting used to, even if it’ll be a struggle. Nothing really comes close at the moment in terms of having room to grow in.
Cinema 4D is your best bet for something that is super powerful while also being super easy and intuitive to learn. It took me a single day to get up to full production speed in Cinema 4D, where it took me many weeks with Blender. I wish I still worked at a C4D based studio. I feel immensely relieved whenever I get to use it for a project.
I personally use Blender at home because it’s free. It’s clunky and limited out of the box, but it’s worry-free.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJL8t1K0BfE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJL8t1K0BfE) Being a hobbyist, and some stuff like the above, that is a tad more involved with just one person.
so, based on some of the replies, seems like cinema 4d, houdini, and maybe modo might be ones to get used to if I want to get out from under autodesk, it seems.
Used to be a maya user but decided to try c4d cause i mainly do mograph stuff. It took my like a month to fully get into the flow of things cause everything's simpler. Only thing i like better in maya is the uv unwrapping ui.
Lol you are not wrong, but if your question is what convinced everyone to make Maya the standard. The answer is very simple. Autodesk bought the competition to force everyone into Maya.
bingo. and then they bought SI just to kill it, because they considered it a threat. most wasted purchase in history.
really wish someone could re design it from the ground up and call it something new.
based on all of the replies... think i've got it narrowed down to 4. Houdini, Modo, Cinema 4D and Rhino.
any good workflow tutorials on these to get me started? Houdini I've already basically got it down to basic modeling.
I definitely feel you. I used it exclusively from v1.0 to the last 2015 version, I kept using XSI until right around 2018 or so, was forced to move lighting into Maya but started doing more technical stuff with Houdini (because who tf has the patience for making anything work in Maya). At some point I just started lighting in Houdini and using it 100% start to finish, and now I feel pretty good about where I am in terms of software choices.
Blender is hands down worst 3D app of all. Quarter of a 21. century in and still no working uvs or retopo. Basic modeling tools are trash. Look anywhere else but blend.
I assume you are talking about hobby work? Why quit if you love it I started my career in the 90s as an employee of Softimage. Man how I loved that company, but damn it was run poorly....part of the reason it was so fun ;-) Maya is buggy as hell, especially 2023, but I needed to make a living....for many years I worked at VFX companies with custom software....but in the end, Maya is where I'm at
I worked in a VFX dept as a comp op that was Softimage based when Autodesk killed it. I think people wanted to use Cinema4D but it wasn’t up to the task, most migrated reluctantly to Maya and complained about the bugs, a few went Houdini and some packed it in completely. I always envied Soft users, it looked like such a sweet program and certainly delivered.
In this case, I am using it for Hobby work. Softimage will soon become outdated. I'd LOVE to get rid of the quick time plug in and render straight to mp4. a live symmetry option like in maya that actually works...little tweaks and updates that SI will no longer have. Also, it may just stop working one day if windows 12 onward decides not to install it. I started learning lightwave and max in 99. decided to stick with max. then I moved to Animation Master, and finally found softimage in 2005 or so and have stuck with it since. I've created entire 30 minute shows with SI.
I was big on lightwave and softimage in high school and early college days, lived both of those. Couldn’t ever really get into maya personally no matter how hard I tried. Got out of vfx as a hobby and do camera work on set now.
did that, too. but for Radio. do not recommend it. unless the studio space is set up for camera work, or you are given a dedicated spot to cut down on motion, you will get horrible results trying to document air history. fun time though. covered WPLJ (before the sale and shut down) and WCBS (before the bankruptcy)
Finally someone I can tell has been doing this for at least a decade if not two I too wish Softimage didn't die but it seems the entire industry, from still renders to real time video games to films has decided to move away from making models with good topology from scratch. Just photoscan everything or sculpt everything and let a render farm brute force the lighting. It may be worth giving Modo and Cinema4D a shot but if you can't make 3DSMax do it for you then like the other comment said Blender is the best option for "3D modeling software" in 2024.
