Maya Pro Tries 3D Modeling in Blender 

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"Now lets delete this default cube" Yeah he already mastered the software

This is way easier to follow than the regular tutorials, having someone who doesn't know and is asking questions and learning.

Delete default cube and create new cube (new scene works too). You nailed the correct blender startup procedure without even anyone telling you. You got this! 👍

This is great. Watching a pro struggle and take 2 hrs for a 15 min project is actually really inspiring. Better than the 10 min tutorial for something that takes a pro half an hour. I'm not totally useless, just new.

Had a blast doing this JL, we should do this again!

blender is becoming so cool and i"m totally in the same mood learning it, from sketchup to blender it's night and day

This is why the Blender community is great, look how many people here are throwing tips at their screens. You gotta love this, makes the transition way easier. I would suggest you to do a few streams, the amount of people who will step in to coach you, will surprise you. Cheers!

I used maya for 15 years. After 3 months of using blender 2.8 for around 2 hours a day (every day) I cancelled my maya subscription. Looking back I was shocked at how much more work I could do with Blender and how much time and money I had wasted in Maya. I make 3d content that would be considered low/mid level in terms of 3d modelling complexity as I am a generalist/programmer and "generalism" is one area where I think Blender excels at more than tools like Maya or Zbrush, which I also use. Blender is highly capable of creating high end 3d models too I mean look at Daniel Bystedt or hundreds of other great 3d modelers that use Blender. If you do 3d modelling I highly recommend learning Blender. You may be shocked at how capable it is.

One really cool thing about the "Quick favourites" menu is that it is context sensitive, so you could favourite options in edit mode, and they wont show up in object mode - and vice versa! This applies to any menu/window in blender, where you can have seperated favourites and youll never have to worry about seeing options out of context and bloating up that menu!

I would absolutely love to see more of this! Watching a pro learn a new toolset while bringing in conceptual and practical expertise is really really entertaining and fun. Well done!

21:40 you could do this much faster than you did with knife tool. Instead of " make new edge with knife, connect, dissolve edge".. you can only select edge and CTRL+R, it will add vertex in the middle of the edge :)

To get rid of the default cube: delete default cube then file → defaults → save startup file. For mode switching edit → preferences then keymap → 3D View → tab for pie menu is a really good option once you want to do more than just edit objects.

I did not know those setting were there in grid fill. These kinds of series are so awesome because often things get boiled down to essentials, which is really valuable because there are soo many different ways of doing stuff.

Have used both! I learned in Maya for years and decided to move to Blender as it's free. It was definitely rough getting off the ground, but I love Blender now. One thing to not overlook is the awesome plugins for Blender. They make modelling and prototyping insanely fast (boxcutter, hard-ops, mesh machine, etc...)

Welcome to the Blender community 😊, been following you for over 4 years now, and I learned quickly that, Modeling is never about the software but everything else (Topology, workflow, presentation........)

I loved watching your journey through this and even more respect to you for not giving up. Shout out to OnMars3d for being your Blender Wingman.

Thanks for taking this journey... I picked up a few new things and hopped over and subscribed to OnMars3D after this. Now back to modelling a bike :)

It was fun watching you start your Blender journey. Good luck learning about everything else that Blender can do.

iteral chad teaching blender. I love the fact, you got a "coach" for blender. Many of these types of Videos have people trying the software alone and hitting many roadblocks and then the ocmments filling with obviosu answers. Love the vid, keep it up

I started learning Blender in the winter of last year with a background in graphic design and the more I use it, the more I appreciate the controls of Blender. Once I learnt the basic shortcuts, it surprised how much faster you can work compared to any Adobe software that I usually work with. It feels like playing a videogame. I'm still not very good at topology, which is the reason I followed your channel (the topology videos are awesome), but when I know what needs to be done, I can model it very very fast.

Great video, I really enjoyed it! Just subscribed to your class since I am all new to 3D modelling and just started education around 3D art.. I am excited to get to become better!

Hello JL, the video was very enjoyable. I'm glad you're using a blender. I switched from 3DsMax to Blender about 2 years ago and I am very pleased with it. I want to help with something. You can easily perform the operation at minute 36:40 with Loop Tools without creating a new cylinder. (You can enable the Loop Tools feature from the Edit > Preferences > Add-ons section. It appears at the top when you right click in Edit Mode.) While in the top view, select the outermost edges of the cover > Press the E key > Right click > Press the S key and set the width you want > Right click > Loop Tools > Circle ( That's it, I hope it didn't seem complicated :) ) Regards..

