3DSMAX to MAYA
 

I see that there are a few people (including myself) switching from MAX to Maya.
Maybe we can all post our problems and fixes.
Here are a couple of things I had trouble with:

1.- Snapping.
Since Maya only snaps to pivot snapping was a big pain. However moving the pivot is quite easy (insert) So, it just takes one extra step (when compared to MAX)
2.- object list.
Maya's OUTLINER is equivalent of MAX's LIST BY NAME. though I have trouble sorting through it. Also I wish I could remove the default (TOP, SIDE, etc) cameras.

Actually, I find Maya's snapping a lot easier to use than Max's. With single toggle keystrokes, you can snap to grid, curve, or vertex. The snap align tools in Maya 4.5 are also very powerful if you take the time to get into them. I like the simplicity of Max's single dialog box, but, to me, there is more flexibility in Maya.

Maya's Outliner takes a bit of getting used to, if you're coming from Max, but it is incredibly powerful and flexible. In the Outliner, you can sort the list however you like simply by manually dragging items up and down the list or by changing options in the Display and Show panel menus. The Show Selected Type(s) option is especially useful. For instance, say you only want to see poly and nurbs objects in Outliner. Select one poly shape and one nurbs shape in the scene. Go to Outliner | Show | Show Selected Type(s). The Outliner will now only show poly and nurbs objects. If you want to cull cameras from the list, select Show | Objects | Cameras and then select Show | Invert Shown. Cameras will now not show up in Outliner.

Transitioning from Max to Maya involves unlearning some habits. It just takes some time to find the equivalent features and processes from one program to the other. In general, everything works the same or similarly.

maya is great for modeling. i cant do anything like it in max. the interface is much nicer. ive been been towards the dark with max. everyonce in a while. and um... i just dosent compare to maya. i see why the people in film use it.

There are a few built-in Max features that I do like better than Maya:

- fast and nice renderer
- renderable bones and splines
- renderable wireframes

Guess I like the renderer in Max better... :)

i dont like mayas snapping either....crap...but i can live with that...renderer is trash,but now it has mental ray :-)
no soft selection
te outliner is cool though
i dont like how maya selects all the children when u select the parent
max has a cool feature wherin it treats all heirarchy as a character/skeleton,dunno if maya has that...i have been using max for the past 4 years...now im switching to maya bec im heavy on the character animation/modelling side...btw...max'a uvw edit tools are the best that i have seen in the industry

I used max from version 1.0 to 4.29. After I forced myself to learn Maya, I've never looked back. Maya may not be the most beautiful by it's looks but it is the most powerful and flexible 3d package I've ever seen. Here are few things that made me go "wow" while learning Maya:
- Nurbs (something that was a plague in max)
- Paint Effects
- Artisan
- 3D Paint tool
- UV editor (after learning how to use it properly)
- Particles
- Dynamics
- Trax Editor

One thing I really appreciate about Maya is that every function works (at least for me) exactly as I've expected. No funny stuff, bugs, weird behaviour or anything. It's just smooth as baby's skin :)

The most annoying thing while learning Maya was the camera navigation short cuts. Nowadays it's the opposite. If I'd had to work with Max again, it would be the same: pure pain in the... you know ;)

i used max 4 for about a month and a half... after i got maya.. got used to the Maya environment... found it hard to switch back.... and i agree to the "Max has better rendering"... and i also agree to "Maya's renderer is bull***t".... i have 4.0 so no MR.... will get 4.5 soon (and hence MR:)).... cant wait!!!

MAX to Maya 2
 

I definetively agree that MAYA's interface is much better than MAX's (which is why discreet has been copying it).
MAYA's renderer is actually not bad, just a bit slower, but it produces bettter results (refraction, glow, etc).
I still have to get used to MAYA's snaps.... not being able to directly snap vertex to vertex sometime drives me nuts.