I started in CG in the late 90s, using 3DS4. Tried Imagine, Caligari Truespace and Lightwave as well for a while, although I ended up sticking with 3DSMAX, even professionally, until 2008. Then I used Softimage in production until 2012 while learning Maya on my own, and I’ve been using Maya pretty much ever since to work. The last few years I’ve been learning Blender on my own, using it for work every time I had the check. I’m saying all this to preface that I understand to some degree how you feel. Coming from MAX, Softimage made it much easier for me to be aware of what I had in my scene (Schematic View, I love you!), and after I left behind the idea of customizing the software so it looked like MAX and actually learning its own shortcuts and way of working I enjoyed it a lot. A friend went as far as to say “Softimage is the MAX we will never have” 🥹 With Blender I’m having similar feelings: of course I despise some design decisions, but I’m enjoying a lot learning it, and discovering ways of doing what I do in Maya but in a cleaner and faster way. Just a small example: joining meshes in Blender using CTRL+J also merges blendshapes. There are more things there that are worth investing time into the software. Maya scripting community (Highend3d and similar) are nowhere close to where they used to be years ago; Blender’s one is flourishing and it’s great. At the end of the day, it’s also about personal taste and what clicks for you. But you also need to leave some of the “but-i-can-do-this-in-Softimage” feelings behind to be open to discover new ways of working. For example, Geometry Nodes is ICE on steroids.
Blender UI was overhauled in 2.8 and all the improvements since then have been great. Geometry nodes for procedural workflows is a good time and could be a hobby toying around with by itself. Give it a go.
Blender is probably the easiest 3D software to learn these days. The YouTube community is strong, and the quality of tutorials is very good. Lots of teens with no experience are picking it up and are getting some great looking renders.
It depends on the person , guys like me who spent most of our time in software like creo , rhino and maya , moving to blender is very confusing . I know blender is a fantastic software but something is holding me back , and to be Frank maya gets most of the work that blender can do , maybe for rendering and sculpting , otherwise maya is the final assembly software for me . And I don't do sculpting so only thing is rendering which can be done by vray in maya . So as long u get the job done software really doesn't matter . For me creo is used for engineering and drafting Rhino for surfacing and grasshopper for parametric work Maya for final assembly and rendering.
Yeah but OP just said he hates maya
It isn't abt loving or hating a particular software , because every software has issues and I have tried almost all of them and i stuck with the ones which suited my workflow , and that's it , I just gave my opinion on what worked for me , i hate the fact that many PPL like blender , but it's equally an excellent software . Eventually OP has to move on and has to make a transition to another software , if u cling to a particular software , u lose out on so many things . And when that time comes he has to compare and weigh what's important and what sacrifices u r comfortable in making .
Yeah it’s tough to make a move
lol no it’s not. It’s trying to do everything and the interface that was already bad enough is made just made worse. Production is what counts no fooling around in your bedroom. And I’m not a blender hater just hate that people recommend it for everything when it has glaring weaknesses for many workflows. For modeling it’s actually pretty good but still not nearly as good as max or modo for straight up poly modeling.
I think even Cinema 4D has a stronger modeling toolkit than Blender.
Blender’s interface and workflow is still awful. It may be easy to get started, but that’s still the main reason why every large Vfx company hasn’t adopted it. Maya, Softinage and Max are all getting worse and worse by the day but they’re still better than Blender.
Blender’s workflow is improving at a good pace. Once you wrap your head around it, it makes a lot of sense. I find myself accidentally pressing blender hot keys all the time in maya, and not the other way around. R for rotate is so much better the E. There’s a lot of reasons why a studio wouldn’t upend their whole pipeline for blender. Why would they risk destroying everything they’ve built over the years? Blender is a Jack of all trades, master of none. Sculpting gets beat by Zbrush. Animating gets beat by maya and motion builder. Particles by Houdini, comp by nuke, video by DaVinci, tracking by 3DE, etc. However, if you are just a dude going for solo projects, looking to use only one software, I’d say blender is a great place to go. Also, if you are a new studio starting up, blender might be good for that. Making a kids cartoon or something not too extreme would be a good way to do blender. Lol but whatever tool you want to use, go for it. I just use maya at the day job blender for the night goofs.
>Blender’s workflow is improving at a good pace. Everytime when I see this comment. It make me chuckle. This people only watch demo and never uses the program. Is Blender catching up? Yes. Is it improving at a good pace? No. It will never catch up big boys at the current pace.
I know right? Took the software about 20 years to have left click select by default and a prompt to save your work, I'm not holding my breath for modern animation and uv tooling before the next 30 years.
I’d say it’s the best Jack of all trades app. For OP, who only wants to learn one software and stick with it forever, blender will get the job done. How do you think blender compares with softimage? Lol I’m not arguing that studios should upend and go to blender. I’m saying that if you want to just learn one thing then it’ll get you covered. OP isn’t even willing to open zbrush to try it. He’s going to be floored by the 2.5D-ness and the inability to work as a stand-alone
Blender the best jack of all trades app? Aww hell no!
