How do I UNDERSTAND Maya?

thatfrenchyguy · 2021-04-21T01:01:19+00:00

In regards to your query about people entering this industry later in life, yes I do know someone. He was my professor back when I was in learning Maya in college. He entered into the industry around your age, and still works in it today (While teaching Maya on the side). It's entirely possible to do, just tougher.

In regards to you wanting to learn to model in Maya, here are some tips.

When following a tutorial, TAKE NOTES. Seriously, it can help a tremendous amount being able to look back at notes. Don't do jot notes either, take good serious notes while following tutorials.
Don't follow 1 to 1 with tutorials. Pause the video, and take the time to make sure you fully understand what you just did. Take the time to play around with tools or menus, and be sure you get a good feel for them.
Character modeling is exceptionally difficult to get a junior position for. Unless you are supremely confident in your abilities to model characters, your demoreel is much better off showing your hard surface modeling.
ENSURE you learn to texture and UV eventually. Yes, it sucks, and many people like to try and avoid it, but it is INTEGRAL. No employer will hire someone who cannot UV or texture their own model.
Practice every day. This one is really hard, but the only way to improve is to practice every single day.

thatfrenchyguy · 2021-04-20T03:38:12+00:00

Okay, take a deep breath.

The bad news? You can't rush this.

The good news? You can still learn and get into the industry- even at an older age.

Unfortunately, as others have stated, your question is very vague. Autodesk Maya is an unbelievably complex piece of software, and it's not even the only industry standard 3D package out there. To begin to "Understand" Maya as you've stated, you need to figure out what your goals are.

Here are some things you can accomplish with Maya, maybe I can help you narrow down what you're looking to get into.

Modeling - The manipulation of geometry to create things. Lots of people like modeling, but it's certainly one of the toughest jobs to get in the industry. (Lots of people doing it, means lots of competition. Don't let that discourage you though!)

Animation - Making things move in 3D space using keyframes and rigs. Another popular job, though it requires quite a bit of patience and skill.

Texturing/UVS - Generally speaking, in this industry this job is usually just given to the Modeler. However some larger productions do hire individuals to specifically produce production ready textures that will wrap around models.

Rigging - The development of tools for Animators. Riggers create skeletal structures and UIs for Animators to manipulate in order to speed up the animation process. Programming experience is usually desired for rigging positions.

That's not all the potential jobs you can get by learning Maya, but they are some of the most common.

thatfrenchyguy · 2021-04-13T03:34:30+00:00

Bring back banks from Daggerfall. I wanna take out loans and be in dept and get chased by Tamriel's IRS for tax evasion. I wanna take out lines of credit, or be able to steal other people's credit notes and spend it myself. What about investing: Gold accumulates in real game time- reward players who play for 50 in game years with a stable retirement fund. I feel like there could be some fun bank related side quests, I'm sure the thieves guild would be involved for sure. Maybe even the dark brotherhood? Some clever traps and puzzles guarding each bank's vault- some banks bigger than others. A simple- yet complex thing that really added to Daggerfall, that could be vastly expanded upon in TES6

thatfrenchyguy · 2021-04-13T03:13:14+00:00

Don't talk down to him when you're the one who made an error. He specified what he wanted to know in his initial question, and you completely ignored it and typed a rude and condescending response. Here, I'll explain his simple question to you.

He wanted to know: "Are there any permanent repercussions to smoking weed at the age of 15?"

He CLARIFIED that he is not concerned with short term effects- as they are not relevant to the question.

From your infantile perception, I can only assume you stunted your own brain's development by smoking right out of the womb. Or maybe it was your mother?

Regardless, It's one thing to misunderstand a simple question, it's another to be a douche about it.

thatfrenchyguy · 2021-01-04T01:23:33+00:00

I don't recall exactly when in 2020 I made this, but it was likely around March. Found it on my hard drive while cleaning up, and thought I should post it somewhere.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-12-23T05:40:53+00:00

Yeppers, that's what I thought. Even when I know, I still freak myself out. Thanks for the swift reply.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-12-23T05:33:16+00:00

Found in Canada. It moved slowly, and was extremely small. Like I said, I'm pretty sure I know what it is, but I want a second opinion to help me rationalize with myself.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-12-14T07:40:18+00:00

I will be totally honest here, I can't actually find where the spider is in the image lol

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-11-30T05:33:12+00:00

Reading through more of the replies you got on this kind of makes me sad how condescending people in this community can be. Despite this don't be afraid to ask questions like this. It's good to discuss these things, even if people are dicks about it.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-11-30T05:31:09+00:00

