PACKAGE WARS

Remember the good old days of "package wars"? Lightwave vs. Max, Maya vs. Soft Image and all that? I remember once I came back from a recent summer movie, while working at EA, and I talk to one of the producers there and he said something to the effect that, "Yeah, I heard the FX weren't up to par, they used the wrong package or something like that?" The movie had FX done by a house that used Lightwave. The studio I worked in primarily used Max.

In the past I have even been told, as someone looked at a piece of work I had done in Lightwave, "Wow, that is really nice. I would love to see what you would do using Maya." The sad thing is, people really believed in that back then. They really thought that whatever I did must magically be ten times better if I used their package of choice. It makes me think of a line from the recent Donnie Yen movie, the semi-biographical work Ip Man, where after he beat another kung fu master, the man commented that Ip man's Wing Chun style is the best. Man replied, "It's not the style It's what's inside you."

I've been out of those circles for a while now, so I don't know if that stuff still goes on, at least in the high level packages. Of course I know people seem to look down on Poser and Vue, Daz and Carrera these days, but I think all the big players have somewhat equal respect. I could be wrong though. The thing is, all of these packages are just tools. For anyone to create anything of worth, they must know how to use good tools in the right way.

One artist can take Max and set about to create a great 3D scene or image, and produce something wonderful. The next artist can take the same Max and attempt to duplicate the work, and his production will be a botch. This doesn't mean that if he took Maya, he would suddenly do a great work. It means he, at least at that moment, doesn't have what it takes. Likely no tool can help him. It is true that some tools make certain jobs easier, but if the artist doesn't have the eye, the know how or real vision, no tool will do the job. If an artist has these things, any tool will eventually get a great result.

I am almost using a completely different set of tools than what I used when I started doing independent animation years ago. I still get the result I want. In some cases I get it faster and it looks better. There are also some things that are now more difficult. There are always trade offs. I believe I have the best set of tools for what I particularly want to do. I am, however, not married to them. Show me a better way and I will switch tools this instant. But this better way must be proven. Saying this or that tool is better because ILM uses it will not convince me. I am not doing what ILM does. If someone shows me that I can do what I what I do, better, faster and easier, I will gladly adopt whatever tools will give me that.