I have also noticed that MAYA does not have anything in comparison to MAX's modifiers (bend, taper, twist, spheriphy, etc) That appears to me as somewhat of a drawback.

Also, I find MAX's modifier stack quite efficient, better than MAYA's channel box which apparently does not allow to turn on/off modifiers on the stack... for that I need to go into the hypergraph, which just scares the crap out of me.

finally, the other thing that also scares me is MAYA's materials... They are obviously much more flexible than MAX's but also quite intimidating.

A couple of questions now:
Is it possible to turn a vertex from linear to cubic after it is drawn?
How do I add vertices in the middle of a preexisting line?

You can do vertex to vertex snaps in Maya. Just make sure vertices are visible on your target shape and you can snap to them simply by holding down the 'v' key while moving your objects or vertices.

Maya does have Max's equivalent of bend, twist, etc. modifiers. They're called Deformers, and they are in the Animation menu set (Deform | Create Nonlinear).

I do miss having the flexibility of Max's modifier stack. But then again, I've run into more problems in Max that are solved by collapsing the stack, so it's a mixed bag.

I'm not sure what you mean by "turn a vertex from linear to cubic". Could you elaborate more?

And, finally, you can add vertices in the middle of preexisting edges by either subdividing the edges for nice even distribution along the edge (select the edge, go to Edit Polygons | Subdivide) or using the Split Polygon Tool for more arbitrary placement (select Split Polygon Tool from Edit Polygons, click on an edge to place a vertex, press Enter, press 'y' to select the tool again, rinse, repeat, lather).

Really? Can you do vertex to vertex snapping? I thought objects only snapped from their pivot points (pivot to vertex, pivot to curve, pivot to grid)
I will also look into the deformers... thanks!!!

I am sorry I was not clear when I said "from linear to cubic". You know in MAX where you can have a vertex be "corner" or "bezier" or "smooth"?
If I draw a rectangle and I decide I want onve of the corners to be rounded... how do I achieve this?
I thought that when using your EV curve since you can choose between having the curve be "linear" (sharp corners) or "cubic" (more NURBS-like, rounded).... Maybe these parameters can be changed after the curve has been created. Also, in a NURBS curve can you add vertices to it?

Thanks dannygan for your help... I hoped that this post may become helpful for all those moving from MAX to MAYA.. and I know that there are many that wish to do so.

I myself will try to post stuff I find out.

Yep, you can do all sorts of fun snapping in Maya. And, unlike Max, the vertex snapping in Maya actually works correctly. Don't believe me? Turn on 3D vertex snapping in Max. Move a vertex on top of another one to snap them. Now zoom WAAAAY in and you'll see that the vertices aren't perfectly aligned. They're off by about .0001 units. It's a small amount, but they're still not aligned correctly.

I understand what you mean now. You're referring to splines in Max. Maya uses NURBS and not splines. NURBS and splines work very differently. NURBS CVs (control vertices) do not have bezier handles like spline control points. I'm not entirely sure on the technical details of that -- that's just what I know. A NURBS curve must maintain a certain degree level -- 1 for linear, 3 for cubic, etc. -- and that does not change within a single curve. You can switch the degree of a curve by rebuilding it (Edit Curves | Rebuild Curve). Rebuilding it will allow you change the degree, adjust the number of CVs, etc. You can also explicitly insert CVs by picking a curve point (Curve Point component mode, click where you want to adjust the curve) and selecting Edit Curves | Insert Knot.

i hope that mayas viewport will be as pretty as max's ogl viewports

i missed max's very powerful polygonal lofts and max's splines

I also liked max's polygonal tools... yet I hope Maya's nurbs will make up for it.
Since I use maya for non-organic shapes (mostly architectural and industrial design) I never got acquainted with nurbs...
The transition is proving to be quite painful as I find nurbs very difficult to control with precision

subd's are the best i have treid beats the crap out of max's meshsmooth...but max's polygonal tools are still king...