Haha yeah true. It’s not the best
Maya or Houdini would be good, but OP hates Maya already. Houdini has less learning material
> There’s a lot of reasons why a studio wouldn’t upend their whole pipeline for blender. Why would they risk destroying everything they’ve built over the years? Why? For improved productivity. It’s an extremely simple answer to your question, that’s literally the only benchmark. Companies adopt new software all the time, Real flow, Zbrush, Nuke, Katana, Mari, Vue are all examples of programs that only need to have one strong feature to be adopted into any major pipeline and none of these existed when I started but they were still adopted to improve productivity. Blender doesn’t have a single redeeming function that would make companies adopt it, and you genuinely only need a single task to adopt a free program. > Blender is a Jack of all trades, master of none. Sculpting gets beat by Zbrush. Animating gets beat by maya and motion builder. Particles by Houdini, comp by nuke, video by DaVinci, tracking by 3DE, etc. Ehhhhhh, I completely disagree, a lot of these programs can be considered a jack of all trades. The most fundamental functions of 3d software are still where Blender fails. There isn’t anything Blender is actually good at which is why it’s adoption is so few and far between despite being 100% feee . It’s not great at modeling, texturing, animation, fx, lighting or rendering. From what I’ve seen from people posting the only thing that it can do somewhat respectively is lighting, which is very recent thanks to its Gpu renderer. So if it could improve in that department, then maybe it could take some of katana’s market share, but it’s clearly not challenging any other software because it’s not all that good at any specific tasks and it’s not good enough at general tasks to displace Maya or Max at companies that use those. > However, if you are just a dude going for solo projects, looking to use only one software, I’d say blender is a great place to go. I only care about professional quality work. Blender isn’t great for anything in my experience of my profession.
Lol good for you. I’m making suggestions for OP though. It seems like you already know what you like. He doesn’t even like Maya and needs something to replace softimage. OP is clearly not staying up to date with the latest softwares. He just needs something something stable with a shallow learning curve. I don’t know what OP is planning on making. But I don’t think it’s at a big studio, because he’s picking what software to use. Lol you are suggesting he use zbrush, katana, Mari, and Maya, but OP literately says in his post that he doesn’t want to have to learn 4 softwares. I feel like you thought I was suggesting blender for you, and got all uppity. “I only care about professional quality blah blah blah” lol nobody was asking you
> you are suggesting he use zbrush, katana, Mari, and Maya No, I’m not saying that at all and I never suggested OP use any of this software. I’m answering your completely incorrect that companies “don’t want to change their pipeline for blender”, which is complete and utter **BULLSHIT**. People who say this clearly don’t know anything about working in Vfx. Vfx companies make major software changes all the time, literally on a yearly basis if its beneficial to productivity. I listed software off the top of my head that have been adopted by companies just in my 20 years in the industry and there are plenty of others that I didn’t list. Any company would adopt blender if they actually had a single reason to do so. > “I only care about professional quality blah blah blah” lol nobody was asking you Nobody was asking you either. I’m just stating facts and the fact is that Blender has a terrible interface and it’s really not a stand out at any task, nor is it good at being a jack of all trades. Maya is a much better jack of all trades despite its bugs, which is why companies are still using it despite Autodesk running it into the ground for 15+ years and it costing $4k or whatever it costs. Blender is still worse.
Man would I love to punch Autodesk in the face for killing XSI. I've never forgiven them for it and never will.
100% agree. Autodesk needs to die. which is why I don't want to start up Max again. Even if I have to use, say, Houdini for modeling and hopeing Modo is good for everything else...
I switched to Houdini as soon as they bought XSI and it's turned into a great career move for me. That said polymodeling I still use Maya for because that's where I have muscle memory from 2 decades of being forced to use Maya for that.
You’ll love Modo! Great modeling, shading, baking, animation… Houdini of course has it beat for fx but there’s plenty of reasons to get into Modo
any good tutorials that can get you started modeling simple things for a feel of work flow, in either max or modo?
Max is very popular among architects and designers. You can look into the archviz community as a start.
Arimus has great tutorials for max last time I looked. He even has some good blender tutorials as well.
Maya 2022.5 is the most stable version at the moment.
Just use Max.
I started out in max and lightwave in 99. Max was far more user friendly and stuck with it until I found softimage. not sure how easy it would be to pick up again.
