Anyone run Maya?

My school has a really cheap deal on Maya, and I'd always wanted to get into it, but I hear it's killer if you don't have an unbelievable machine. Is this true? Can anyone testify to any experiences running it?

And, after that, how do you feel about the program in general? Good, bad, easy to learn?

All help much appreciated.

My computer is a PoS and it runs fine when working in the program. Although I guess it depends on how complex your scene gets. Also rendering can take a while depending on the quality your going for.

As for learning. It's not too bad. Although I'm mostly a 3DS Max user and have been for years. So I already had an idea of what I was doing before getting into Maya (although the interface and all that is completely different), but it didn't take me too long to get the basics of the program down.

It's defiantely a good program and if you're really interested in getting into 3d and you can get it legally for a good deal then I'd say go for it.

And for refference. My computer is an AMD Athlon 700mhz, 384mb SDRAM.. bleh yeah it's bad I know

its my preffered weapon of choice. If you can get it cheap by all means go for it. It might be a bit harder to start working with than 3d max, but the workflow is really great and you can do wonders with it. As for the power of the computer, to start learning you wont need a killer machine, you will need it however when you start making serious stuff with it. Even then, there is a lot of stuff in maya that help you optimize your work (hide layers, change level of detail while you work...).
But do have at least gforce2 graphic card, or any other that works well with openGL

cheers

I can't speak for Maya, as I've only used 3DS Max and Blender, but based on my experience with those two I'd say you should be alright as long as you have some patience. The program may (or may not) run smoothly as far as editing your scene, but as jra said rendering can be quite time consuming.

Originally posted by nukunuku
But do have at least gforce2 graphic card, or any other that works well with openGL

I was under the impression that the graphics card really didn't make much difference when it came to doing 3D art work. Rendering in a 3D modeling program like Maya, 3DS Max, Blender, whatever, is really just FPU intensive. Graphics cards are mainly for doing realtime translations and quick image blitting, and other stuff you'd find needed more in games. Maya et al. (to the best of my knowledge at least) don't really use hardware accelleration for rendering your image when you're done.

I'll have to look this up, but I remember being a bit shocked when I heard it--I'd thought that in order to speed up rendering times on something I was working on, I'd need to go out and get a killer card. Then I heard I need to get a killer processor in order to get it out in under a couple of hours. Of course, if I'm wrong on this I'd appreciate someone correcting me

ill correct you

graphic card has nothing to do with rendering time apart from the texture memory, so its true what you said.

But when it comes to the work itself, modeling, animation...its all graphic card !

If you dont have an openGL card maya will start with a note that while it will continue to work, you will get a significant boost if you have an openGL card.
So stuff you see on screen is all openGL

If you have a card that supports pixel shaders, maya7.0 can render shaders real time in the perspective view

I know 3dmax can use openGL or directX, whichever you preffer

cheers 3d duders

[edit on 15-12-2005 by nukunuku]

Originally posted by nukunuku
But when it comes to the work itself, modeling, animation...its all graphic card!

Ah, some how I think I knew that without knowing it Thanks, that does make perfect sense.

Originally posted by jra
And for refference. My computer is an AMD Athlon 700mhz, 384mb SDRAM.. bleh yeah it's bad I know

You think that's bad. My top spec machine is a PIII 650Mhz, 384mb SDRAM and built in graphics; that, in this modern day, defines bad! (although I do have a 486 running :p)