Ofusion advice

My group is modeling in Maya, exporting to .FBX format, and then editing properties and putting together objects in 3DSMax to create scenes which are then exported using oFusion Community Edition. I'm trying to take this one step at a time, but this is overwhelming really.

We don't actually have all of the requirements that oFusion provides, so, is it really worth it for us, or do you think it would be easier to use a maya mesh exporter and do all the grunt work for a scene loader myself?

I'd like to get some opinions on how much work I can save by using oFusion.

It actually depends on what work you need to be done

If you only need to place objects in the scene other simple scene setups, then you might do this in a single tool

If you need more advanced scene handling and creating as materials, shaders, scene properties, sky properties, shadows, fog, object properties, node animations, skel animations, material animations, world geometry in scene managers, static geometries, manual lods, texture aliases, then you might want or need to use oFusion for your scene creation

It is all related to what you need, the status of your project and what your current pipeline supports, if your current pipeline provides the needed support, even with a few issues here or there, then probably it is better to matain it (and test the options when starting a new project)

Probably it is more efficient in your team if you define specific members to work on specific tools, the modelers do only this part and work in the tool they feel more confortable with, then they pass the models to the scene modelers or enviroment artists and then they pass to the next link in your chain (the technical members or the testing and quality supervisor, or what works in your project)

You define the standards that will be used during the project for the media to be passed seamlessly between the members, and a lead(s) that will act as the binding between members (technical and art)