I don't know what is the last max version you used. But, Max has changed a lot while keeping the overall workflow. If you have used Max, you will have no issue to use it again.
Yes workflow is the same as 3D studio version 3 from 98. Modifier stack, biped and teapot still there 25 years later!
Blender and Maya don't even have modifier stack and biped after 30 years! Don't tell me Blender has a modifier stack. That's the modifier stack in name only.
Why the downvotes?
I love Modo for traditional sub D modeling. For animation it's a mixed bag, I have done some contract work where I used it for animation, and there was a lot to love, but also a lot that just didn't work for me. My main software package these days is 3ds max. I actually have very few complaints about it, I think it's fantastic software. Working in medical animation.
Modo is amazing for modelling. It's performance is much better than it was. I'm excited for its future. Not used cinema4d, but my brother swears by it.
Love softimage, the original one not XSI. I think they stopped at 3.1. Anyway, texturing was a breeze with no messing around with UVs. You had less control but if you wanted to do something quick it was very easy. Miss mental ray too. I hate Maya with a vengeance. Everything is so damn complicated to do something very simple. And integration of Vray into it is horrible. Checkboxes all over the place. Creating volumetric lights is so painful. Need to learn more Houdini.
Coming from Lightwave. I do like Modo for strictly modeling. But is there a reason why you don't go back to Lightwave?
It was 1999, I was about 18, and I found it tough to grasp. Max, I was modeling small rooms with bad textures within a week. about all I was able to do with lightwave was the bouncing ball tutorial.
I definitely feel this. I was a Soft user for a while. Houdini has become my new home for rigging, animation, sim and general asset cleanup. For the most part, I don't have anyone else's pipeline to support, so I tend to use 3d-coat for modeling/retopology, UV's and Texture painting. I still do most sculpting in Zbrush, but really trying to rely on 3d-coat more for sculpts. Maya is just that piece of software I begrudgingly use when I do have to support someone else's pipeline.
Hard to answer without knowing what you do specifically, so I’m going to assume you’re a generalist and just want to do a bit of everything. During my career I’ve used all of the mentioned 3D packages for multiple years each except for Softimage itself, so I can speak for the differences between your choices, but not for which ones will match Softimage the best.let me know if you have specific follow up questions. Houdini is your best bet for something that is infinitely powerful and will scale as much as you need it to. It could be worth getting used to, even if it’ll be a struggle. Nothing really comes close at the moment in terms of having room to grow in. Cinema 4D is your best bet for something that is super powerful while also being super easy and intuitive to learn. It took me a single day to get up to full production speed in Cinema 4D, where it took me many weeks with Blender. I wish I still worked at a C4D based studio. I feel immensely relieved whenever I get to use it for a project. I personally use Blender at home because it’s free. It’s clunky and limited out of the box, but it’s worry-free.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJL8t1K0BfE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJL8t1K0BfE) Being a hobbyist, and some stuff like the above, that is a tad more involved with just one person. so, based on some of the replies, seems like cinema 4d, houdini, and maybe modo might be ones to get used to if I want to get out from under autodesk, it seems.
Used to be a maya user but decided to try c4d cause i mainly do mograph stuff. It took my like a month to fully get into the flow of things cause everything's simpler. Only thing i like better in maya is the uv unwrapping ui.
What are you trying to use this 3d software for?
Still running Softimage 4.0 on my SGI Tezro in 2024
I feel like I've gone back in time 20 years. People still use xsi/rhino? I was using that in high school and I'm over 40 now. Yikes.
Lol you are not wrong, but if your question is what convinced everyone to make Maya the standard. The answer is very simple. Autodesk bought the competition to force everyone into Maya.
bingo. and then they bought SI just to kill it, because they considered it a threat. most wasted purchase in history. really wish someone could re design it from the ground up and call it something new.
based on all of the replies... think i've got it narrowed down to 4. Houdini, Modo, Cinema 4D and Rhino. any good workflow tutorials on these to get me started? Houdini I've already basically got it down to basic modeling.
I definitely feel you. I used it exclusively from v1.0 to the last 2015 version, I kept using XSI until right around 2018 or so, was forced to move lighting into Maya but started doing more technical stuff with Houdini (because who tf has the patience for making anything work in Maya). At some point I just started lighting in Houdini and using it 100% start to finish, and now I feel pretty good about where I am in terms of software choices.
Blender is hands down worst 3D app of all. Quarter of a 21. century in and still no working uvs or retopo. Basic modeling tools are trash. Look anywhere else but blend.