3D Generalist w/ 10 years experience in Maya looking for job or apprenticeship

Howdy,

I'm currently a 3D Generalist with more than 10 years of experience working professionally in Maya, looking to transition into machining.

Would anyone be willing to recommend a good shop that's offering work or apprenticeships, perhaps somewhere in the LA area?

I've never heard that term "Generalist", Please explain a bit more of
what you do, and how much responsibility you have taken on.

How big/complex of projects have you done ?

Researching "Maya" I find this :
Autodesk Maya - Wikipedia

Looks to be more "pretty pictures" rather than accurate modeling
that is used in our industry to drive machine tools.

I presently work in "Inventor" and I see autodesk owns both programs
(Inventor & Maya), however, I don't see much overlap.

My concern is one of transitioning into something more common
'in the machining world (inventor/solidworks/etc)

Either way, your willingness to learn, and drive to do a good job is paramount.
Hopefully someone here will be able to help you.

Yeah, this is the first time I've seen Maya used in a machine shop context. 3D content creation, you bet. CAD, not the tool of choice. As a (ab)user of many tools outside their intended niche myself, Maya may well be useful. But it's not going to fit into anybody's existing CAD/CAM workflow except so far on the front end that it's not in the machining business. In fact, I'd bet that in the industrial design space, the designers use Maya, and then the production engineering department takes the Maya output and runs it through Solidworks or Inventor or ...

On the other hand, with 10 years of experience in Maya, picking up one of the mainstream CAD packages should be very straightforward. Licences for the full deal are not cheap, but there are usually "student" or "learning" licenses at massively less expense.

sfriedberg said:

... the designers use Maya ...

Click to expand...

Studio Tools.

On the other hand, with 10 years of experience in Maya, picking up one of the mainstream CAD packages should be very straightforward.

Click to expand...

Sure wasn't for me. In fact, I haven't touched the thing in years, it was so exasperating. Pro/E was a picnic comparatively, if that tells you anything.

It's not the buttons or the fact that it's 3d but the artist tools have a whole different philosophy.I always want to know how big something is, but in Maya that has no bearing on anything and I'm not sure there's even a way to find out. It's pretty different.

.....and yet "What's a generalist" ?

It means he did not specialize in wheels, mecha, human facial modeling, or architectural renderings.

sfriedberg said:

It means he did not specialize in wheels, mecha, human facial modeling, or architectural renderings.

Click to expand...

10 years of avoiding tough work ?