unity engine is supposed to work on both MAYA and 3D MAX, what could be the merits and faults when final exportion? :shock:
(for instance, it works more stably on MAYA)
Please use the search function and read through the forums for what the benefits and problems with each software are. There are tons of threads about it and it’s not a question to be answered in a few lines.
Also keep in mind that 2.5 will have native Max support under Windows.
Unity’s strongest historical pipeline is with Maya, and a version that works with 3d max isnt even released yet.
I’d go with maya for these reasons. Remember their licensing sucks(for both apps). No transfers etc- if your computer mainboard dies you can kiss your $5k maya license goodbye.
AC
Wait, is this true? I know the license file is associated to the computer via harware address (mac address) but won’t support transfer the license if you deactivate for upgrade purposes?
In New Zealand you can buy a floating license which allows for transfer- I guess this is a dongle version- but if you buy the cheapest version which was around $5k NZ last time I checked, there is no transfer. You get one license. I asked about hardware failure and they said, no you are buying a nodelocked license.
So it would seem Its just too bad if you have hardware failure. If you made enough noise maybe they would co-operate, but I doubt it, as I’ve seen them be incredibly unhelpful with offering support to existing licence holders. Granted a lot has to do with the Autodesk aquisition of Alias, and Autodesk seemingly deleting all the records of who owns what Alias license. In summary if your license is a couple of editions out of date, and you need help getting it to install, they just wont help you, and your expensive software is dead. (Im referring to getting Maya 7 working at the time when 8.5 was current) Also Autodesk are incredibly resistant to the concept of transferring licenses, period. For this reason I have no intention of buying their software as a matter of principlal, despite having three years training in it.
Thats my take on it, please feel free to garner further opinion and make your own conclusions, but my feelings about Autodesk are very clear.
AaronC
Wow - that’s bitter. Somehow I don’t believe they just won’t let you transfer a recent license at all but if so … wow. I never liked Autodesk’s licensing issues from what I’ve heared from various people using it but I never knew it was so bad. Personally I stayed clear of it so far beacuse I think their products are overpriced as hell. Especially 3DS Max.
Could someone with a recent license please post their experiences regarding that issue?
What about Blender?
It is free and nice to use.
I’ve transferred my Maya license twice no problem. Just call them and tell them your changing computers and they take care of it right away.
I’ve also transferred many Autodesk licenses from machine to machine at my University. They are edu licenses but the process is the same as far as I know.
Thanks for clearing that up kwabbott and BenH. Being granted only one installation and nothing more seems kinda weird for such an expensive software.
I’d imagine it really had something to do with the old Alias License Targos mentioned in his post.
Well … it’s free 
Blender has a huge amount of capabilities especially for an Open Source Program. But the lack of proper documentation and quite a few usbility quirks make it very difficult to get into. I hope for the upcoming V2.5 to improve some of it … but we’ll see.
Don’t get me wrong: I love Blender but I wouldn’t recommend it to get into 3D.
Cinema 4D is an easy to learn and complete application. The buggy FBX exporter for animations and a (still) missing support for a secondar UV set are it’s kinda annoying downsides.
Just see this post and until you are not going for commercial game, you can test out XSI ModTools,
the fbx exporter is robust since crosswalk 3.11, and once you get teh process to export correctly ( which is quite easy and straight forward by the way ), you will have no problem to get animated mesh in Unity3D.
I actually use it for my game project ( not the modTool but XSI7) and this run really smooth.
now for commercial gaming purpose, the cheapest solution is blender fro animation ( personnaly I never like blender export things, never run smooth 
at leats for me ).
then to tackle high end solution maya complete is maybe the cheapest “working” solution, XSI7 and MAx are more expansive.
About licensing I don’t think that when you handle a maya unlimited or at least a complete version they just let you down if your system crash.
I got a problem like this with XSI after autodesk bought them , and well they fix my issue, a nice person from XSI forum handle taht for me , so I guess than there is everytime a way to figure out things.
Don’t forget that Cinema 4D is an excellent solution as well. It does handle multiple UVs.
I have had the occasional problem with animation being exported properly, but that is usually solved by explicitly exporting to FBX instead allowing it to “auto convert”.
Kevin
Don’t forget that Cinema 4D is an excellent solution as well. It does handle multiple UVs.
I have had the occasional problem with animation being exported properly, but that is usually solved by explicitly exporting to FBX instead allowing it to “auto convert”.
Kevin
Sorry to correct you there - but AFAIK Cinema 4D still does NOT support multiple UVs outside the program, yet. It does internally but you won’t get them out of the program. Cinema’s FBX exporter still isn’t the best so to speak.
That’s at least what Maxon Tech Support told me after I tried for two days without success.
Also the character tools don’t export the cool stuff - e.g. joints and skin deformer. It’s absolutely awesome inside the program but pretty tricky to export if you want to rely on the nice gimmicks.
The old bone system works pretty good, though. Just make sure you don’t mix up any joints by accident. It’ll crash unity.
Also to state this clearly once more: Cinema 4D is a pretty awesome program and one of the easiest out there to learn professional 3D. It’s just tricky to get some of the advanced things to work and you might need to think of one or two workarounds.
Blender Bone system never made any problems on export for me. The interface inside Blender can be very frustrating. But the export works very well.