Maya remains the default in a lot of studios, and the reasons are specific rather than general.
Where it leads
- Rigging. The node graph, deformer stack, and constraint system are deeper than the alternatives, and decades of studio tooling assume them.
- Animation. The graph editor, animation layers and general workflow are what most professional animators trained on.
- Pipeline integration. Python API maturity and the volume of existing studio tooling built against it.
- Character work generally. The combination of the above.
Where it does not
Modelling and sculpting have largely moved elsewhere — to Blender, ZBrush and dedicated hard-surface tools. Texturing moved to Substance. Maya's strength narrowed to the part of the pipeline that is hardest to replace.
Units and axes
Maya works in centimetres and is Y-up. That matches Unreal's units but not Blender's, and it is the source of most cross-tool scale problems. Set the working units at project creation and configure exporters to match once.
Getting a generated mesh into Maya
Import the GLB or FBX, then treat it as a high-poly reference. Maya's own retopology tools are workable rather than excellent — Quad Draw is the manual approach, and many studios route through a dedicated remesher regardless of which DCC they otherwise use.
In a mixed toolchain
A common shape: generate the mesh, clean and retopologise in Blender, texture in Substance, rig and animate in Maya, ship to engine. That is four tools and three handoffs, and the handoffs are all FBX or glTF — which is why format discipline matters more than tool choice.