Awesome video! Thank you so much for going through the challenge! I just started learning Blender recently, and… the frustration is real 😂. Don’t get me wrong, but seeing a 3d pro like yourself struggling gives me a little bit of comfort. Yet, there are so many people doing awesome stuff with Blender, I’m determined, I will learn and I will get through. 😊

I would love to see more like this video.. cause as a maya user it feels really frustrating for lagging in some process which I can do in seconds in maya... And this video really helps to set calm learning mindset

The moment it came to closing that hole, I knew why Aunmar had such a grin about the grid fill. I couldn't believe Maya didn't have equivalent tool when I started to learn it. It really is something else!

Finally Bro!, You will see it´s not that bad at all. Can´t wait the amazing things you will do with proper topology!

Me with 3d modeling 3ds max: Damn this is kind of hard. Maya: Damn this is easy. Blender: Why are we here, just to suffer? Animation in Blender though is lit.

been using Maya professionally for rigging and skinning, and Blender in my personal work ... and I gotta say, Maya has some neat features I wish Blender had, but the main reason I will never stop using Blender is that I can do EVERYTHING within that one program. I can model, retopologize, rig, skin, animate, simulate, texture paint, create materials, render and post process without having to open another program. This honestly makes the workflow so much faster. Plus, you only need to learn 1 program instead of 5.

Hey just started learning blender with no experience in any 3D modeling software but this really helped with understanding how to use tools and how to optimize my work flow. So thanks for the video really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for sharing this vid. Learning 3d modeling has been an enormous challenge for me. I have pretty extreme memory challenges. I can't count the number of times I've sat down to learn 3d modeling, and stopped due to sheer overwhelm. Maya was my first experience with it, and the only modeling program I think I've ever reached an intermediate level with. I lost access to it, and it was years before I tried again with Zbrush. The overwhelm, stop, and lost knowledge kept repeating. Maybe 6 years later I started with Blender & hit the same overwhelm wall. Just felt like I couldn't sort out where to start anymore, let alone develop practice habits. 3D modeling is my passion, but I repeatedly feel like I'm starting over at the beginning of my journey again. I tell myself, "You're not dumb. You love 3d Modeling. You want to do it. Take the time to." After this vid, I realized I've been unconsciously overlapping thought processes, & muscle memory from Maya...each time I've tried to learn Blender...all while thinking I'd retained almost nothing from learning Maya MORE than 8 years ago. When in fact, my body and instincts have remembered so much, that I accidentally made learning Blender that much harder for myself. It seems so clear now where I can make targeted adjustments to how I'm learning Blender, and it's a relief to know (at least a little) why learning felt so much harder than it seemed to be, on a technical & muscle memory basis.

I came from c4d and I must admit I jump back sometimes, because of the muscle memory. However I am doing more and more without leaving blender and I realize the the most important aspect of modeling is the experience of the user since a vert is just a vert and a poly is just a poly no matter what software you use. Nice one to watch thanks!

19:23 When you inset with a mirror mod you can press B for bounds to account for the mirror

It was really cool to see you start your Blender journey, I started in Maya, I have used both programs, and I teach both programs as well. For modeling I prefer blender, once I got used to the quick keys I was able to model faster and do a lot more iterative work than I could in Maya. I almost feel too slow working in Maya anymore that it just ends up being frustrating sometimes, not that maya doesn't have great modeling tools I just find the ability for me to start from scratch if something goes horribly wrong less daunting in Blender than in Maya.

Now I’m used to blender, but the first weeks were a struggle. I ended up my first study sessions with a headache. What an alien interface for beginners.

I started learning in Maya (your tutorials were a huge help) but when I switched to blender I really struggled at first. I decided to change the camera controls to match Mayas and left all other hotkeys the blender defaults. After that learning was easy! Not fighting muscle memory to control the camera allowed me to focus on learning.

Tip - In the Mirror modifier properties, check the Clipping check box to prevent vertices from going through the mirror. In other situations, hold C (for Clamp) while beveling to prevent overlapping geo.

