Which one is a more appropriate tool for modeling for games?

Neither. Both have incredibly high market penetration in the games industry. If you can demonstrate competency as an artist with either one you can get a job as a games artist. At my company we use almost exclusively 3ds Max. At Bungie I was told my their tech director that they use about 75% Max / 25% Maya. At the majority of EA studios they are using Maya as their primary tool, but I believe two of their studios mostly use Max.

Realize that often times you have a very mixed pipeline. In the same studio you could have Silo, Max, Maya, MotionBuilder, Zbrush, and Mudbox all being used.

Yet another major 3d package used is XSI, but its market penetration (for games) isn't as high as Max or Maya, though. There are a number of very reputable studios that use it. For instance, I know one of the guys who working on modeling for Resident Evil 5 and he was using XSI for it. I think XSI was the tool of choice for the last Metal Gear game and is also used extensively by Valve.

How should I make the choice? Or should I just pick one randomly? Or learn both?

Just pick one. Some say that Max is easier for beginners, but I wouldn't know because I started 3d modeling with Rhino3D and Catia (took some manufacturing graphics related courses) and then moved to Maya, which I did the majority of my university coursework with. I'm now a Designer so I don't use either, though I'm trying to keep up on my 3d modeling skills with Silo and XSI Mod Tool (which is free). I have access to Max at work, but it is kind of foreign to me. :p

Really, just randomly pick one. If you wind up becoming a 3d artist professionally you'll eventually learn to work with multiple package. Right now it is better to just pick one and work on honing yourself some mad 3d skills.

Autodesk offers a PLE (personal learning edition) version of Maya that is free, so that would probably be the way to go for now. If you actually have the money to fork over for full featured academic versions then you can head over to academicsuperstore.com and pick up either one for $195 for a 14 month license.

Quote: Original post by zer0wolf
Just pick one. Some say that Max is easier for beginners, but I wouldn't know because I started 3d modeling with Rhino3D and Catia (took some manufacturing graphics related courses) and then moved to Maya, which I did the majority of my university coursework with. I'm now a Designer so I don't use either, though I'm trying to keep up on my 3d modeling skills with Silo and XSI Mod Tool (which is free). I have access to Max at work, but it is kind of foreign to me. :p

Really, just randomly pick one. If you wind up becoming a 3d artist professionally you'll eventually learn to work with multiple package. Right now it is better to just pick one and work on honing yourself some mad 3d skills.

Autodesk offers a PLE (personal learning edition) version of Maya that is free, so that would probably be the way to go for now. If you actually have the money to fork over for full featured academic versions then you can head over to academicsuperstore.com and pick up either one for $195 for a 14 month license.

Yeah I'd go with Maya just due to the fact that you can use PLE long enough to learn how to use it. 3D Max is limited to 30 day trial last time I checked. In the end though having used both they are both pretty similiar now that i.e. both use mental ray renderer, poly and nurbs modeling,etc that whichever one you learn it'll be easy to pick learn the other. It's not like switching from blender to maya or max now that would be a learning curve-LOL!

p.s. Also, truespace has been made available for free so you might want to look into that too.

How crappy seeing as how I somewhat know blender already... Seems like i'll have to forget everything I know -_-.

There's something I don't get, why did autodesk buy maya if they already had 3ds max?

Well here's a cool chart comparing the various 3d tools that might help you out:
Comparison of 3d tools
and it does look like 3d max has pretty good file import/export compared to most.

Quote: Original post by Antonym
How crappy seeing as how I somewhat know blender already... Seems like i'll have to forget everything I know -_-.

There's something I don't get, why did autodesk buy maya if they already had 3ds max?

Blender is pretty awesome considering the fact that it is free, though the interface is absolutely horrid. From a technical artist's perspective though it does rock pretty hardcore. Max and Maya have had a pretty long time to gain the market penetration they have now. They both have roots running back well over a decade and people are simply used to using them. The shear amount of money and time that has been poured into people's learning to use them and the production of tools and workflow methodologies is into the billions by now.

Why did Autodesk buy Maya? Why not? They now own BOTH of the largest packages on the market. It doesn't matter if you buy Max or Maya, Autodesk gets your money [wink]

It says there that maya costs 7000 bucks and 3ds max 3500? O_O.... That's insane! Who has that money!?

Maya Complete is $2000 and Maya Unlimited is $5000. The matrix seems to be a bit out of date. It has Silo lacking a few features that it has now.

Who has that kind of money? Businesses and professionals that need to use them?