Maya LT $50 on Steam

Did you guys take a look at Maya LT for 50 bucks on steam? is it good enough for game development? seems to be a good deal i think.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/243580

Is it a subscription based model?? i can't read that anywhere on that page

 

Buy Maya LT: One Month Sub - In green right above the purchase button.

It's $50 per month.

 

you're right, not cheap at all....sticking to blender for the moment

 

Yeah I was going to buy it too because 50$ sounds great, but then I noticed the "billed monthly text" :/

 

The way I see it is there are only three reasons why someone would purchase this:

1. You are a veteran Maya user
2. You have lots of money
3. You are part of a well established organisation that are working on high end projects

 

4. You don't need the full features of Maya.

But really, I don't think that $50/month is too bad if you're getting value out of it. If you're just playing around it's a sucky price, but if you're actually working with it... the $600/yr that costs you means you've got it for three or four years (at least) before it costs you as much as an outright license used to. And if the LT limitations don't get in your way (which for many indies or modders it wouldn't), that rocks.

 

Actually, I'm thinking of subscribing to it monthly. From what I've read you can stop and start Maya monthly with no penalty. Of course I'm going to download the trail of Maya LT first and for through the tutorials and some more tutorial from Lydia. I like Blender but I there are nice models that I've bought that I'd like to modify into something original and make suitable for Unity at the same time and for that Maya LT seems better than Blender, especially since it was designed to transform a model from a high polygon count to a game friendly polygon count (max is 25K for export I know it's easy in Blender to decimate existing models or keep polygon counts under 10K if making an original model). Lastly, the part I really want is easier texturing and rigging than what I can do in Blender so far, I can do them just 'OK' but I hope that Maya LT 2015 will help me be much faster. If it's a wash at least I know: oh well, I can stick with Blender and not worry anymore if Maya LT is easier anymore. Maya won't be easier than Maya LT in case you're wondering because it's not streamlined just for game developers, something even Blender isn't streamlined for.

 

Thats kind of surprising actually. Hopefully this compels Modo to do something better.

$30 a month for Modo and $50 a month for all of Unity. That'd be perfect.

 

Maya LT is certainly a inferior product than Blender. Actually Blender is more comparable to Maya than MayaLT. Except for one area - vertex normals.

Why?

1. With MayaLT you are buying/renting a compromised software, Autodesk decides what to give you and what not, and it can change any moment, while with Blender you are not in the hands of anybody. Just look at these two products closely, Blender is going GoSC to get advanced features and ADSK is stripping one of their product to capture attention. Certainly a difference in talent and innovation.

2. Maya LT isn't streamlined for Unity or GameDev, it's a cut down product. Blender is better streamlined for Unity.

3. Case1 : MayaLT has a crippled rigging toolset, you can't rig your way. Blender has every rigging toolset.

4. Case2 :MayaLT has no sculpting or texture painting feature, so expect to buy Zbrush/Mudbox. Blender has a very competent sculpting and texture painting workflow. Also Blender has GoZ to work between Blender and Zbrush, which Maya LT doesn't have.

5. Case3 :Maya LT's shader fx is not transferable to Unity, it's a eye candy with no actual use. (Will someone please prove me wrong in this).

6. The publisher of Maya LT is Autodesk, who is notorious in telling lies to users to kill competitions. They are now eager to get a slice of the indie dev market. But, I wouldn't be surprised if ADSK decides to discontinue MayaLT after 1/2 years and by then it will have a lot of users who won't have any other choice but to buy Maya. Realistically Blender has a safer future than MayaLT.

 

Well, I can say after previously using Blender to create toon style human characters I will be using Blender this week to create and texture landscapes using the landscape plugin.

After that I will be doing tutorials for Autodesk Maya LT and I've looked already: it is tailored for Unity and I'd think soon UE4 if not already as there is an 'Export to Unity' in there main menu. It all comes down to which can do the job for me better or rather easier: the picture in my head is the picture in my head not matter the software. If I couldn't stop and start a monthly subscription in Autodesk Maya LT I wouldn't even consider Maya LT. And I have sent a question to Autodesk asking if I can start and stop a monthly subscription specifically or would I have to subscribe for a year like Unity. Of course I will do the tutorials before I decide to subscribe.

 

This is not true. You are also with Blender in hands of developers that decides what you will get and what not. Usually open source projects tends to have a bit fewer power than closed source software though. They don't have to earn money with it.

For the rest i tend to agree. Maya LT is more a joke than a really useful tool. Autodesk missed quite a chance here

 

For 2 3, you would just buy Maya.

 

I don't know about that as I'm just learning but is seems the 75% or more of the features I'll never use in Blender have no call for Autodesk to include from Maya to Maya LT. They've even added a Export to Unity menu item.

