Also keep in mind that ALL of the Blender software developers and “volunteer” PR folks like me, hehe, are power Blender users. Blender is built by people like you and me for people like you and me, I, proper.
I think some people’s sarcasm detectors need a bit of tuning… Especially after seeing what nico is capable of doing with Blender’s renderer :)[/quote]
Flamebait followed by the form of punctuation we call a “question mark” indicates an interrogative statement, meaning I was ASKING if it was flaimbait. 
The sarcasm meter is working fine…but the sarcasm was undetectable…hence my question. Flamebait? 8)
agreed and I hope the qualifier in my statement about “making a buck” and “MOST” hinted at the fact that it’s not all black and white to me. It’s when blatant greed is apparent that the offense comes and stifles innovation and creativity.
So alien was the mind set to me! When I first got a computer a son of a friend sent me all this neat software. Bryce3D, Softimage, Photoshop, Effects etc., etc. I thought, “wow this is amazing stuff!” Then I happened to go into the Big City and saw Photoshop for sale for $600.00 US. 0_0. I had learned to use the software somewhat but was riddled with pangs of conscience so I went to Linux and it’s steep learning curve. I can not express the heart felt gratitude to the open source community for what they did for me. If i had the bucks I’d buy the stuff(proprietary). Often it is more than worth it. Then at other times they work it so hard that you can hear the blood slurped out of the jugular of some naive soul a mile away.
I’ve used Maya and it was very nice. That was back in the 4.5 days, before I had ever done any 3D work at all. It was Maya that helped mme get into this hobby and helped me get the nerve up to learn Blender.
I have a friend that works professionaly with Maya and he can do some AMAZING things. Things like clouds and glowing objects and such look fantastic. I’m not saying that they CANT be done with Blender, but I am saying that you dont have to use messy tricks to get there 
Of course, if Blender COULD make things glow, it would be my dream app 
:o
Maya is an expensive and HUGE program, but I got no beef with Maya.
dante
Gee, thanks.
I’m sorry but this loyalty to an app thing is about as assinine to me as the whole “chevy vs ford” thing.
Get a grip people.
If the very idea of trying out a demo of another piece of 3D software makes your blood boil - perhaps it about time that you get up from your computer and go play outside for a while. Maybe run around the house a couple times or something. But get over it.
There are a lot more important things in the world to be getting worked up about.[/quote]
woah! i deeply apologise, that comment was not directed at you, but at maya. im very sorry to have offended you, i’ll make a better effort to make sure my posts can not be taken out of contex again
sorry 
GFX Idiot -
No big deal. I’m just glad I didn’t make reference to your forum ID!
Context and intent are kind of hard to catch with conversations that are typed.
No hard feelings.
Can you export from this free version (To, say, OBJ) ?
No. Only to a proprietary Maya PLE format.
I actrally have maya 5.0 full version…
All I can say is stick with wings and blender for modeling.
But when it comes down to animations Maya is too powerful for it 
plus it has like the easier docs to read ever!
still the pricing is a bit high but for the cloth,fur and fluid dynamics its worth it. I foy not wanting that, then goto lightwave, although that has some nice plugins as well
No. Only to a proprietary Maya PLE format.[/quote]
I wonder if anyone has reverse engineered the PLE format? If anyone knows anything about it, let me know.
reed
reed: If you are going to do that then you might as well just go download a cracked version %|
Maya is powerful but it is also HUGE and very confusing (I blame the icon buttons) when you first open it up. I suppose Blender wasn’t too much different when I first got into it but Maya isn’t something you can just get your feet wet and then you have a feel for it’s capabilities, you have to jump straight in and really go for it if you want to see what it is.
It’s sad that so many aspiring 3d artists believe that using one software over another leads to great renders. A good 3d artist can do great renders in any 3d software. Why? Because a good 3d artist knows the underlying principles of how to set up a 3d scene, lighting, materials, etc. to create great 3d art. Maya has many options. Many Maya artist produce work in favor of production for the sake of speed. And much of their work is rendered in passes and composited. Additional elements like particles and other fx can also be added later. Due to the compositing process often the way the end render looks has very little to do with the original 3d software it came from.
Check out DVgarage online for more info on the 3d compositing process.
Also get any of the great books by Jeremy Birn on these subjects. And join CGTalk if you are not already a member. If you are a member of cgtalk search the forums for more info on these subjects. You can post questions to the Maya group there for any Maya help that you need. A new Maya user will need lots of help.
I must admit for much of my Blender 3d work I hardly ever do much compositing other than adjust the contrast, levels, etc.
Actually, Maya does not have a built in raytracer either. If you want true raytraced reflections etc, you have to render with Final Render, which is an external renderer.
I have seen straight Maya renders that look worse than blender renders, because, as JA-forreal pointed out, if you can’t texture and set you scene and lighting up properly, it will still look like crap.
BgDM
WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?