Love your channel man. Ure a good vibe in this crazy world we live in. I just came from Blender to start your bike modeling course in Maya and now you do this 😂😂😂 Hard Ops/Boxccutter will change your life in Blender.

I love blender because I can navigate with one hand! Im going back into maya currently, there are a lot more clicks to get object to center of grid.

I only just started using Maya recently and have found it so intuitive to use. In trying to use Blender I found it was easier to change all the shortcut settings to Industry standard so its mostly the same as Maya ;-; somehow its still confusing but I’ll come back to it once I’ve gotten more of the basics down in the Maya course at college~ Thank you for sharing your experience!!

Very helpful and inspiring, to be honest. It gives some details that I didn't know before.

This was an great intro to Blender for artists coming from other DCCs. So many tips and workflows.

Great video. You had me laughing, and yelling at the screen couple of times🤣. I can totally understand the frustration switching/ trying Blender, but once you keep it going for some time, everything else starting to feel really slow.

Man, this is eye opening for me as a Blender user. I've been using the keyboard for everything, here you are using gizmos, and despite knowing they existed, I didn't actually realize they were an option, because my muscle memory was already on the keyboard XD

This is awesome, learned some problem solving with topology by watching you

I started in 1996 and I was doing Alias and 3D Studio. Max wasn't even out yet and Maya was not a thing. When Max came out and Maya for NT those were always my go to programs. Still are. I've been seeing the changes in the industry and I've always tried getting into blender but quitting. I think it's time to suck it up and learn it more. I've used Blender for a few things at my work, but I need to get a better grasp of it. This video has motivated me to do so.

At 19:03 you didn’t have to apply the mirror modifier, you could have just pressed B for border and it would have worked. And at 22:08 if you press ctrl+x while selecting edges you would have only dissolved the edges and maintained the faces so no need to add them later. Just some tips to save some time

Hi guys I've learned so much from these videos, I'm basically a beginner but only been using Cinema 4D 2024 that's similar to Blrnder, I attempted a Lamborghini Countach, then started a BMW Z4 I recently uploaded them to my channel, I thought they looked ok but after seeing your videos on topology it's made me pull my game up, the wire mesh on the cars I have done sadly looks not so good lol, thanks for sharing your skills with us all :)

I started in Max back in 2010, then had to switch for work to Maya. Then again had to switch for work to Blender around 2022. I totally agree with everything you said, BUT specific plugins can make the transition from Maya to Blender more seamless. Especially Maya config Pro. It had saved my life when I was forced to learn blender. That was a fun video to watch man, keep the awesome content coming!!!

@jlmussi do not feel bad. You were learning Blender at an accelerated rate, faster than anyone I have seen. I learned more from this video than I have from any other fine tuned tutorial, just from watching you figure it out. The first time I used Blender, my Maya student subscription expired- I cried a little, then turned off the computer. But I went back to it, and…we’re good now. We’re, we’re good.

If you uncheck boundary in the inset it works well with the modifier!

After working in Maya for 20+ years professionally, I switched to blender last year. Took about half a year to get comfortable with it and memorize where every item was in the interface, which order to click things in etc. Still have a lot of catching up to do on rigging techniques and texturing. Old muscle memory is only a problem for the first month or so. Smooth sailing afterwards. I've used 3DS, XSI, Houdini and Lightwave in the past. Wouldn't be the first time when I had to figure out everything from scratch. Got to keep adapting. Blender has potential. I hope it is kept free. It's giving Houdini a run for its money. Especially after the introduction of sim nodes. Maya is still fine, but it's not free. I loved it, back when Mental Ray came bundled. After they pulled the plug on everything, and made Arnold an optional addon - it was time to go and learn something else.

I have been using Rhino 3D and Fusion 360. I kind of love the way I can just draw the shape of the lid extremely fast in those software, using sketches with simple Bezier curves and constraints. We can even adjust the measurements at any point during the project even in the final stages, and since Fusion is parametric, the final model will update according to the new parameters. I find this essential if I´m working on a project with a team because we always meet with changes in dimensions, standards and materials along the way. It seems that drawing even the simplest curve for the lid in Blender becomes extremely cumbersome.

