Topic awaiting preservation: which 3D program is best?

I've decided to get into 3D stuff. I'm looking to produce images first and then move on to animation. can anyone recommend a good program? I can get hold of calgari truespace or lightwave from a friend but will they do what I'm asking for. I don't really want to start with a basic program and then have to learn a better one later so I really need to get it right first time. All constructive advice gratefully received.



~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

I hope you're paying for them

Lightwave will for sure, although it has a few annoying features, it's not such a bad package, but you'll never get me to use it in preference to 3D Studio MAX.

I dunno about Truespace though, never used it...

Well, IF you are getting started, you may not know if you will like it. So I would not spend any money on software unless you KNOW you want to learn what you bought. It sounds like you may have a friend that will let you TEST the software out but... the more powerful the software, the harder it is to learn (lots of bells and whistles). But you can get GREAT images with free 3D software plus then you can decide if this is what you want to do the rest of your life.

As for learning one then having to learn another... WELCOME TO LIFE. Software changes and what you know today may not be industry standard 5 years from now... so learn something... anything and keep an eye out for what people want when they higher people, then decide if you need to learn something new.

Are you interested in the free software? if so I have some links on my website, or you can look for them online... or if you can't find them I will post some links. Also check out http://www.maxforums.org/ if you are interested in 3D Studio... but don't ask such a basic question there our you will get flamed so hard your log on name will be 'charcoal boy'

Skaarjj: heheh, no I'm not paying for them, not yet anyways. The guy in question says I can borrow them for a while to see how I get on

reitveld: I understand what you are saying about software but for example, If I were new to image editing software I would hate to think I'd spent months learning psp only then to find that ps was a much better program that my time would have been better spent learning.

I tried to reach your website via your profile but it just linked me to the Asylum search page. Is this an error or a subtle joke? I would be interested in those links you mentioned.

This 3D Studio MAX seems to be mentioned a lot on this forum, perhaps this is the way to go? does it allow animation?

~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

yes 3dsm can do animation.

Yes, 3dsmax allows animation. in fact, im sitting right now animating a rock drill kind of thing using 3dsmax. thats the 3d-program i like the most, ive tested maya, lightwave, rhino and a few more. but as i said i like 3dsmax the most...but each program is often good in its own way, for example i think its easier to animate in maya compared to 3dsmax, but modelling and texturing is easier in 3dsmax...

but overall i like 3dsmax the best and you can do some amazing stuff in it...but yet its pretty easy to learn...

/m

Well Morph.... hummm... I can see the link to my webpage at www.zooboing.com but hey things get messed up sometimes. You can also go right to my links page at http://www.zooboing.com/patrickhoesly/PH_Links2.htm

Ok, I would say that you should start learning 3D Studio Max or Viz (same thing, but Viz is oriented towards architects). My reasoning is that there is more people using Max so there are more webpages, tutorials, forums, etc for Max. I think it is one of the better programs and most likely be the major 3D software companies will use over the next decade. After all... its owned by AutoDesk the makers of Autocad so it will be around when other companies go bankrupt.

Cheers,

Here was our first really good discussion on this topic, thanks to Das:
http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Archives/Archive-000005/HTML/20020201-11-000134.html

well I think i'll give it a go then. just one thing. assuming i created something in 3DSM, what format does it save in? what do others use to view what i've created whether its a still image or an animation?

ps thanks for the links guys

~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

3D Studio can save in jpg, avi, etc. so others can see the rendering

Hiya, I would go for Animation Master www.hash.com, this is a cheap program with a system called hash patched, really cool and easy to work with. I know a couple o people how got work at pixar after thier animations in this program.


3D Link Resources!

It's also worth mentioning that not only do the 3d programs available have different features but the quality of their ability to render images is also a factor if you are interested in producing very realistic looking images.

For instance 3dstudio is fairly popular for producing realistic 3d images, however unless you are very adept at fine detail you may end up with 3d graphics but not a realistic feel. It may portray realism, but be assured the viewer will see a noticable difference between your image and an actual photograph or real life still of that image.

Maya has been known to produce amazing realistic qualities and as far as I know has even been used in movies in scenes to produce 3d quality images.

Third, I would like to mention Softimage XSI which I have not seen mentioned here on the Asylum which I am currently learning right now. Here are some links to some images I've seen done with it, they are fantastic: http://www.ericknelson.com/wurp/house.jpg http://www.ericknelson.com/wurp/bell.jpg http://www.softimage.com/Community/Xsi/Galleries/ <-- this one is a must see.


So overall, the quality of the renderer allows for higher quality images to be produced. This may not sound important to you right now, especially if you have the mindset of 'I just want to get out there and make some 3d art' however in the long run, if you eventually decide to take your 3d work to a very refined 9th level holy tofu degree, you may wish to research rendering.

I, in comparison, will ALWAYS prefer LightWave to 3D Studio Max

It all comes down to personal preference, there's people who love Max and people who love LW. if you're just getting started I'd prob look a bit cheaper and check out the 3D Toolkit from DV Garage.

chris


KAIROSinteractive

Regarding Wuji's point of rendering for film, I covered that in my old post that Slime linked.

In summary, Maya is used in a lot of movie special effects, but is normally is NOT used to render. When doing film special effects, Maya is usually output to Renderman. Also note that Maya can now use Mental Ray as a renderer.

SoftImage XSI now uses Mental Ray AS its built-in renderer (I think - the web site wasn't totally clear). This is a big advantage, as it's now the only package with a mainstream film renderer included with the base package.

3D Studio Max can use Mental Ray as its renderer, but they've only integrated version 2.1, and everyone else (Maya, SoftImage, etc) is up to Mental Ray 3.0. Version 2.1 is not nearly as full-featured as 3.0.

I would rank render quality (best first) as:
Anything rendering to Renderman (Maya with the optional Renderman interface, for example)
Anything rendering to Mental Ray 3.0 (Maya with the optional Mental Ray interface, or SoftImageXSI)
LightWave using its built-in renderer
3DStudio Max using Mental Ray 2.1
Maya using its built-in renderer
3DStudio Max using it's built in renderer

Pure raytracers (Bryce, POV, BMRT, etc) would rank right around LightWave in quality, but they're much much slower.

LightWave's built-in renderer blows away Max's (I own both packages, plus the Mental Ray 2.1 add-on for Max).

Just out of curiosity where would you put flamingo in this list?

Flamingo is fairly new, so there aren't a whole lot of comparitive reviews out there. I've never used it myself.

The feature set is similar to LightWave (radiosity and raytracing), which should put it somewhere around LightWave or Max w/Mental Ray. The gallery images don't look as good as LightWave to me (subjective opinion). It's also hard to tell from the feature sheet whether it's a 'pro' renderer (capable of rendering film resolutions in reasonable time frames).

It looks like Flamingo is only used with Rhino, so you'd also be stuck doing everything with NURBS. NURBS are great for a lot of things, but there are better modeling techniques out there for some things. Subdiv surfaces and patch modeling are both considered better for modeling people than NURBS, for example. Hash does people better than Rhino because of this (Hash is a patch modeler).

Naturally, my standard caveat applies: a lot of this is my subjective opinion and my personal interpretation of what I read in trade journals, etc. Your mileage may vary.

[This message has been edited by Das (edited 05-01-2002).]