Is purchasing Maya really necessary?

how exactly is it a waste to make the assets useable? exporting a model is just a few clicks!

Your $$anonymous$$m needs to agree on a definition of "done" for a modeled asset.. but (obviously) making the asset USEABLE in the engine should be the responsibility of the animator, any $$anonymous$$m I've ever worked with requires all animation assets to be tested in the build before they are submitted.. and honestly, exporting an fbx takes almost no time or effort!

I imagine there are tools for mass exporting or easy 1 click re-export. I dont have real info though. But then again why not using ma files? Native support

Edit: stuppid me. Thats why you need maya installed...

You might get better info in some maya forum though.

@Lovrenc , as you will note in your link, this requires $$anonymous$$aya to be installed on your machine

Bottom line, it's up to the $$anonymous$$m as a group to decide how to handle this.. But usually the programmers on a $$anonymous$$m should not all be expected to have expensive modeling software in order to view their build!

(Just one other thought: if you are a student, you could always install the educational version, which would solve the issue and has a three-year license)

I think the demo of $$anonymous$$aya is enough to use for Unity, though I don't use $$anonymous$$aya so I can't say for sure.

the demo would do it.. but without a student/educator license, the demo times out after 30 or 60 days.. I THIN$$anonymous$$ that the educational version, you get 3 years (at least that's how it is with the other Autodesk software as far as I know)

Though it is quite possible that even once expired, you would still have what you need..