What has Maya got that Poser hasn't got (except co$$$$$ting a fortune). What has Poser got that Maya hasn't got? What does Maya cost? Who sells it? Was Walking with Ninosaurs made with Maya?

Sorry. "Dinosaurs". It is nearly midnight here by UK time & ths keyboard is awkward.

Maya has supported Plugins for some time now, which has started a small industry of Plugin designers. Maya has a better rendering engine with better handling of lights, shaders and other effects. Maya has a Hair and Cloth plugins which dynamically simulate both. Poser on the other hand has a strong user community with many users sharing the items they create and features that they discover. I hope this answers some of your question, Sam

Comparing Maya to Poser is like comparing MS Paint to Photoshop. Poser lets the artist use premade models, or import models made in other programs to create 3d scenes and artwork as well as simple animations. The artist has some control over textures, lights, etc. Programs like Maya, Lightwave and 3DSMax let the artist create a model from scratch, export it to countless formats, texture it, create complex scenes including water, fire and environmental effects, and create animations of a more professional calibre. I'm not bashing Poser, I love this program. But its like a stepping stone. Its an amazing start for anyone interested in 3d design, but it can be very limited. Soon youll find yourself branching off into a more powerful program, but returning to poser sometimes because of its simplicity and straightforwardness.

Maya has features that are well worth the price for a company looking to produce professional computer animation. With Maya (and other high end animation programs) your animating a character with a skeletal system, muscles and skin, not just a model with bendy parts.

Professional productions with Maya generally take a full team. You need modellers, texturers, lighting technicians, animators, and some place even hire "Render Watchers." Poser's strengh is that it takes all the basics and makes it easy for one person to handle it all. Poser's biggest asset is all the ready-made material for it, through DAZ, the other store, the freebies, and just the stuff that comes with the package. Buy Maya and you may need to spend anywhere from a months to a year modelling a character to animate with it.

Maya costs around 10k. It's sold by Alias|Wavefront. Generally you are not only buying the software itself, but a complete support package.

Walking with Dinosaurs was animated in Softimage (Maya's most direct competitor) and composited onto live-action plates with 5 compositers using Quantel's Henry and another 5 using Discreet Inferno.

To add to JKeller and Darchangel's great comments. Maya, is used most often by the filming, entertainment, video game industry. 3D houses will not accept you if you don't "breath" Maya or 3D Studio Max and know it like you know yourself. It's that good. Job applications require that you know Maya and some other high caliber program, plan and simple. I love Poser too, but you have to know Maya, 3D Studio Max if you want to get anywhere in this industry.

While what Silvermermaid says is true, it's kinda unfortunate I think. Someone who is a good modeller in Rhino for example would probably be up-to-spec for the company but rejected purely on the basis that they don't have Maya or 3DS Max on their resume. Someone who is making textures for Poser with Photoshop might get turned down even though the company uses Photoshop to make their textures for Softimage.

On the other hand, the good thing is that lower end software is starting to gain more respect in the industry. 3DS Max and LightWave never used to be considered for studio projects, but with their latest advancements, 3DS Max and LightWave (the mid-range apps) are now being used in Television and Feature films. Maya and Softimage are starting to shake in their boots and lowering their prices.

I agree with all said above. Additionally, many high end graphics places use proprietary software (programmed by software designers working there) other than Maya, Soft, Lightwave or Max to do specific types of work. Inferno (and other high end composite/paint packages) are often set up only in a specific hardware configuration ($$$). Combustion is Discreet's basic comp package. Poser, as cool as it is, will never be able to match the caliber of imagery, animation, and effects you can produce with these professional packages. (I'm not knocking it, I own it, too, and for many things it's just great.) Maya and Soft were designed for SGI workstations, though they recently have been ported to Windows NT and now even Mac OS. Also, weren't some of the models for Walking With Dinos also created by cyberscan (building physical models with clay and then scanning them with lasers to construct a base 3D wireframe into Soft)? Many companies use this and other technical methods like photometrics and armature digitizing to create a base model and modify it and animate it from there. These methods also require more expensive peripheral hardware and software... the kind companies, not individuals buy (unless you're really rich). --

From what I've read, you're exactly right servo. They digitally scanned a very detailed clay model and then did extensive texture work with Photoshop. But then what they did was make skeletal versions of the dinosaurs, animated the skeletons and then transfered the animation data to the full models. This way the huge meshes didn't bog-down the animation process.