1st thing to do if you are coming from Maya/Cinema 4D into blender is on the splash screen set navigation to industry standard and you should feel at home but keep in mind that this option effect other blender shortcuts

I've been using Blender for almost a decade now and this reminds me a lot of when I first started. Compared to simplistic software like SketchUp, Blender felt like some sort of alien technology. I remember being utterly confused by things like the 3D cursor, seperate object and edit modes, and (back in the 2.7 days) a lack of a toolbar. Even now I still come across little features and tools that I had no idea about that speed up my work significantly. Grid fill is one such feature that I only discovered about a year or two ago and has since become a regular part of my workflow.

While using mirror modifier (without applying) make sure you check Clippling to prevent geometry overlaping.

I've been using Blender now and then (very casual) for about six years now and this actually taught me some new stuff i didn't know about

Great video! The moment he started hinting at the 'grid fill', I knew Blender was about to get a new fan. Side note though! The grid fill option really works best with convex shapped holes. The easy work around (in regards to that hole you guys used the function on) is to simply bisect that hole in the very middle on the y-axis with a single line(no faces, just a line), then apply a few loop cuts on that newly created line in the middle. Then you just use grid fill on the left convex portion and right convex portion separately. This will give you more uniform quad sizes. I know this is probably unnessesary with a detail as small as a can tab, but is still good advice for bigger things. __ In summary, basically just try to partition holes into smaller more convex shapes then the grid fill will make much cleaner quads.

When using Grid Fill, it works better if the corner vertex of the boundary is set to active.

I've used blender for over 5 years now. Last year I started to learn maya in college, and it felt so scary at first. A lot of new buttons on the screen, the fact that you don't have a hotkey for everything, how you use gizmos instead of pressing G and just dragging it around. But after I got the hang of it, I couldn't help but falling in love with maya. To be honest, I can't really say which one I like best, but both of them are definetely amazing tools

I just picked up blender today for a engineering project having not work with any 3d modeling programs in over 12 years My previous experience then, was with Maya and Max. There was a learning curve, but eventually I got a hang of it. Fortunately my 3d modeling skills aren't as rusty as I previously thought.

Gotta leave a second comment: this video helped me so much, there were a bunch of hotkeys that just sped up my workflow, thanks so much!

Thank you, thank you Mussi, for creating this video. I though it was completely me and I was pulling my hair out on why I couldn't figure out Blender. Looking forward to what I can unlock now.

When creating the cylinder something I find easier is to enable loop tools. Then extrude-scale the outer rim. Once extruded out, select the edge and right click, go to loop tools then circle, this will change shape to a circle, you can then position and extrude the rest of the can from there.

I learned much more from this vid than combined beginner tutorials on this topic (this wouldnt work for a complete beginner who doesnt know what extrude, inset, bevel, edge loop etc is) not having qwer for basic manipulation freaked me out at first but i soon got used to blender shortcuts

Man... been using Blender for like ~decades as a hobbyist and watching this made me learn so much stuff I didn't know.

I started learning blender a few years ago to be able to make my first custom skin for a game. No prior knowledge, Followed the typical path most new blender users did. I did the Donut tutorial and after some further research into topology, texture maps and such, I managed to make my first 3D asset after two months. I am now studying CAD construction and I'm using Solid works. I've tried Maya as well, Non of these software's feels as intuitive and easy to grasp as Blender did. Also with Blender being free, I see a lot more tutorials and problem solving videos out there for whenever I am stuck on something which makes for a big plus. Im sure Maya is great software as well and once I really dig my hands into solidworks I will have a pretty solid understanding of several softwares working with 3D modelling ^^ Really enjoyed watching this video, It was great! ^^

I'm 10 minutes in and it's excruciating to watch. All those nuances in the blender interface that lets me work considerably faster than when i was using 3DS Max are things that i can't really come around to explain to a newbie until he specifically needs it. "Okay, so this does that, what do i use it for?".... later... "Oooh, so we do that thing you showed me four days ago...". They're pretty obscure but when you do need it and have to use it repeatedly, they're pretty handy. As for the default cube, i ended up replacing it with a plane as that tends to be what i always start with. The shortcut based interface is faster and less hassle than constantly having to move gizmos and digging through menus. Tedious stuff like reconstructing surfaces polygon by polygon is considerably easier than doing it in Max.

