I know the initial intention of animate form was to
use animation tools in Maya to develop a series of
objects then to look for potential architectural
applications in this produced animate array. But the
way Maya is used in architecture now is a joke.
If I see one more piece of shit project where some
vacuum-formed shit or milled panels are stuck to a
wall I'm going to vomit.... And that doesn't even begin to explain the sheer disappointment I feel when I see some bent tubes wrapped in fabric. Is this the radical new architecture we're striving for? Large scale paper-maché?
I know people will bring up NOX and the other minority of architects that have constructed a big
anthropomorphic pile of shit out of real materials.
And I don't really give a shit about that work either,
because it lacks any notion of economy, human scale, or use.
And yet, year in and year out practitioners still
think that there is going to be some groundbreaking
discovery in construction techniques that will allow
them to build this crap...This is highly unlikely
considering that Alias and Maya have been used for the past 10 years with no revolutionary results.
I have been in architecture school for 5 years and
every semester I see the same shit on the walls. At
first I was impressed with the visual quality of the
work. There is no doubt that the work is complex and visually stimulating. So I proceeded to take a few digital studios and learned the techniques that are used to produce this work and to put it simply, it is flat and one-dimensional.
The fascination with Maya has now turned to
MEL-scripting and the new tools you can find or
produce in the software to generate a cell that is
formally interesting so you can use a duplication
transform or an animation snapshot to generate a big cool looking conglomeration of crap that means
absolutely nothing in terms of architecture.
I say, who gives a shit how you made it. I don't give
a shit what script you used or whether or not you used a wire deformer. The important question is what does do in terms architecture?
....99.99% of the time absolutely NOTHING.
There is a reason that students are drawn to Maya and that is because it is easy. It is easy because in the black space of Maya designers don't deal with issues of scale, context, site, or any real, present, and tactile issues associated with architecture. I think it is a shame that so many people are dedicating so much time to this software.
But I guess we can try to justify the use of Maya by
saying, “We can go work in the movie industry as a set designer, animator, or visual effects artist”
Sorry to break it to all the technocrats, but even with 5 years of Maya based design your skills are sub-par in that industry, and sub-par in architecture because you wasted 5 years sketching in some software that didn't teach you anything about real issues of architectural design.
Id like you to first catalogue all maya/blobby/vaccuumformed/etc architecutre projects. and then figure out what percentage of all design/published design that is.. i would imagine its quite low... so its not really taking over the market..which makes me wonder why it bothers you so much that.. isnt it ok for some projects to be developed with this experimentation?
2) just because people have been using it for 10 years doesnt mean that we should give up if nothing good has come of it yet (and anyhow. many good things have come of it)
3) you seem upset..why are you really upset? it really shouldnt be because of what other people are doing.. perhaps your jealous or feeling ignored.. so you are venting and choosing to focus your anger on blaming other people or designs instead of making your own better.
4) what does your sketching on trace or building of chipboard models have to do with architecture that maya models dont?
5) is maya really that easy? pencils are easy too. so is exacto blades..does that make them irrelevant as process tools?
6) really. grow up. relax. dont be mad because someone else got a better review than you and they used maya and you "chose" not to.
if you make your work better. it wont matter what other people do. because youll be to concerned with your own progress instead of trying to argue why other people shouldnt be given credit.
aside from the fact that we are probably all sitting in the same building, and we could be having this discussion in person, i think it is quite amusing that there seems to be such hostility toward the software.
if you dont dig it, dont do it. i see maya as another way to work and think, which is how innovation in architecture occurs (not that i am saying that maya is the end all).
yes, i suppose i could be perfecting my AutoCAD skills and working on my lettering but i would have to argue that if i am going to have to spend the time to get a masters degree, i may as well use the 2 years to something different.
You will only see a very small amount of buildings in the real world constructed using Maya [or Rhino or whatever] as the primary design generator. The perception in the studio or school is very much the opposite.
What lemming might be upset about is the ubiquity of similar forms and modes generated by this kind of software, that degenerates into mere image production. And I share this disappointment. The sedcution of this kind of 'production' camouflages alot of fluff, representing the "Geist der Minute".
But who cares.. its school.. its the whole point of school to do something you dont know...
people dont seem to get mad in piano class about the kid whos playing mozart again...why does lemming get so upset about a student trying to learn something..
lemming should spend more time worrying about lemming and less about other people.. i bet lemming would be a better student if that were the case..in my experience those who complain about thinkgs like that.. tend to be bitter uncreative students who are mad that someone is getting attention for a greg lynn copy using maya, when hes not getting any attention for his steven holl copy... so he lashes out.
This argument can be about the politics of the studio, but there are also points to be made about what kinds of architecture processes generate quality outcomes, and certainly engaging in the maya process does'nt always create quality architecture. I'm in favour of software usage, but wary of the some of the deception that can occur.
