Animation software - MAC vs PC

[SCDVD]

A friend of mine recently saw my system but more significantly he saw the range of video related software that I have running on it. He was frankly surprised because he is a MAC user and has had very little exposure to a PC / Windows. (I'm running Vista.) He tried to contain it but he was visibly shaken because of the preset notions he had about Mac's "vast superiority" over PCs. It was clear that the very core of his "faith" had been ripped open to the bright light of day for the first time. I gave him a "cook's tour" of the software on my system for about 45 minutes or so. It was as if his whole world was shattered. From his perspective, here was an alien computer from the evil empire that could do a lot more than he could do on his Mac. In an attempt to recover his dignity, he sputtered something like, "Well, everyone knows that all of the animation developers use Macs." Having done very little animation work myself, this piqued my curiosity. How does the available high end and midrange animation software compare on PCs versus Macs?

[jagabo]

Funny story.

"Well, everyone knows that all of the animation developers use Macs."

I don't know what the split is but there are tons of professional 3D products for Windows: Alias, Maya, 3D Studio Max, Lightwave, Poser...

[guns1inger]

"Well, everyone knows that all of the animation developers use Macs."

Comes from the same 15 year old propaganda that all artists and graphic designers use Macs. It is pushed predominantly be people who used Macs back then, and have been in the cult ever since. Unfortunately, like most cults, they are oblivious to the world around them.

There is still a core of very good professional products available for the Macs, although most of them are cross-platform as well, unless Apple owns them. However the range of products available to the PC out-strips what is available on the Macs by several orders of magnitude. That is part of the reasoning behind shifting to a hardware platform that would also support Windows.