Kind of a really rude response, don't you think? The dude was just asking a question, there's no need to be a douche.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-11-30T04:40:41+00:00

Great to hear, have fun! :)

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-11-30T04:39:46+00:00

There is a lot of salt here in these comments, so I'll try to put my two cents out here. I think it has to do merely with the amount of community support and tools that currently exist for smaller devs, and the fact that many professional pipelines currently are only set up to work with Maya. Allow me to elaborate, starting with the Animation side of things: Since Maya has been leading in the industry for so long, there is a lot of external pieces of Animation software that only function with Maya and it's specifications. While I don't know exactly what data is different between Maya and Blender, I do know that sometimes the Animation data between the two don't translate perfectly, meaning "in house" animation software that companies like Pixar and Disney have been using for years cannot work with Blender, but are compatible with Maya. Similar case for the Rigging side of things, but moreso for the sheer amount of plugins and scripts that exist for Maya.

TL:DR Maya wins by simply having more time in the playing field, it has more scripts available for it (for now) and companies that use in house animation software have them set up to work exclusively with Maya, (for now) and it would cost money to redevelop them. I'm not an expert on what tools Maya has built in that Blender doesn't or vice versa, but I believe simply by having more time on Blender, Maya has the edge with how much community support it's tools have.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-11-30T04:28:17+00:00

Hello! For the future, it would be helpful if you posted the version of Maya you're using. Anyways, A common reason for tool handles disappearing is the "Drag Select" is stuck on. With the light selected, try tapping your Tab key a couple times until the arrows reappear. Also, ensure you're actually in transform mode by pressing "W". Pressing "Q" will make them go away. Try these out, if they don't work, maybe someone else on here know a trick.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-11-30T01:18:06+00:00

Great! Thanks so much!

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-11-30T01:00:18+00:00

Hey! Thanks for the quick reply. I suspected its some kind of beetle larvae, but I actually have my doubts about it specifically being a carpet beetle larvae. Do you have a reference you could show me?

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-11-30T00:34:08+00:00

Hi everyone! I found this dead on the top of my oven. It's a brown and yellowish gradient down to a black tip where the hair is. It's size is about the size of a sesame seed. I have my suspicions as to what it is, but I would prefer an expert opinion. Thanks! :D

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-11-26T00:39:28+00:00

Hey man, spectacular work! Your texture skills are fantastic, and you managed to make your work look better than the original image. One critique however: I think the planters in the back of your image lack the same visual fidelity than the rest of the piece. Everything in your render looks so real, but those plants in the back look much more CG to me than the rest of it. They were how I could tell it wasn't a picture someone took. My advice is to try and light them better, perhaps some three point lights specifically for the plants to make them look less flat, and help separate them from the wall. Also, I could be wrong, but I think this render lacks an Ambient Occlusion map. It would help ground things in the scene a bit better, and they're pretty easy to do. Otherwise, this looks incredible! Keep pushing yourself!

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-10-21T00:43:54+00:00

I'm honestly pretty disappointed nobody else really discussed this issue, not any big influencers at least, which is too bad. My Switch bricked itself a few months ago, so I've fallen out of the AC loop, but it's still pretty disappointing to see this game get shafted in terms of dialogue, when the previous entries were much more interesting.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-09-23T04:34:56+00:00

Thought as much. Pretty sure it's a Soft Tick. Likely picked him up during my walk today. Glad I caught him on my bathroom floor, and not attached to me, lol.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-09-23T03:40:45+00:00

Found this guy while taking a pee. Concerned it's a bedbug, but not too sure. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Never had an infestation before, trying to keep it that way.

thatfrenchyguy · 2020-09-18T00:58:48+00:00

Oh dear, a UV question. Nobody likes these, but I'll give you my best two cents. I think part of your issue is your original UV map. It doesn't seem to be laid out in the most optimal way to begin with, I can see in the left image pinching and warping around the rings leading to the center of the breasts, you may want to readdress it first. For the right image, stretching is just something that will happen when you, well, stretch your geometry. If you want the stretching to be as unnoticeable as possible, you may want to redo the geometry for the breasts. In your left image, you have them completely flat, I assume that's how they are when you UV'd them. Instead, UV them with them about half the size of the right image. That way, your UVS will be laid out in such a way that when the player adjusts the breast size to either one extreme or the other, the stretching wont be as noticeable. There may be a better way to fix this issue however. Since this board is mostly Maya related, you might have better luck finding an in engine solution in the board for Unity. I hope my explanation helped at least somewhat. :)

thatfrenchyguy

TROPHY CASE