The difference is that the worthlessness in a digital project can be disguised by spectacle, whereas a shitty cardboard model is just a shitty cardboard model.
oh, but you can polish a turd, mmatt. just add some bright shiny raytrace materials, lots of transparency and that turd looks pretty interesting. zaha and the other blobbers use the method all the time. i think this is what lemming and others have a problem with, but it's a problem with perceptions of representation, and people's lack of ability to see a turd for a turd.
i think most people can tell a piece of shit, no matter how its represented. There were always be people (clients etc) that may get fooled, but the more your around this stuff the better your able to look past the flash.
Saying you hate maya, because of what some people do with it is ignorant. Its just another tool.
I think people can see good or bad software designed projects the same as the can see good or bad chipbaord projects or crayon projects.. but if the person is more interested in software designed projects and its potential, then they are going to preference the software turd over the chipboard turd, because they see it as steps int eh right direction. turd or not....
a piano teacher is going to preference crappy piano efforts much more than crappy tuba efforts.
the whole issue is blown out of proportion.. somewhere between the lines it gets implied that maya, or any other general purpose 3d modeller, mystically stimulates the creation of "turd blobs".
somehwat simplified that's like saying "Autocad is responsible for rectilinear design".
granted, the "nature" of certain tools (usually identified as such when the user lacks skill) makes it easier to come up with specific types of design, such as the maya-blobs. but as so many people in this thread rightfully pointed out, a given design should express the designer's intention, and if he wants to make a darn "blob" he will no matter what; he will use the tools that offers the least amount of resistance (more positively assumed to be "the right tool for the job")
i've been using maya as one tool among many for quite some time, and i haven't done a single "organic" project with it.
it's saddening to see that software of such caliber gets bashed because you can do so many different things with it. perhaps we should ban pi, too.
By the way there was an opening two weeks ago..Jeffery
Inaba's [former AMO] mag Volume.. Rem, Sylvia Lavin,
and a couple others started talking about architecture
and power. Syliva said that PS1 was an architecture
without morality and it gave it power for being what
it wanted to be. Rem got up to the Mic and sounded
out that PS1 was one of the years most powerful
architecture again becuase it lacks morality..."who
cares if it isn't operating as a perfect shading
device, or if it fell apart before its time...it is an
architecture that does not need to nore asks those
kind of questions. He then called out Hernan and
started asking hime all these question s about
PS1..fucking funny..I wonder if hernan's critique of
Rem will change
back in year 2001... while i was trying to understand what is the main logic of how to manipulate a form in Maya script.. I asked my teacher, who is very well known as one of the leader in the second generation of Maya architect, why did i have to shift this certain line.. and why did i have to loft line A rather than line B... After a few seccond of trying to find a sophisticated answer for me, he answered to me w/ a frustration look... "Just Make It Look Good!!!"... Since then i have lost a faith in this tool...
I think diabase is right on. The others on here defending Maya seem just as quick to be critical/defensive.
Maya is not to blame, for sure, but the blobs would not form without it. The ease of making them and the pretty standard plastic material make it easily seductive as an object.
The problem lies in this seduction. In '97 I saw too many blobs, so when it's still being 'experimented with' I think there is a problem. Not with the seduction, as a student can be easily seduced, but in the professors that allow for this seduction without a check against reality.
Maya ain't bad by itself, but when you don't learn a tool thoroughly, it'll end up controlling you. How many people left school and actually 'learned' it? Most won't know how to render, how to light, etc., and will end up letting a few commands determine their process and their design.
I am sure there are countless examples of great work done in school with Maya, it's just that you probably wouldn't know because they don't look like a 'Maya' project.
There was a reason that Mayne would not let anyone use Maya in his classes.
It seems like there is a preconceived idea of what Maya can be used for. If Greg Lynn had Max available to him this discussion would be about Max. I have used it for several years without doing much blob. It is like any other program. It does what the user tells it to do.
Its simple fast and has the best interface of any 3D software I have used.
Maya....
I know the initial intention of animate form was to
use animation tools in Maya to develop a series of
objects then to look for potential architectural
applications in this produced animate array. But the
way Maya is used in architecture now is a joke.
If I see one more piece of shit project where some
vacuum-formed shit or milled panels are stuck to a
wall I'm going to vomit.... And that doesn't even begin to explain the sheer disappointment I feel when I see some bent tubes wrapped in fabric. Is this the radical new architecture we're striving for? Large scale paper-maché?
I know people will bring up NOX and the other minority of architects that have constructed a big
anthropomorphic pile of shit out of real materials.
And I don't really give a shit about that work either,
because it lacks any notion of economy, human scale, or use.
