Topic awaiting preservation: 3D Modeling?

Well Id love to get working with 3D modeling & rendering, but Im not ready to take the plunge and shell out the money. I remember there being a free version of Strata and maybe something else around the web. Does anyone have any information on a free, or low cost 3D program that would be good for a beginner?

Also if your familiar with any books do tell.

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cheers.jay

http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Community/Special/ple_announce/index.html http://www.discreet.com

Both provide free programs for 3d modeling. Discreet's product is gmax. It is basicaly a toned down 3d Studios Max. It has some nice tutorials for it.

Alias Wavefront has a free version of Maya that is the commercial product but it won't accept some plug-ins and puts a watermark on all your finished images.
http://www.softimage.com/Products/xsi/v2/ExperienceCD/ Haven't looked much at this one yet.

(insert funny joke here)

[This message has been edited by tj333 (edited 03-13-2002).]

Indeed.

Gmax is good, except that you can't render out your models, so you've ogtta get an external rendering engine.

Maya is good, except you get an annoying watermark in each and every image you render out.

The Softimage Experience CD sounds good, but I'm not quite sure what it's restriction is.

http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum11/HTML/000343.html
http://www.blender.nl/download/index.php

not only does it model render and animate, it builds character as well

Jason

Yeah, I just figured out it has a pretty cool physics engine. JK, you should really play with this. It's great. You can set materials physical properties as well as environment physics too, i.e. gravity, etc.