 

I meant stuff like polygon limit. And the price. It's simply too high for this cut down version. They should've stayed below the 500 bucks barreer when their target is the indies.

 

Have you tried Maya LT 2015?
https://area.autodesk.com/blogs/warpzone/announcing-maya-lt-2015

It does seem to address some of those issues. I wouldn't recommend Maya LT for studios... but for indie developers who want a mid-quality 3D assets production software... it's finely priced and well supported.

I can't say if Blender is better than Maya LT... but I know that Maya 3DS Max are better than Blender (very subjectively in certain areas). Point being, if I were to start a small indie project, hoping to eventually get the capital to buy Maya / 3DS Max, I would prefer setting up my assets / sources / workflow with something compatible, saving 1000's $ in conversion / problems / maintenance down the road.

That's a very specific case though... for 1 programmer and 1 artist team.

 

The .max format is proprietary. The Maya .ma format is ascii and much easier to convert and troubleshoot.

 

OK, you have a point if I want to create a landscape in Maya LT but for individual cartoon characters it is fine. 25K for one character is enough. Autodesk is not trying to compete with other solutions for more 'realistic characters' for which a DAZ Genesis Game license or the UMA Asset are both quickly becoming the best competing options. I know some people scoff at those but the DAZ license is one time $500 and with MegaFiers/MegaDAZ for another $180 and LOD you are set. And UMA is completely free and improving all the time. UMA characters are 9K - 11K.

I also think $500 is a reasonable price point as they make piteous improvements yearly and it's mostly to earn the upgrade fees so to stay current you need at $500 upgrade every year. Now you can buy for $795 and upgrade for $555 which is ridiculous on closer inspection because a $50 monthly subscription is $600 a year so why buy a perpetual license to save $45 in subscription fees which economics says often much of the $45 value is lost due to inflation? Only if you are very experienced and very good at what Maya LT already would you pay $795 for a perpetual because you wouldn't plan on upgrading. You'd think many game modelers of characters moonlighting at home as indies would be in that situation. For landscaping you'd need to use Unity Terrain or the Blender landscape plugin.

 

https://area.autodesk.com/products/features/mayalt

Isn't that no longer the case?

And it's 400$ / year; so 33$/month if you commit to it. Not such a bad deal if you're serious about doing a small indie project.

 

Maya LT saved files are designed not to be usable in Maya although Maya files can be imported into Maya LT.

As for choosing Blender or Maya LT or Maya or 3DS Max were I a true expert: I'm not an expert so I can't choose the best. Given the exchange format used is FBX, you want technically correct FBX exports with all the 3D modeling features not exportable correctly translated for FBX export (often here is the big fail) and you'd think Autodesk has the advantage and they should but that isn't necessarily true. I'd like someone to chime in who really is an FBX format expert on which software does the best at translating features found in their native modeling file format into FBX file format knowing that in same cases it doesn't make sense to translate a native modeling format feature into FBX.

I'll have to get to the point in modeling where I'm really good a Maya LT and Blender to objectively choose.

 

You're right, this puts a dent in the workflow. A bit of MEL scripting can probably be done to automatically save the fbx into the right mirrored folder.

 

Where are you getting $33 a month? I'd seen $50 as their cheapest support level. Is $33 a discount for enrolled students at college?

Cool. 65K now for other engines and unlimited polygons for Unity. You wouldn't want a landscape that exceeds 150K in a typical indy game anyway. And now .mel scripting is supported. If they do allow indies to stop and start monthly subscripts according to need; then Maya LT is a competitor to Blender as these new 2015 features make it much easier to learn. If you're very experienced in Blender already than it makes not a lot of sense to subscribe.

 

http://www.autodesk.com/products/maya-lt/buy

 

It quotes me $50. You must have prior license or something. I have learning trial. Or maybe it's because you're Canadian although I didn't know the Canadian dollar was that high against the US dollar now. It must be all the tar sand and oil and US government incompetence with expenditures and tax burden.

Nevermind: $50 USD = $55.17 CAD today...I guess I could proxy and see what prices I get.

 

since few updates the model limit is 65k poly or unlimited if export inside a unity project.

Im thinking about learning maya lt or blender.
the advantage of maya lt is it has only what is needed to create game models but i have searched tutorials to create low poly terrains for example. cant find any, thats important if you cant find learning ressources, blender have tons.
but i am afraid that blender because it has many features that will make it more complicated to learn?
so the problem to me is not which one do it better, only which one has better worflow/faster to learn?

 

The $50 is if you pay monthly. As PolishRenegade says, $400 per year makes it $33 per month "if you commit to it".