I learned to use Maya over 20 years ago and I was up in productive within a year. Now I started experimenting with blender about 4 years ago and have spent many hours on it each day and I still find a lot of basic functions elude me as to how to even begin. The program is not intuitive in the slightest when it comes to many things for example making a camera follow a path and Bank around the turns. And Maya you just click a checkbox called Bank but in blender you have to understand how to go into edit mode and click on each of the points in the Curve and adjust the handles to change the angle of the camera as it follows the curve. Also just getting a camera to follow a curve results in a lot of frustration. Very difficult program to use but the render engine is beautiful and produces photo realistic results with lightning speed.

Great video. I went from Max to Blender and experienced the same... barriers...or challenges is a better word. But quickly got used to it and I'm never going back now :)

i love this video how to learn by a professionel with a mentor. Very helpful as spectator aswell.

my most favorit of all the modelling tools .. select an edge rightclick and in the menu chose "rotate Edge CV" and see the magic of redirecting an edge loop

Im a long time Maya user as well and decided to finally pick up blender a month ago !

Interesting to watch the struggles. I'm sure I would struggle in Maya having never used that, but in Blender everything feels natural having used it for 15 years.

i've changed zoom/pan/rotation of blender into maya way 3 yrs ago, then it's smooth like butter

I'm a 3ds max user for over a decade and I enjoyed watching you trying blender for the first time as a Maya user. Somehow I felt some more familiarity of blender modeling approach with 3ds max than maya. This was encouraging for me to get a blender a try. Next thing that I'm concerned about blender is Nurbs modeling tools. I am looking for something like Plastisity in blender and hope not to be disappointed.

I was in the same boat, used Maya and could never get on with Blender. Then Blender 2.8 came out and I gave it another go. However, I knew my muscle memory was going to mess me up so I used a custom keymap to make Blender work similar to Maya. I have added to it and made it suit my needs as Blender updated. I've even got a plugin to mimic the smooth preview Maya has so I can just press 3 on my keyboard to smooth preview then press 1 to go back to an unsmoothed version. Now I'm at a point where if I tried going back to Maya then I'd have to relearn a lot of things lol. I don't miss Maya though, Blender being completely free and it can do pretty much everything Maya can do besides the really advanced niche stuff that I personally never need.

This was really nice thank you for sharing your experience! Being a professional using Maya for many years now, I dream of replacing it some day with Blender but i couldn't stand it's weird differences. But seeing as setting it to industry standard solves navigation but breaks every other Blender hotkey when trying to follow tutorials, I am trying to start to embrace it's differences. It feels so strange struggling with the most basic tasks again though 🤣😭

In the settings under input.. there's an option to "Emulate 3 button mouse'" which will let you use alt+click to move the view.

12:55 this "Only Faces" feature is actually very useful with cloth sims, to connect both sides of clothing on character

19:00 keep in mind that this does not work if you are insetting a plane. But if you have a volume for example, after doing an inset while mirror modifier is on, you can press B to toggle the boundary. That way, you can keep the good edge flow.

Using blender reminds me of something I heard about using blender reminds me of something I heard in regards to the Linux text editor vi. They said that people get user-friendly and easy to learn mixed up. It seems like, once you know your hotkeys, this is going to make the user experience so nice.

Watching this is really cool man, I'm a professional 3D artist and I use Blender every day. I have tried to use Maya and every time I open the software I feel like I'm having a crisis😂 makes me doubt my skills as a 3D artist. Seeing you having my struggles in Maya but in Blender is just hilarious to watch, and really inspiring. Great job with the end result man, love to see it.

I moved years ago from the Maya to Blender and can't really think reason why I would go back. One thing I would recommend (atleast it works for me) is that instead of using symmetry I add mirror modifier once a while, apply it, select all, mesh -> clean up -> Merge by distance. And then move on or cut the project in half and add mirror again but not apply it. Symmetry is making a lot problems like you can see in this video, vertexes going haywire etc. I find it better to just apply the mirror modifier and cleanup before using inset etc. Takes longer to execute than just using symmetry but at least there is no rogue vertexes hiding in your work.

in Blender there is quad view Ctrl-Alt-Q Blender has Transform gizmo Move, Scale and Rotate combine

2:50 This is probably the most relatable part of transferring from Maya to blender and I still catch myself wanting to use alt for movement

Start learning blender a couple months ago after 10+ years with Maya and Max and I've had all the same issues, but expressed with 100% more profanity.

