Is Photoshop needed to learn Maya?

# 1 13-01-2003 , 05:34 AM

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Hellooooo Everyone, just registered, and I wanted to know from all the experianced MAYA users out there...Is learning photoshop vital to mastering MAYA? My friend told me about getting started with maya, and to leave 3dsmax, and i must admit, MAYA seems to be a whole lot simpler, but its damn powerful, and I dropped 3dsmax in a heart beat, though i am not saying its bad, I perfer Maya over it. Does photoshop interact at all with MAYA, as in touch up here and such, or does maya provide all you need? Thanks user added image

I gave my love a chicken, it had not bones...Mmmmm, chicken.

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# 2 13-01-2003 , 05:54 AM

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well, you can open the images you render in Photoshop and change them...

or you can paint textures in Photoshop...

what are you getting at?

-- Mark

Mark R. Wilkins
author of MEL Scripting for Maya Animators
www.melscripting.com

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# 3 13-01-2003 , 06:21 AM

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If you want to really have nice textures, Photoshop is generally the best program to use.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 4 13-01-2003 , 07:09 AM

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contrary to popular belief - there are programs much cheaper that will do most of the stuff better and most will read all or part of the wealth of plugins

I , for one, use PhotoImpact (costs 90-100 U$ and is much more comfortable to use

Nir

Nir Sullam
Architectural Visualizations Page: www.orvatsel.com/index2.html
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www.nirsullam.com

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# 5 13-01-2003 , 07:18 AM

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mark_wilkins: You know how you use other programs, Bryce, 3dsmax, and so on, you usually finish your project, then import the image to Photoshop to add things here and there, I was asking if that is necessary with maya?

I gave my love a chicken, it had not bones...Mmmmm, chicken.

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# 6 13-01-2003 , 08:32 AM

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PhotoImpact is probably a fine product but it doesn't come close to the full version of Photoshop in its range of capabilities, particularly if you're looking for more advanced features like CMYK separation, good control over color management, and so on. As for being more "comfortable to use," I suppose it would be if you were more used to it than Photoshop.

For the original poster: Maya doesn't have any particular integration with Photoshop, but Photoshop can read and edit the images Maya generates.

However, since I'm more often doing animation with Maya than still images, I would normally work with my renders in After Effects or Shake rather than Photoshop.

-- Mark

Mark R. Wilkins
author of MEL Scripting for Maya Animators
www.melscripting.com

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# 7 13-01-2003 , 08:58 AM

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Depends on what you want to do with maya - if you just want to learn character animation then you can get by without touching an image editing app.
Obvisouly if you want to become a texture artist or make pretty stills then such an app is a must.

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# 8 13-01-2003 , 09:29 AM

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One other thing: remember that whether you're working in motion or with stills, certain rendering glitches can be MUCH easier to touch up with a paint package than by fixing them in 3D.

-- Mark

Mark R. Wilkins
author of MEL Scripting for Maya Animators
www.melscripting.com

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# 9 13-01-2003 , 11:08 AM

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One often overlooked, powerful and free image manipulation software is The Gimp. I have run it on Linux but you can get a Windows version too.

Official homepage: https://www.gimp.org/
Windows installer: https://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/

Kari
- My Website
- My IMDB

Do a lot, Fail a lot and Learn a lot!

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# 10 13-01-2003 , 01:58 PM

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another app that deserves a mention is Paint Shop Pro - can be had for about £60 and has many of the features of photoshop. interface is a little bland, but it gets the job done

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# 11 13-01-2003 , 02:33 PM

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Well, i use PHOTOSHOP, for all my image manipulation! For me its the best program for every types of images! Ive worked images with 1.2Gb, and Photoshop did ok!:bgreen:

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# 12 13-01-2003 , 04:24 PM

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yes i use photoshop, but to be honest, it doesnt play a big part at all in my 3d, i just use it to design 2d images

to answer the title of the thread, no, its not needed at all, you can create textures in paint (ive seen ppl do this and it looks pretty good as well wen used with mayas bump mapping etc)

- Simon

My Website: www.Glass-Prison.com

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# 13 13-01-2003 , 05:00 PM

Kevin

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I use it all the time with maya... so for me ..yes its essential.

But.... you can create all you need in maya, but I use photoshop all the time

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# 14 13-01-2003 , 05:13 PM

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I agree with Kev user added image

Same here....

However, "practice" is what will make you a master(ish) of Maya, not a particular 2d editing app.

I use PS for raster texture work, still compositing, sprite texture work, and in some cases, xyz reflection mapping accuracy.

It's just what I'm comfortable with user added image

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

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# 15 13-01-2003 , 11:04 PM

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Are there any specific steps to take in order to learn maya? Or is it just the: take time to understand the configuration of maya, learn what the selections do, experiment, tutorials, then create. Also, if I have little or no artistic talent, should I take a couple of drawing classes? or no experiance is necessary?

I gave my love a chicken, it had not bones...Mmmmm, chicken.

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Is Photoshop needed to learn Maya?

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