 

Duh, sorry. I didn't do the math. I think then if you are the type that feels compelled to upgrade with every release cycle then the yearly sub is the best deal. Otherwise you'd be better served with a perpetual. I don't know the state of the art of 3D modeling iR&D but it seems it's reaching near an apex in the not too distant future so eventually a perpetual will make the most sense (after all even I'm learning these tools).

So it's $400 upfront. I think I would rather pay the $50 and then evaluate usage frequency and upgrade to perpetual as that would be $22 a month over a 3 year term if you upgraded just as the upgrade discount is expiring (upgrade is currently $550).

 

I am looking for Maya LT tutorials as well and it seems I will have to use the Autodesk supplied tutorials which aren't comprehensive of course, even with reduced Maya LT's functionality.

 

These are observations based on Maya Lt 2015. Why would someone use this handicapped software and not Blender, beats me.

May be if you want employment in Maya based studios while developing games, this can be a nice way to learn Maya modeling and have published work.

 

Because as it's already been stated if it's easier and faster to learn and produces better results they don't care that they can't do simulations and the other advanced features of Maya and Blender. You saying that they should care about those things is like saying I should get a aeroplane pilot's license to write a game in Unity even that much more obviously, the aeroplane pilot's license is of no use in Unity.

So they should consider costs, and that includes productivity, by all means, but they should not consider features of these products they can't even leverage in Unity.

 

Hear here.

The idea that people shouldn't buy "cut down" software because of a lack of features that are irrelevant to them is pretty irrational. In comparison to normal Maya the difference (in AUD) is around $7000. Is it really worth seven thousand dollars to have access to a set of features that aren't relevant to your work?

As for the Blender comparison, that really comes down to pure productivity cost. Blender has been around for yonks, and despite this people consistently choose to invest in paid products. That suggests to me that the productivity cost of switching is probably higher than the $8000 asking price (though I do think there's likely to be at least some free software stigma in there as well).

Features are only a small part of the story.

 

I been using MayaLT since release, the missing features or limits haven't stopped me from getting great results. IMO it's easiest and fastest suite out, that's well worth the $50/month.

@goat
My tip is learn the component sensitive marking menu. Select a component(object, face, edge, vertex, etc..) then shift+right click to bring up all the tools for that component. That's the biggest time saver.

 

Cool, thanks, because my interest in games isn't games like you'd think; it's making (or trying to at least) 'funny' and 'interesting' caricatures and if they're that the game will almost take care of itself. I think game development is backwards starting from an FPS, MMO, RPG and trying to going backwards to interesting caricatures.

 

No, I was not talking about features unrelated to Game Development. Like Smoke simulation, Matchmoving, compositor, editor etc. The lacking features directly relates to game development. Very important rigging and animation tools are missing. Right now it's impossible to do anything beyond the mocap oriented humanIK rig. So, if you are sure you are never going to use anything more than that, like quadruped or autoriggers, go for it. Also, no animation layers, meaning good luck in editing that mocap data on your animation. So, if your character has a different proportion than generic a human, you won't be able to correct that. It's not easy to understand how important the missing features are, if you are not experienced. And ADSK is targeting the noobs with a promise of giving a chance of working with Maya at a low cost.

MayaLT should be exactly Maya without the rendering features. I don't understand the crazy removal of essential features. Although, it's perfectly possible to live life with this software if you can cut your expectations and creativity as well. Design games that suits Maya LT.

 

OK, so now we are getting somewhere - you come and say SW is crippled and Autodesk lies but I wouldn't call that lies although it is being tight lipped. It seems I saw a Maya LT example of an alien in a yellow vehicle.

I have definite interests in using Maya LT to rig and animate fish and other animal models so this is disappointing. I'll have to complete the tutorials to see if it's just harder than Maya LT 2015 or flat out not possible as I think you are saying. Have you looked at the new Maya LT 2015? Many improvements since last year. For this scenario I would only subscribe to Maya LT until I complete a library of base humanoid characters if it was faster and the results better than I could do in Blender (almost a given at my skill level) and then drop the subscription.

 

You can make custom rigs in MayaLT, there is a joint tool to make any kind of skeleton you want and there's also IK handle for basic IK. It's enough for most indie developers, well enough for developers with realistic design scope.

 

Well said.

 

Sounds good to me. Is anything easier to model than fish?

 

realistic design scope?

Lets take the particular case this potential Maya LT buyer has. He wants to model and rig a fish. I guess rigging a fish doesn't fall in this scope, right? Because without spline IK (missing in Maya LT), he won't be able to rig and animate it. He must think of something simpler... like rigging a stone or something .

 

What about the stuff MurDocINC mentioned? Are those tools flat out unable to do the job? You've used the words "impossible" and "win't be able to", but other people seem to think otherwise.

Note that I'm not asking if the extra $7000 would get you nicer tools. I'm asking if the ones you get for a fraction of the price of a full Maya license are able to get the job done.