And yet, year in and year out practitioners still
think that there is going to be some groundbreaking
discovery in construction techniques that will allow
them to build this crap...This is highly unlikely
considering that Alias and Maya have been used for the past 10 years with no revolutionary results.
I have been in architecture school for 5 years and
every semester I see the same shit on the walls. At
first I was impressed with the visual quality of the
work. There is no doubt that the work is complex and visually stimulating. So I proceeded to take a few digital studios and learned the techniques that are used to produce this work and to put it simply, it is flat and one-dimensional.
The fascination with Maya has now turned to
MEL-scripting and the new tools you can find or
produce in the software to generate a cell that is
formally interesting so you can use a duplication
transform or an animation snapshot to generate a big cool looking conglomeration of crap that means
absolutely nothing in terms of architecture.
I say, who gives a shit how you made it. I don't give
a shit what script you used or whether or not you used a wire deformer. The important question is what does do in terms architecture?
....99.99% of the time absolutely NOTHING.
There is a reason that students are drawn to Maya and that is because it is easy. It is easy because in the black space of Maya designers don't deal with issues of scale, context, site, or any real, present, and tactile issues associated with architecture. I think it is a shame that so many people are dedicating so much time to this software.
But I guess we can try to justify the use of Maya by
saying, “We can go work in the movie industry as a set designer, animator, or visual effects artist”
Sorry to break it to all the technocrats, but even with 5 years of Maya based design your skills are sub-par in that industry, and sub-par in architecture because you wasted 5 years sketching in some software that didn't teach you anything about real issues of architectural design.
ah ha ha ha
thanks for the smile
Name any technique, tool, or theory, and I will find you ten bad projects for one good.
The problem is the people, not the tool.
A few points.
Id like you to first catalogue all maya/blobby/vaccuumformed/etc architecutre projects. and then figure out what percentage of all design/published design that is.. i would imagine its quite low... so its not really taking over the market..which makes me wonder why it bothers you so much that.. isnt it ok for some projects to be developed with this experimentation?
2) just because people have been using it for 10 years doesnt mean that we should give up if nothing good has come of it yet (and anyhow. many good things have come of it)
3) you seem upset..why are you really upset? it really shouldnt be because of what other people are doing.. perhaps your jealous or feeling ignored.. so you are venting and choosing to focus your anger on blaming other people or designs instead of making your own better.
4) what does your sketching on trace or building of chipboard models have to do with architecture that maya models dont?
5) is maya really that easy? pencils are easy too. so is exacto blades..does that make them irrelevant as process tools?
6) really. grow up. relax. dont be mad because someone else got a better review than you and they used maya and you "chose" not to.
if you make your work better. it wont matter what other people do. because youll be to concerned with your own progress instead of trying to argue why other people shouldnt be given credit.
valid points hotsies.
aside from the fact that we are probably all sitting in the same building, and we could be having this discussion in person, i think it is quite amusing that there seems to be such hostility toward the software.
if you dont dig it, dont do it. i see maya as another way to work and think, which is how innovation in architecture occurs (not that i am saying that maya is the end all).
yes, i suppose i could be perfecting my AutoCAD skills and working on my lettering but i would have to argue that if i am going to have to spend the time to get a masters degree, i may as well use the 2 years to something different.
You will only see a very small amount of buildings in the real world constructed using Maya [or Rhino or whatever] as the primary design generator. The perception in the studio or school is very much the opposite.
What lemming might be upset about is the ubiquity of similar forms and modes generated by this kind of software, that degenerates into mere image production. And I share this disappointment. The sedcution of this kind of 'production' camouflages alot of fluff, representing the "Geist der Minute".
But who cares.. its school.. its the whole point of school to do something you dont know...
people dont seem to get mad in piano class about the kid whos playing mozart again...why does lemming get so upset about a student trying to learn something..
lemming should spend more time worrying about lemming and less about other people.. i bet lemming would be a better student if that were the case..in my experience those who complain about thinkgs like that.. tend to be bitter uncreative students who are mad that someone is getting attention for a greg lynn copy using maya, when hes not getting any attention for his steven holl copy... so he lashes out.
This argument can be about the politics of the studio, but there are also points to be made about what kinds of architecture processes generate quality outcomes, and certainly engaging in the maya process does'nt always create quality architecture. I'm in favour of software usage, but wary of the some of the deception that can occur.
certainly everything done in maya doesnt produce quality architecture.
but i can show you a thousand studend projects using pretty established materials like chipboard, and trace paper that were also just as worthless....
The difference is that the worthlessness in a digital project can be disguised by spectacle, whereas a shitty cardboard model is just a shitty cardboard model.
We had a saying in my undergrad:
"You can't polish a turd."
