Review of Maya 2014 from a Student/Freelancer Perspective

Review Software-Maya 2014 Jan 2014

My choice Review

   This software review for the Maya 2014 Package is a very popular product for many thousands of not millions of people around the world.  The price is very steep for a professional, but the student version can be a lot better if you go to college.  The product workflow is a very good to have with creating the types of products a person needs to get the job done.  There is a learning curve to this software, but it is a well worth the time to take to learn it, so you can get the rewards from the software.


Performance

"Disclaimer I am using my own setting on my PC that i personally made and so the performance could be slower or faster depending on what type of computer you have"

        In the the ability of the performance aspect it was a very simple process in installing it on my PC and Mac.  There was not much lag in using the program, as well with any other software when you had millions of polygons inside it, IT WILL START TO SLOW DOWN.  It is a given because it depending on your Ram and Cpu it will affect the performance of it.  I will recommend some products for your computer to help it get faster at the end of this page!

The Tools inside


The tools inside Maya 2014 has vastly improved from the 2013 Version, there is a lot of different aspects that they created for the user to help speed up workflow.  There is In-View messaging that provides really good tips and nice feedback for a variety of tools and modes without messing up your workflow.  There is a nice feature that is called "ToolClips"  that provide learning content from within the Maya software to help learning content a lot easier and faster for the new user or advanced user trying to learning something.    There is a Modeling Toolkit that is for 3D modelers to help increase the speed and efficiency for your workflow.  It has all the tools that you would need to get from point A to point B.  With the selection tools and transformation tools, and mesh editing, vertex locking, and loop selection,etc.  Also if you have ever had the trouble if trying to reduce your polygon count because it is to big and also for your game platform your using for the game model.  There is a feature to reduce the mesh to smaller polygon count without reducing or changing the shape of the model.

 This is great because now you don't have to worry about it changing your model to something that you didn't intend it to be.  There is also a nice handy feature that you can now align the current camera to the selected polygon face using the new Align Polygon to Camera option which is (View > Align Polygon to Camera).  If you have been wanting that Render Feature in maya to be updated you will be happy to know it has.  With Viewport 2.0 now supports DirectX 11 rendering engine for the Windows 64-bit systems for your computer.  HLSL shaders are supported with DirectX 11 and with this new viewport update you can see what the character will look like in a game engine set-up without having to go into the program.  There is also a new UNIFIED Sampling Controls for Mental Ray Renderer, which will help with not having to go into every setting to make it look right.  There are many, and more wonderful tools that they have added into Maya 2014 i would suggest that you go to there website and go learn more about it and go to amazon.com to learn more about it with buying some books about Maya new interface and getting started to learn about it more.


Products to Help Increase your Speed on your Computer.

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Core-i5-3570K-Quad-Core-Processor/dp/B007SZ0E1K/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390801291&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=intel+i5+chicp