You can set your default set up to be whatever you want. Delete or add whatever you want to the scene. Then go up to File>Defaults>Save Startup File.

The two features I miss from Maya the most is groups and how you can organize them in the Hypergraph, and Duplicate Special. I don't know if you've tried to duplicate a series of objects in a radial arrangement yet, but the Blender workflow for that will make you want to cry.

Those are super instructive. more !

You can do inset with mirror modifier too. If you hit i you can see options, how you want to use inset.

SUCH A NICE VIDEO! im an architec and artistt that had been away from architecture for somewhere around 5years, autocad 3d is now obsolete and i really want to start using D5 renderer and between having to use sketchup and blender the answer is obvious, i have a pretty good idea of the basics, but same as your muscle memory i just cant find what i am looking for since the HUD and workflow is so diferent form autocad, im learning how to do more orthogonal stuff like i used to do to start and also topograpy that here seems to be so easy compared to hell on earth on the CAD , later ill do some crazy stuff , who knows i can land a job making futuristic cities for a videogame in the future

One add-on I 100% recommend you activate is Loop-tools, its in blender by default, IDK why is off when to me is THE best tool when doing Hard-surfaces, also Check the 3D cursor, is amazing!

As a long time Maya user, thanks for this!

Take your time, don't rush and there are tutorials for pretty much everything, you can customize blender to any level you want, many ex maya users have customized maya to work like maya + blender with custom pie menus hotkeys and one of the best thing about blender is that if you don't like something about it or something is missing, there's a good chance there's a free/cheap addon for it. Also, wait till you try the awesome modeling addons like box cutter and hardops for blender lol. Good luck on your journey on Blender.

I moved to Blender from Maya in about 2019. Navigation was the biggest hurdle to overcome for me, as well. I didn't learn to use Blender until 2.8, when they added a more proper "industry compatible" keymap. Then I was at least able to navigate without getting so frustrated that I'd just close it. The industry compatible keymap is what I prefer. Unfortunately, the vast majority of tutorials, etc. available are using Blender's native keymap, which made it difficult to learn from tutorials. But I was already familiar enough with 3D modeling that I was able to just figure out most of it on my own. As long as you know *what* you want to do, you can pretty easily find it in a menu, or in Blender documentation, tutorials, etc. to be able to then find it with the industry compatible keymap or the keymap editor. If there's not a shortcut for something, you can very easily assign one, which also makes Blender very flexible. Overall, I'm very happy I moved to Blender. I was using a student license for Maya at the time, and no way in hell can I afford a full Maya license. I also very strongly dislike software subscriptions, so Maya LT was out of the question for me. Blender is 100% free, very flexible, and very powerful. Zero regret abandoning Maya in the mall parking lot to go to the farmer's market next door.

I both use maya and blender. Maya with the studio I work with, I'm a rigger and animator. But blender for personal project. It was definitely a challenge to learn blender, especially since I did it 15 years ago, there was less tools, and less tutorial available then. But at the end, I usually prefer to model in blender and I find that the viewport is a lot more nicer in blender. However, I find that the tools for rigging and animation are still a bit better in Maya. But if I had to pick one, I would pick blender because it can do so many things.

i just love blender for its hotkey workflow ^^

I struggle when I moved to Blender, the camera was always my main struggle bc I was using Maya since version 7. So, I memorized the name of the key bindings in the hotkey editor, so every time a new version of Blender comes out I know what to do, which are: view 3D.zoom view3d.move view3d.rotate Just put the same mouse inputs as in Maya and you're good to go, specially if you plan to go back and forth. Btw, there's another thing that I changed is, in Maya if you press F9, F10, F11, you automatically start editing vertices, edges, faces. In Blender, you need to get into edit mode first, if you press the hotkeys for vertices, edges and faces (which in Blender are the 1,2,3 keys), you start hiding your objects following their placement in the outliner, so I just removed this hotkeys as there is another shortcut for hiding, guess the letter 😅

the start where u click to move camera made me laugh, ive never used 3d program but i was going crazy just to be able to move the camera at start too 😂