A piece of shit is a piece of shit, even with a fancy mental ray image and some lense flare.
.mm
oh, but you can polish a turd, mmatt. just add some bright shiny raytrace materials, lots of transparency and that turd looks pretty interesting. zaha and the other blobbers use the method all the time. i think this is what lemming and others have a problem with, but it's a problem with perceptions of representation, and people's lack of ability to see a turd for a turd.
i think most people can tell a piece of shit, no matter how its represented. There were always be people (clients etc) that may get fooled, but the more your around this stuff the better your able to look past the flash.
Saying you hate maya, because of what some people do with it is ignorant. Its just another tool.
also, i should spend less time in studio and more time rereading my posts before posting....
oh yeah...hi cameron
invade canada!!!
2gax represent!
word.
.mm
Hey lemming, if you are in the same building, come to my desk. I have some "mood enhancers" and I think you're in dire need. Yeah 2GAX!!
she said in the dark
Hotsies is great. At what building you work now? I'll come and greet you personally!
San Francisco.
Where are you?
I think people can see good or bad software designed projects the same as the can see good or bad chipbaord projects or crayon projects.. but if the person is more interested in software designed projects and its potential, then they are going to preference the software turd over the chipboard turd, because they see it as steps int eh right direction. turd or not....
a piano teacher is going to preference crappy piano efforts much more than crappy tuba efforts.
the whole issue is blown out of proportion.. somewhere between the lines it gets implied that maya, or any other general purpose 3d modeller, mystically stimulates the creation of "turd blobs".
somehwat simplified that's like saying "Autocad is responsible for rectilinear design".
granted, the "nature" of certain tools (usually identified as such when the user lacks skill) makes it easier to come up with specific types of design, such as the maya-blobs. but as so many people in this thread rightfully pointed out, a given design should express the designer's intention, and if he wants to make a darn "blob" he will no matter what; he will use the tools that offers the least amount of resistance (more positively assumed to be "the right tool for the job")
i've been using maya as one tool among many for quite some time, and i haven't done a single "organic" project with it.
it's saddening to see that software of such caliber gets bashed because you can do so many different things with it. perhaps we should ban pi, too.
Did anyone read that interview with Rem where he said PS1 was the most important and significant piece of architecture constructed this year?
Quoted saying something along the lines of "Who cares if it fell apart, if there wasnt appropriate shade, ect"
Inaba's [former AMO] mag Volume.. Rem, Sylvia Lavin,
and a couple others started talking about architecture
and power. Syliva said that PS1 was an architecture
without morality and it gave it power for being what
it wanted to be. Rem got up to the Mic and sounded
out that PS1 was one of the years most powerful
architecture again becuase it lacks morality..."who
cares if it isn't operating as a perfect shading
device, or if it fell apart before its time...it is an
architecture that does not need to nore asks those
kind of questions. He then called out Hernan and
started asking hime all these question s about
PS1..fucking funny..I wonder if hernan's critique of
Rem will change
back in year 2001... while i was trying to understand what is the main logic of how to manipulate a form in Maya script.. I asked my teacher, who is very well known as one of the leader in the second generation of Maya architect, why did i have to shift this certain line.. and why did i have to loft line A rather than line B... After a few seccond of trying to find a sophisticated answer for me, he answered to me w/ a frustration look... "Just Make It Look Good!!!"... Since then i have lost a faith in this tool...
I think diabase is right on. The others on here defending Maya seem just as quick to be critical/defensive.
Maya is not to blame, for sure, but the blobs would not form without it. The ease of making them and the pretty standard plastic material make it easily seductive as an object.
The problem lies in this seduction. In '97 I saw too many blobs, so when it's still being 'experimented with' I think there is a problem. Not with the seduction, as a student can be easily seduced, but in the professors that allow for this seduction without a check against reality.
Maya ain't bad by itself, but when you don't learn a tool thoroughly, it'll end up controlling you. How many people left school and actually 'learned' it? Most won't know how to render, how to light, etc., and will end up letting a few commands determine their process and their design.
I am sure there are countless examples of great work done in school with Maya, it's just that you probably wouldn't know because they don't look like a 'Maya' project.
There was a reason that Mayne would not let anyone use Maya in his classes.
It seems like there is a preconceived idea of what Maya can be used for. If Greg Lynn had Max available to him this discussion would be about Max. I have used it for several years without doing much blob. It is like any other program. It does what the user tells it to do.
Its simple fast and has the best interface of any 3D software I have used.
Architectural Porn
what is the script to produce this:
Since we're doing +1's....
3GAX!
how bout all you nerds stop jerking off on the forum and get back to work.
you resurrected a thread from three years ago to post that, gnice? why exactly?
took him three years to work out that comment. should have used a more efficient tool. i.e. maya 2008. heheh.
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