Good news for a change
I’m in a position now where I’ve got to learn 3D, quick, to stay employable. I’ve tried to learn Maya (In ‘99, I took a year of classes in version 1.0 at CMU), but always found it infuriatingly imprecise–and it’s considered the best of the consumer 3D programs as far as interface goes. (One general problem with consumer-level 3D, I’ve learned, is that a lone animator has wrestle with three or four diverse areas of human knowledge. On a big production, each of the other major tasks in CG, besides animating, can be handled by dedicated artists–sculptors model the characters, programmers decide the physics, etc.)
When I was at CalArts, I took a crack at Maya again…version 5 this time. There had been a lot of improvement, of course–modelling was now much closer to sculpting out of blocks of clay, and not so much like gluing spheres and cones together. And you could paint right on your model, too, which helped a lot. But getting around in it still felt awkward to me. Mondi Anyango, another student at CalArts, is in the business of creating custom interfaces for his 3D work, including one made with a freeware motion-capture program called EyesWeb. But that sort of thing is pretty well beyond me. (And also, I guess, the Polar Express folks–take a look at this animator’s opinion on what they did wrong, complete with photo examples.)
…so recently I downloaded the demo of version 6, ready to grit my teeth and try again…and I got a wonderful surprise. Version 6 has full integration with a Wacom tablet. They’ve let you paint and sculpt with the tablet for a while now, but you still needed a mouse to get around the 3D space. Now you don’t. The difference is amazing. Something in my brain just sort of clicks into place.
And now, the best part–they’re starting to make Tablet PCs that run Maya.