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"And, considering what such programmatic muscle used to cost, the price tag is also quite reasonable."

I'm confused, what did this type of muscle use to cost compared to $3,495??

MichaelMiles8i8s, on 07 October 2010 - 06:35 AM, said:

Well, in the past you had to pay an artist to create real art, while now you can buy Maya and hire some hack to create impressive looking pseudo-art animations. Much cheaper for those who work in cities and regions not crowded with starving artists.

Seriously, though, this software is grossly overpriced for a market segment that really doesn't have to be niche.

This post has been edited by aestival: 07 October 2010 - 07:28 AM

With Pros like

"Lets you easily create 3D models from digital camera files
Includes a Photoshop plug-in"

It's pretty clear Dan mailed this one in. But hey Dan, at least you got your bio bits in there (the important part). Nice reworded press release, nice editing. Can we get Dave Girard or someone who actually knows what they're doing AFA reviewing 3D software to write up a review? Asking too much? Did anyone consider the possibility that a portrait photographer is not the right person to review Maya?

This post has been edited by Photonerd: 07 October 2010 - 07:34 AM

A little off-topic, but: Why does ZBrush (just released as version 4, now for both Mac & PC) never get any recognition? There's a clear bias against this program; it is never reviewed in the Mac press (read: Macworld). In many ways, this is a more "generalized" app than Maya, as it is (and always has been) more of an artist's program. The main rap used to be an non-standard interface, but fewer and fewer apps ARE "standard" anymore. Look at Maya itself: the dark gray background is part of the new wave of animation programs that have been cropping up the past few years, but not consistent with what used to be considered mainstream.

MichaelMiles8i8s, on 07 October 2010 - 06:35 AM, said:

When it was called Alias Wavefront and the first time I saw it called Maya it was more like $30,000.495 and you had to run it on SGI Unix hardware (which was also rock-expensive).
The price of Alias has plummeted to a fraction of it's original cost.

Export is not limited to VRML or 3DS, there is also FBX, OBJ, IGES, Collada (add-on), among others.

Zbrush is just a sculpt and paint tool. It is heavily used and well respected in the industry, but we use it WITH other software like Maya.

Maya's competition is not Modo yet, most studios who are using Modo use it as a design/modeling tool in conjunction with other software, like Maya or Lightwave.

Maya is a 3D pipeline tool for studios, like Houdini and SoftImage. Lightwave is more the get it done now 3D app that studios that do a lot of TV FX love to use for speed and ease of use as well as it's great renderer.

Yes, Maya's price is very reasonable and in line with other pro 3D apps like 3DS, Softimage (both owned by Autodesk), and C4D (more used by motion graphics artists but a great under-appreciated piece of software). When SGI owned Alias to get a full PowerAnimator and Wavefront suite (the parents of Maya) with support you could easily spend over $30K on the software alone so the prices have come down a lot just as the have the workstations that run them.

Nice ad. Can we have a real review now please?

krazygoat, on 07 October 2010 - 11:16 AM, said:

Indeed. I used to work at an animation school and we had Maya 1.0 (just as it was released), some other Alias software, SoftImage, 3D MAX (very early days), and Jaleo (which is gone now as far as I know). The Alias applications and Jaleo ran on O2s and an Octane, and some server boxes as well. Wildly expensive. Switched to Windows NT running Maya (and Max of course) quickly because the NT boxes blew the SGI stuff away for most things for a fraction of the cost, particularly rendering. Great hardware for Windows, the Mac, and for Linux, and the advent of Linux on the server side have enabled a lot of people to create, develop, and work in media and communications than could previously.

The licensing for Alias software was extremely painful at the time, particularly given the price. We used to run down to their offices here in Toronto with blood in our eyes. So Autodesk owns them all now. I would never have anticipated that.

MichaelMiles8i8s, on 07 October 2010 - 06:35 AM, said:

Maya Unlimited was $8,000.

This really is top-end software. To give you an idea of how much is going on with this application, there is a search feature just for finding menu items.

robertRoss, on 07 October 2010 - 07:41 PM, said:

Alias changed hands a number of times and as I recall, it was even owned by the Canadian teacher retirement system for a while and when they sold it they made a huge profit. around eight years ago Maya hit its prime and when it came out on the Mac hopes were very high. Alias used to spend a ton of effort to improve it and promote it, even hosting domestic press junkets. ( I actually went on one of them.) When the company was sold to a competitor, it became just another product in their catalogue where it became an underpromoted, second shelf item. We certainly do not see as many job postings for Maya as we did just a few years ago.

It's a great app but is so comprehensive that people tend to specialize in one or two areas.