From my experience with both softwares I can tell you it crashed MUCH more Maya than Blender, also Blender is better in memory efficiency, once I click in Blender icon it load in just a couple of seconds while in maya is delay for almost a minute or half minute, this is in comparison much more slow in loading than Blender, but also Maya it crashed several times in big scenes, maybe because is less memory efficient. Please do not compare an alpha version with a final version.
From my point of view Blender is getting close, every day closer, I’m using 2.5 alpha in several scenes in production with almost no crashes and very smoothly. I no longer use Maya anymore.
Where’s Endi? He’s ok, is he?
The only thing that Maya has over blender is automation and presets, from what i see
That (which is no small thing, actually), and over a decades worth of MELScript development integrated into production pipelines, and industry standard renderer (Mental Ray) and the TONS of hours of shader development (already bought & paid for by studios with the salaries of the Tech Dir’s.), the fact that Maya has been used in just about every type of animation from “South Park” to “Up” to a buttload of video games, TONS of highly trained users coming out of art colleges/training programs every year, and… etc.
Do you wanna hear more?
side note:
someone who owns a octo-core Mac says that Maya is too expensive???
wow!
That’s because Maya is actually more expensive than an octo-core mac.
:eyebrowlift2:
Maya is the standard because it had the openness blender 2.5 is aming for 10 years ago. Everything animatable, connect everything with everything etc.
Maya/Power Animator became the standard for animation because you could also create good rigs long long time ago.
To get a job you have to know maya. Or if you know maya it will be easier to get a job.
Many of the people I have worked with are very good animators, modellers etc and dont CARE about the software. They use maya and dont even think about something else. I see them doing horrible repetitive stuff and outdated workflows that they learn on an overpriced 3d course. That’s the way they learnt it and that’s the way they will always do it.
I also think people try to find an absolute answer when asked which one is best, Maya or Blender. Big studios will have to code to adapt blender to their setup. They already did that with Maya. Smaller studios will use the software as it is. Blender is much more suited for freelancers or diy individuals.
So the answer is not absolute. For bigger studios that dont want to spend money on adapting new tools the answer is Maya. For everyone else the answer would be Blender.
I have to use Maya when more people are involved (animators, riggers) but for personal work I use Blender.
If Blender had FBX import support we could start seeing blender in more studios.
One thing Maya excels at is ease of use for writing in-house plugins. As a result, mostly Maya is good because large and well-funded studios can build a second program entirely on top of Maya, and even sell it afterward. I think Renderman started that way, with Pixar making their own high-end renderer, then later shoving it off to others for profit.
It’s one of the main things I keep hoping they add in Blender, because despite Blender wanting to be free and open, it’s still easier to write plugins and minitools for Maya. Blender 2.5’s got a macro recorder finally, but it’s an incomplete one, and it’s still a useless tool for nonprogrammers. When it hits the complete exposure of MEL and Python that Maya has, or at least gets to the level of Photoshop’s Action Recorder, then tools will be flying all over the place.
Oh yeah, dumping this kind of quickly recorded code onto a shelf ala Maya would be nice too.
I no longer use Maya anymore.
Amen! That is the way to go! 
I’m pretty sure prman is older than maya, not sure about power animator though… :eyebrowlift2:
theres always reyes to be pointed at if we want to speak age though. :eyebrowlift:
Yes!!
Bring “Echo all commands”!
and the new 2.5 has a preset in the splash screen to use Maya keyboard shortcuts to make it easier for Maya users.
Look again…
2x3GHz Xeon quads adds 2600usd to that price…
8gb RAM add’s another 100usd
Wi-fi…50usd
add a display for 900usd and you’ve just dropped almost enough to buy 2 copies of Maya! (Apple store says 6948usd for this config.)
But that’s quite enough on the subject of Mac’s if you please. 
It’s funny, if you got 100 contractors to fill out a poll of which cordless drill, miter saw, pneumatic nailer, etc. etc. was best, you would more than likely come up with inconclusive results. And this goes for any field where the users of tools have a choice- honestly who gives a flying f#ck what brand people use? Everyone operates and thinks differently. It’s the house that is built in the end that really matters.
(jay),
people care because of the following
-
The rate of Blender improvement is proportional to the number of developers which is in turn proportional to the number of users
-
The more companys using blender, the easier it is to find a job with it, also the more professional quality work is turned out for it.
Regarding the bad render engine Blender has, that is somewhat being addressed in the render25 branch (Durian requires that quite a bit of work on the Internal Renderer is done)
Heck the improvements to the render engine because of Peach may pale in comparison to the improvements due to Durian because Peach was mainly AAO, strand rendering, and basic instancing.
I did just say “an octocore mac” though, so it wouldn’t necessarily have to be his, or have a screen for that matter. :evilgrin:
Anyways, I would argue that paying half the price of the machine for a single piece of software is still pretty steep.
But of course, if that helps someone do great work, they should buy it. Doing great work is worth more than 3500 dollars. I think these choices are always going to be individual- and there really is no point in discussing them. Except, perhaps, to get to understand each others viewpoints, and live with greater knowledge and mutual understanding afterwards.
That just never seems to be the final outcome of the argument, does it…
What I don’t understand is why there has to be a “Blender VS” subject. Blender and other apps should be friends. I’m sure Blender does some things better than Maya and Maya does some things better than Blender. To me, that sounds like there should be a powerful alliance instead of a bitter tribal war.
Guys, you are comparing beans with potatoes here. Really, anybody who really worked on a movie with both of the softwares could answer the whys immediatelly, but is anybody such here? I could compare Blender with XSI since I used both on such level, but the only reason would be that some devs would be interested in it to make blender even better.
It certainly isn’t an ‘either or’ choice. In the future I think a lot of folks will have both on their stations.
LetterRip
pildanovak,
would certainly be interested in your feedback.
LetterRip
@ Letterip, you can either try to change people’s minds, or do the best you can, enjoy what you do, and reap the benefits. I respect your desire to push Blender into the mainstream, but at the same time not being number one ain’t so bad, Blender has a solid following and is showing no signs of letting up. Not everyone wants to be a slave to a company’s wills, some of us are more intent on persuing freedom, and Blender is a tool that promotes it! Much respect to the devs (including you 
) that promote this freedom!