Can't take ANY more!!

[number12]

Hi guys, I need your help please. We have copies of Maya 2008 (yeah I know it's ancient) it's also riddled with bugs, is painfully slow and frequently crashes. As such I was wondering what you think we should switch to? We're on Macs and naturally I want us to be able to render in Keyshot. Thing is, firstly, we want to move away from Maya (probably although if newer versions are good (which I doubt judging by our experiences)we might stick with it BUT we have hundreds of Maya format models, if we move away, problem one (is there an easy way to get these files into another 3D app?) and the other question is, if you're using Mac's which 3D software is best to work in tandem with Keyshot and Apple??
Would really appreciate some advice on this. Running out of hair to rip out!! 

[TpwUK]

Wow - I just downloaded Maya 2014 for OS X too ... I am just shifting everything over to Mac, had enough of Windows so understand the dilemma all to well.  The workflow of the company I evaluate for is simple really

* Modo for poly modelling but that can be crash happy too at times for no apparent reason
* MoI3D for NURBS modelling runs in a WINE wrapper but has never crashed once and has an excellent polygon mesh generator for OBJ FBX etc but I use it for STEP/IGES
* KeyShot

As you know KS will work with Maya files directly, and if you are planning to stay with KeyShot, then maybe it might be worth getting one of your techie guys to drum up a script and leave it running on a computer where it imports the Maya scene and then saves it out with the same filename but with the .bip - Then if you decide (unlikely i know) to drop KS from your workflow, you can then export them back out from KS as OBJ.

As a final note, for the next few weeks I am also going to be testing Cheetah 3D out, which is the only true Mac OS X subD package I have found, for it's price it's got most of the features of the suits costing many times more, but sadly there is no direct linking to KS, but again supports OBJ and FBX and supports UV mapping

Hope that helps you a little

Martin

[number12]

Hey thanks for your time on this TpwUK. Yeah I will have to give this some thought, I'm just not entirely sure Maya is the best option with 3D modelling. Can I ask, how do you find Boolean operations in the latest version? We even have trouble triangulating a model and then bringing that model into KS, often lots of nasty anomalies with the model, many more issues too.

I think you're right about transferring files over though, I reckon a simple script should work that out... assuming of course Maya is the best option with Macs + KS...

P.S. we only currently use Maya really for non organic modelling (Z brush we feel is best for organic + they don't charge every time there's a small update)...so my question is primerily about non organic modelling. anyway. Thanks.

[TpwUK]

I have only downloaded Maya for Mac, not looked into it yet, but for years I have heard people complain about its handling of booleans and how it can make the whole scene/model crash happy once you have used them, and that despite this reputation it never seems to get fixed just further entrenched, I have not heard anything to say 2014 is any better http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-1102657.html makes for an interesting read.

ZBrush and KS are in the process of linking up with one another but I don't know if this is coming over to the Mac platform, one of the KS guys will advice on that, so at least you have a bonus coming to you if they do port it over, so that will take care of the organics.

For hard surfaces and solids as well as stable booleans to be honest I prefer NURBS for that so that comes back to MoI3D unless you want to stay with AutoDesk and then there is Alias Studio. Sadly Rhino is not Mac ready yet but it is under construction, and might be ready by 2015 or so at a guess as they are writing it from the ground up for the Mac and not just porting it over. MoI has a 30 day trial from http://www.moi3d.com and has an excellent support forum and there has been plenty of hard surface models that have made it in to the KS Gallery that were modelled with it, this one for example http://keyshot.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/gallery-0071.jpg. MoI's major downfall is that it is still a 32bit app and so struggles with large projects, but I highly recommend it, once you have mastered the UI it's the fastest modelling app I know and the Beta versions are even stable enough for use in the work place! It exports as Step and KS handles the STEP file really well and the tessellation settings work really well for getting super smooth surfaces ... Give it a go, you have nothing to loose and could potentially save a fortune on license fees.

Martin

[guest84672]

The plugin for ZBrush, albeit still in BETA. is available for both PC and Mac.

Rhino is Mac ready, even though it is not officially released. We have many clients using it already.

[edwardo]

Rhino on mac is very usable. In fact it's rapidly becoming my default goto app - for 3d and 2d (I've ditched using illustrator to draw curves, I now import them from rhino). Despite still being in beta, and likely to be for some time yet, it's rock solid! I don't think it's crashed on me once. My only beef with rhino is it often converts my lovely clean nurbs model into horrible meshes that don't play very well with other programs. But I would really recommend rhino, it's free at the moment, so nothing to loose.

For anyone who uses rhino osx and keyshot, I've found the best import method to be...
Save the rhino model as an iges and crank up the teselation to 1 on importing

[TpwUK]

Thanks for clearing things up Thomas and edwardo. I did try the Rhino Beta earlier this year and it didn't survive on my machine for very long, every time I tried importing objects it opened new sessions and the file exporters were not working very well for me, so yes it's running and was workable but like many beta apps it's was not really ready, things may have improved over the last 6 months, i shall have to give it another go at some stage.

Martin

[number12]

Hmm, thanks guys. I'm still at a bit of a loss to be honest, several issues for us. Number 1, if I change us from Maya entirely it presents a massive problem with regard to our massive library of Maya files. Issue two, Maya still seems pretty buggy and finally issue three, cost. Ruddy hell, I've been looking at the price for "up"grading to software that might (or might not) be less buggy than we currently have!!

Gotta do some thinking about this..

Thanks anyway for the feedback, much appreciated.

[TpwUK]

See if these help Number12 ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m7qJKPnJC4#t=15 argument for Modo with live booleans ...

http://forums.newtek.com/showthread.php?134352-Professional-Maya-user-why-Lightwave-and-not-Modo

Martin

[Pepster3D]

I worked with Maya for many years and I really hated it.  I haven't used Modo but have heard great things about it (I am a Max user-still stuck on PC!!!  argh).  So I don't have much useful advice for you but I just wanted to agree with you on the fact that it's probably a good idea to move away from Maya due to its bugginess as well as its cost.  Maybe it's good for animation and customizing for big animation studios, but for viz and design work, it's on the bottom of my list. Keep us posted on what you decide!  I'd love to move over to Mac eventually as well.