 

Depends upon the type of job. Or the character/rig. I have not said that it's impossible to do any rig, of course you can do certain type of rigs. Especially biped. But not every type of rigs. If you imagine games with non humanoid characters, you are going to face a lot of pain.

Like if this user wanted to rig and animate a generic human, nothing in Maya LT is going to stop him. Too bad he is trying to rig a fish. For rigging fishes, snakes and even quadrupeds, you will need Spline IK. Without that your fish will just not move like a fish. Now, is there no way out? If you are hell bent on it, you can do a rig based on non linked nulls and animate them by hand. But that won't be called a rig. Essentially, you can animate anything via shapes. That doesn't make the system efficient or correct.

Luckily for MayaLT you can buy it for a month. I suggest you go an try your particular feature within that period. If you are dissatisfied, don't renew your subscription.

That been said, users should really speak out to ADSK to release these essential features. No sense in limiting this way.

 

Or you can try the FREE Trial ...
http://www.autodesk.com/products/maya-lt/free-trial

15 work days is more than enough to rig a fish and test the workflow if you already know how the basic principles, which are the same for any software.

 

Hmmm...looks like I will try to make, rig, and animate the simplest fish by next week. If I can't do that then I do think it better to stay with Blender.

And when I say I'm an amateur I mean it, a simple Charlie Brown style character (i.e. forget textures outside of very simple ones) really takes me 30 - 40 hours to create in Blender and so trying to do anything at all in Maya LT for the first time will be a real challenge.

I just want to make interesting toon caricatures so I'll try this and post the result and Maya LT internal tools I used next week.

 

I use Maya since 2001, it is in my brain; Have no choice :3

 

Well I have training copy of Maya LT and not a great start:

VP2 Warning : Insufficient shader level capabilities. Vertex (4 vs 4), Geometry (4 vs 4) Pixel (4 vs 4)
VP2 Warning : Graphics hardware feature level insufficient to support renderer (4 vs 5)

in the output window. I have a i5 / Intel HD Graphics but I think for my fish these warnings about lack of capable HW for this shader and renderer won't be an issue.

 

Still no spline IK, no Set driven key, no wrap deformer, no API. What a crock. So many key tools missing that make Maya a tool worth using arbitrarily removed.

The philosophy behind Maya LT isn't what can Autodesk give game developers, it's what can Autodesk take away from them. They spend time looking for ways to strip down the tool instead of build it up. No way would I give anyone money for that kind of thinking, especially not Autodesk.

 

Well it must have an API because you can use mel the scripting language.

 

Not the same thing. Not even close. You can't develop plugins for LT, you can't use the Python bindings in LT. They have literally stripped Maya of most of it's usefulness. There is a huge amount of free plugins and scripts available to help Maya be more useful. What does Autodesk do? give you access to the scripting language they are deprecating. How wonderful of them.

Here's a one example of someone in the Maya community fixing a severe deficiency in the software that LT users don't get access to: http://www.ngskintools.com/

 

I'm a programmer. To write a script or program you must have an API, even assembly at the lowest level will have an API. You might not be happy that they've restricted the API to a subset but there is an API there.

 

So as I'm interested in learning to use Maya LT I've found out that they will be stopping upgrades beginning 2015 February 1.

You must either buy perpetual license with each new version, buy a perpetual with maintenance subscription, or buy a subscription. And it matters not if you have an educational license: no upgrade discounts starting 2015 February.

It looks like for small fry the most sensible thing to do would be to train yourself in Maya LT and then start and stop your monthly subscription as needed. If you're actually planning on supporting yourself 3D modeling freelancing the a quarterly, yearly, or perpetual license with maintenance subscription makes more sense. If you're just a hobby game programmer that want to learn the technology and skills enough to make your own original characters or to have a general feeling of the quality of 3rd party work than a monthly subscription makes more sense.

Start here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAQfn-QKbiAld4o6yxe3FjPFwmt1jE9L2 here: http://www.digitaltutors.com/promotion/learn-maya-lt# are good starting points. You can also use general Maya modeling tutorials for most of the learning they are easier to find, you can download some from YouTube or Lynda.com.

And as far as the Maya UI being easy. It's no easier then Blender for sure and those two links to the Maya LT training I was advised to them via being given the links, google or youtube search didn't find them. e.g. example obscurity: Maya LT 2015 - Trying to change the settings for Maya LT using DirectX11 to OpenGL I was told to go here 'Settings / Display' - can't find it anywhere and I've been up down those menus. I'm still going to teach myself Maya LT but it's going to be as tedious as it was to learn Blender's UI. The good thing is the new UV, Texturing, and rigging should be much easier than Blender.

 

I didn't know about this. One more reason why this forum is so awesome. thanks. I would like to sub for a month or so (but then turn it off)