Besides the basic reality that powerful software requires dedication and practice, the node editor is a bit cumbersome to work with, and scene hierarchy is a known headache-inducer. Rendering is also pretty great in Maya out-of-the-box - although you can add on any plugin you’d like, of course.Ĭons Ah, the dreaded learning curve of 3D. There’s also Paint Effects, which lets you make 3D shapes by drawing free-hand. Maya also shines when it comes to nurbs modeling. There are great poly tools in Maya that make organic modeling, character rigging, and animation super-intuitive and practically limitless.

Maya has a free-form approach to 3D modeling: instead of using only modifiers, you can apply modeling layers. Add that to the incredible motion-capture handling Maya can do, and it makes sense that it’s often the first choice for the film industry. Pros Maya can do a lot of things, but it’s generally accepted that it is best at animation, especially when compared to Autodesk’s other 3D design product, 3DS Max - it’s easier to make realistic animations and effects with Maya. Huge film franchises like Transformers and Harry Potter use Maya technology to produce their awe-inspiring visual effects and animation. In 2003, Maya even won an Academy Award for Outstanding Technical and Scientific achievement. It’s all history after that: It’s been an industry standard ever since. During the production of the 2000 film Dinosaur, the studio offered valuable testing and modification of the software UX/UI. The most famous animation house of all time, Disney, played a big role in the development of Maya as well. It’s only been an Autodesk product since 2005, but this software is actually twenty years old: it was formed by combining Advanced Visualizer, PowerAnimator and Alias Sketch. It was acquired from the Canadian corporation Alias/Wavefront, who released the first version of Maya in 1998. History However, Maya didn’t start out as part of Autodesk. If Autodesk is analogous to Adobe, than Maya is as popular as Photoshop. In fact, it’s so widely used that probably everyone with eyes has been exposed to something designed with Maya software.

Maya is one of the most popular 3D animation and modeling programs in the history of computer graphics.

Maya 3d animation software