Another intersting tid-bit I learned from the Making of WWD on the Discovery Channel, after the anthropoligists taught the limits of movement and the way the joints worked to the animators, the animators actually taught the scientists a great deal about the way dinosaurs moved, because of the real-world physics simulation in Softimage.

IMHO, an essential point is missed in the excellent comments above, although JKeller is damn close. The essential point of Poser is to provide for 3D animation what HTML has provided for the internet: a standard format for integrating and orchestrating content. Just as you can integrate text, sound and images with HTML for use in any browser, you can integrate 3D content from any number of 3D apps easily with Poser. All you have to do is "package" your contribution according to the Poser standard, and away you go. I know of no other packages that allow you to simply load pre-baked content from a dozen different sources and use it straight away - and I've tried out a lot of packages, and read a lot about even more of them. If I see the trend correctly, the 3D scene is fragmenting and specializing just like the rest of the IT business. Noone can be a jack-of-all trades any more, and many studios use more and more ready-made content from outside sources, such as mocap files, "clipart" models from model banks, and so on. Most, if not all, of the existing 3D apps, from Maya downwards, are not designed for this "object-oriented" approach. I think Poser has the potential to be the HTML of the 3D world. Poser is not the perfect answer, just as HTML was not - but just compare the internet before and after HTML to see the impact such an integrations feature can have. That seems to be why Curious concentrated on offering this easy integration to the big boys in PPP, instead of going for Poser 5. It may also be why Poser savvy just might be a selling point on you resume in the not too distant future. I know that almost all the animations you see in magazine articles are done with Maya and the other greats - but when looking at all of those that include figures, I can't help comparing them to the imagery seen in the forum galleries and think : where was Poser when those Maya and Max animators needed it? ;-)

Fortunately there are some companys looking for talent with any software ILM being the biggest I know of I think part of the reason being most of there work is done with there own software and the other part being they can get passes the snob factor and see talent....as for what maya can do over poser check out the mummy DVD if you can (R1 & R2) it shows ILM using maya to create the sand storm that eats the the biplane scene (the rest was done with there own stuff though)....Steve

Steveshanks is right, Maya is priced WAAAAY!! out side the range of the individual user It is not really a 3D Program in the traditional sense, but more of an open source 3D interface for which you hire TEAMS of programmers you write plugins and scripts. BIg Animation Houses Know this and if your DEMO Reel is Killer enough and show that you know and understand the realy important principles of animation such as pacing timing, lighting etc. you will be hired and trained on their Customized versions of the super high end stuff. A Guy named Victor Navone( Alien Song) got hired by Pixar based on his Reel that was done completely in HASHAnimation Master, Pixar uses a proprietary Software called "Renderman" where you model and animate in "RAW CODE" They dont use HASH Phil Mcnally( aka Captain 3D) got hired BY ILM got hired based on his short film "Pump Action" done completely in Cinema 4DXL .ILM Does NOT use Cinema They are mostly a softimage house. so dont worry about trying to own these highend Programs focus on becoming a Good Animator Mocap

I Maya and it is well worth the money. The biggest problem is knowing how to achive the your goal effect, cause the program is deep. Maya complete can be purchased for 2000 US dola. Its a trimmed down version from Maya Unlimited. It doesn't have all the custom plugins like maya fur and fluid effects. But recently it did add subD surfaces to the complete version. But for more info you will have to check the website. I am in the gaming industries, and have heard of studios cutting thier production times in half, by converting to maya. I also have a copy of Lightwave and have used Max. But as far as Maya is concerned it's modeler is Unparalleled. Oh buy the way does anyone know how to import a model into poser from another program via obj or ?, or is it posible been building set of armor for Victria 2.0 and for my demo reel and was wondering if I could share it with the Poser community hahaha. By the way Poser ROCKS hahahaha