Maya Plugins

[digriz]

Hi,

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this, but it is a feedback request of a kind.

Does anyone have any idea how many indie developers use Maya? If any.

The reason i ask is that i am writing a set of plugins and mel scripts that might be of use to other game developers.

I was just thinking that if i'm writing this stuff, i could maybe commercialise it a little and sell it for a lot cheaper than other people do.

Thanks,
Digriz

[revve]

Due to the cost, I'd guess very few indie developers uses Maya legally. I'd think that because of the small margin that most people make, it would not be easy for any but the largest developers to justify spending several grand on Maya.

Personally, I own a copy of XSI Foundation, due to the price (it was between this and gameSpace. I didn't like the latter, so I got the more expensive one).

[digriz]

Yeah, i guess costs for maya are quite high, but not that far removed for 3D Studio Max.

Well, if people don't use it, then i guess the plugins will be for myself.

[Reactor]

Maya is very popular with students, so it might be worth you while to put them up for sale anyway... assuming they're worth selling. Or, you could simply give them away for free, and try attracting the Maya community to your website to buy games :)

[svero]

I contacted Maya's sales office a few times to see if I could get or organize some kind of indie developer discount because I had used the free demo version and liked how it worked. They never even got back to me though. I ended up looking into softimage and other apps. I also contacted the sales people for messiah studio simply looking to buy a copy of their desktop software. Nobody got back to me. I have to wonder how these companies make any money at all.

[digriz]

I have a feeling the student version doesn't allow exporting or plugins...not sure about this, i could be talking out of my hat.

Reactor: I might just give them away in the end anyway. Like you say, it might help draw some traffic.

[revve]

I haven't used the student version, only the PLE version - I know it does everything it can to prevent you from exporting data in any usable format. I suspect the student version would do the same.

[Jim Buck]

What version of Maya would the plugins be for? (Or would you also release source code?) What utilities would they be? I have some experience with writing Maya plugins and know how much of a pain-in-the-ass it can be, so I am generally curious what you may have already available.

[digriz]

I'm working on a way of having a lot of user data on an object node with out having to write loads of custom plugins.

It's all in very early stages at the moment... I currently use the .x format for directx, so i'm not that inclined to write custom exporters.

I'm mainly aiming at little tools and mel scripts to aid workflow. The purpose of me starting this thread was to see if a lot of other developers would be interested and to get a feel of how many were using Maya.

The version i currently own is 5.5...but i'll probably upgrade when the time is right.

[Jim Buck]

Are you talking about a custom blind data node?

Many artists I know have all sorts of Maya versions (5.0, 6.0, and 6.5.. soon 7.0), so you would either need to have the ability to compile plugins for all these versions (they aren't all binary compatible) or be able to release source code to whoever buys.

[digriz]

I'd be released mll files for all versions above 5.0; i do have access to newer versions of Maya, i just don't own them. People i know would let me test on their more recent versions of maya.

Yes, custom blind-data nodes is exactly what it is. But it's just a neat way of dealing with the data.

[Jim Buck]

Would it be complete with custom UI to enter the values into?

[digriz]

Yes, it attaches itself by mel script. The custom UI is autogenerated depending on what you want as your options.