Just downloaded Maya 2016 after years of not even touching it.

No nothing at all.

you can do some limited sculpting now so mudbox is no longer needed but Zbrush definitely still is the king at free form sculpting.....if only it didn't have such a shit UI.

also upgrading from Windows 7 to 10 fucks up Maya 2016 royally.....Maya 2017 when?

>>504638
funny jokes men, kek

>>504618
Yes, the software has radically changed. The look of it should already be apparent enough. You'll notice the Viewport 2.0 and the options it has when you go to "Renderer" above the viewport. I can use DirectX 11 or OpenGL and thus doesn't need a workstation card to be accelerated anymore. There's the revamped modeling toolkit, revamped Hypershade, streamlined Node Editor to replace the connection editor. Bifrost dynamic volume fluid sim, XGen hair generation/groom and general instancing tool, better sculpting of course, mentalray integration has greatly improved, color-space management is simpler, goedesic voxel binding gives you much better base skin weighting, the menus along the top are better organized, new UV brushes that let you interactively "sculpt" your UVs in a sense and slice/sew them, better Unfold3D algorithm from Softimage has been implemented to replace the old unfold algorithm, ShaderFX is a node-based shader programming feature that lets you export code to HLSL, CG and GLSL, and can be used in Unreal/Unity or viewed directly in the VP2.0 so you don't need to keep exporting to your game-engine to see how it will look. And so much more has changed since the 2008 and even 2010 version, too much to cover in one post... but the software has really become amazing now and is why most studios have no switched to it.

>>504643
Don't see any Mental Ray in the render options, does it ship separately now? Either way I use vRay aparently I need the SP1 to use the 3.1 version on Maya 2016

>>504647
Yeah it's a separate installer now included on the page where you download Maya usually.
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/downloads/caas/downloads/content/mental-ray-plugin-for-maya-2016.html

I'd suggest giving Mentalray another shot though, it has also gone through a tonne of changes since you likely last used it.

>>504655
Will installing this fuck my not-so-legal copy of Maya?

>>504655
Actually, Is it safe to install all the service packs?

>>504665
get a student version... you dont even have to prove you are a student, like fuck

>>504665
>>504666
It's safe to install mentalray, any plugins and even the service packs on pirated Maya, service packs don't touch the license system.

>>504669
Good, I'm already halfway through the 4 service packs

>>504670
Uhh, you don't need to install them sequentially... you simply install the newest one lol.

>>504670

There's already more than 4 service packs for 2016? I might just take a break from max and try maya out. What gets me is learning the new controls. Im sure it's easy to spend just a few hours to reconfigure it into max's style...r-right?

>>504680
Don't reconfigure it to Max style, just try it out for a few days, watch some tutorials on basic interaction... you'll find yourself slowly understanding why its interaction methods are better.

>>504681
I second this. Maya is faster and more interactive. You don't use menus. You hold ctrl or shift and rclick.
Switch between components with function keys.
For modeling you need on your shelf freeze trandform, delete history and center pivot, primitives creation, multicut, legacy split tool, reverse normals.
Toggle smooth prev with 1 2 3.
and so on

>>504755
Don't switch components with functions keys, just use multi-component mode. Or just right-click, flick in a specific direction. Multi-cut is also shift+right-click flick left, don't need that on shelf either! All your commonly used stuff is in the radial gesture menus using combinations of shift, ctrl and right-click! It's very efficient.

>>504760
Right click flick is temporary and may not work with some features i.e. extrude alonge curve. Weird but true.
I like using f keys for good measure (mostly f8 tho)

Also good to have on the shelf is combine seoarate extract

>>504762
How is it temporary?
And how exactly does it not work with extrude-along-curve?

File: ggx_vs_blinn.jpg (88KB, 960x540px) Image search: [Google]

88KB, 960x540px

>>504655
Does Mental Ray even have GGX?

>>505907
GGX is outdated, and no modern renderer these days uses the blinn model... Mentalray uses a more advanced system than ggx and so does Pixar.

https://forum.nvidia-arc.com/showthread.php?13079-Ggx-microfacet-model-BRDF&p=50403#post50403

>>505925
wut?

GGX is still the best way to simulate metals. Without it you're left with combining multiple shaders, layering them together to approach the same result, which is annoying as hell.

If anything that post just makes it clear that mRay doesn't have GGX and you need to do the multilayered approach to simulate it, and that Pixar doesn't need it because their render doesn't strive to be realistic.

>The modern alternative is MDL. There's not currently a BSDF API exposed in mental ray

>However, you'll note that even Disney tweaked the parameters of their material where it's no longer really GGX

>After that was published Chaosgroup decided to add their own "GTR" to match the Disney Material (internally we've had issues in mimicking that material at The Mill. We don't have the same sensibilities as Disney. We require art directed photorealism. Disney just needs something that feels..solid.

Outdated? vRay recently added GGX in 3.1. It's the best thing you can get today.