/3/ - 3DCG

>>773084
OP here again.
>As you know, it's hotkey-based,
Yeah, this is something I have a bit of a problem with too.
I'm very visual-minded, it seems. It took me ages to learn even the basic hotkeys in Max and Photoshop, and even now I tend to just clicking things. Something which Blender makes quite challenging with its plethora of outright hidden menus and functions.

I really don't have trouble with the modeling practices themselves. It took me roughly 2 weeks to get confidently familiar with 3DS Max many years ago. At the moment, I just cannot sit down and play around with another app in a similar manner, as the programmers and designers need their assets, fast.

>>773100
>is blender really so bad it cant export correctly into other programs?
3Ds Max seems to only co-operate with the .OBJ format, and you need to have some specific settings enabled while exporting from Blender, in order to avoid corrupting the entire model.
Blender cannot import .max, only .x3d and .obj.

>If no whats the problem
It's a bit of personal dilemma, choosing between the two poisons;
Trying to get my head around the team's tool of choice, while trying maximize my own productivity within a the limited time frame.

There's no real restrictions for tools I should use and such, but I'm uncertain if sticking with Max is the fastest way, or how well my own stuff would mesh with existing assets.
For example, most of the static / hard surface objects have mostly procedural textures generated with nodes, while organic characters appear to have been partially sculpted, with some texture paint applied on top.

It's a major departure from box modeling + manual unwrapping followed by Photoshopping that's been my go-to solution for low poly stuff for over a decade.
Editing round and squishy shapes in Max is quite challenging, even w/ soft selection (though model optimization could help). The lack of "smoothing groups" in Blender is kinda big deal too, and requires a new way of thinking.