Preserved Topic: Which 3D-program?

I am thinking of buying a 3D-program, but I am not sure which program to buy. Some people say that Bryce 3D is the best while others prefer 3D Max Studio...

Which one would you recommend? Any other program worth considering?

-= Micky =-

Edit: since people are referring to this thread, I've updated it some. I'm a bit familiar with some less popular packages (formZ, etc) - I'll try to add them in the future.

Pro packages

3D Studio Max -
Notes: Max is the market leader in game development, and rapidly gaining market share in motion pictures. It's very forgiving of 'mistakes', letting you change your mind about basic modelling choices, even after the model is half done.
Modeller - top notch. It uses a 'modifier stack'. At any point in the modelling process, you can go back to an earlier point and modify things. For example, you could create a sphere, join it to another object, reshape it, etc, then go back and change the radius of the sphere.
Renderer - very good. Hybrid scanline/raytrace (that means it uses a fast, high quality scanline renderer when it can, and the slower raytracer only where needed). Radiosity and Caustics can only be achieved with other programs (you can use LightScape for Radiosity, or Mental Ray as a complete, motion picture quality renderer).
Animation - top notch. Full trackview that lets you adjust animation keys. You can control things with scripts. You can link animation parameters to other parameters with expressions.

LightWave -
Notes: LightWave is the market leader in TV special effects, primarily due to the fact that it's the cheapest pro package out there (TV shows are always on a budget). Very popular due to top notch image output for a very low price (as far as pro packages go).
Modeller - very good. Lots of features and modelling tools, but you can't go back in a models history and make changes.
Renderer - top notch. Hybrid scanline/raytrace, with Radiosity and Caustics included. 6.5 includes HDRI, which allows a bitmap to illuminate a scene.
Animation - top notch (as of 6.5)

Maya -
Notes: This is the pro package. This is what you can expect to find loaded on your workstation when you get that job at ILM.
Modeller - top notch. Lets you make changes at any point in a model's history, like Max. Most full featured modeller I've seen, and very easy to use, once you get past a fairly steep learning curve.
Renderer - very good. Hybrid scanline/raytrace. Note that professionals normally use RenderMan as a plug in renderer to Maya (RenderMan sells for US$5000). RenderMan is commonly considered to be the best renderer available.
Animation - top notch. Full trackview, expressions, etc. Similar to Max.

Softimage -
Notes: This is the number two package for movie and tv commercial special effects houses (behind Maya). Very nice package.
Modeller - top notch. Lets you make changes at any point in a model's history, like Max and Maya.
Renderer - very good or top notch, depending on the package. The higher priced version includes Mental Ray, which is second only to RenderMan. The cheaper version uses a hybrid scanline/raytrace renderer that is comparable to Max and Maya.
Animation - top notch. Full trackview, expressions, etc.

Rhino -
Notes: Don't try to use this as your only package. You'll have sweet models that look terrible. This is a modeller only. Also note that this is a NURBS modeller. Subdivision surfaces are currently considered a better technology for character/organic modelling, so you'd do better to create people, etc in Maya/SoftImage/Max/LW.
Modeller - excellent NURBS modelling. Fair at character modelling (patch modelling and subdivision surfaces are both better technologies for that).
Renderer - virtually nonexistant. This package was designed to make models for import into other packages.
Animation - nonexistant. Again, you're supposed to model in Rhino, and export to other packages.

Nonprofessional packages

Bryce -
Notes: Bryce has an oddball interface, so learning on it will probably form some bad habits when you go to more industry-standard apps. It's primary intent is to be a nature scene generator. It does very well at making skies, oceans, mountians, etc. Many users have used it for other forms of scenes, though, and it can act as a general purpose renderer. I'd suggest using something else to model with, though.
Modeller - poor. Mainly primitives, no history. You pretty much have to build everything out of spheres, cubes, etc. The exception is the terrain editor, which lets you create mountains out of displacement maps. Again, this is from Bryce's intended purpose of an outdoor scene generator.
Renderer - very good. Pure raytracer (high quality but slooooow).
Animation - adequate. Keyframes only. Difficult to edit keys.

Hash -
Notes: An incredible bargain. This is a very nice character modelling package. It uses patch modelling, which was considered the best character modelling technology before Pixar came up with subdivision surfaces. The popular internet short film 'Killer Bean' was created with this package.
Modeller - top notch patch modeller. Great for characters, pretty good for other organic shapes (cars, etc)..
Renderer - good. Nothing special. Might want to output to another package for rendering.
Animation - very good. Top notch IK for character modelling, and the animation setup is pretty powerful in general.

POV-Ray -
Notes: This is a fun, free package to learn 3D concepts with. You can also use it as a renderer for many cheap modelling packages. If you learn POV-Ray first, you'll understand just what the modeller is doing when you move to a pro package.
Modeller - nonexistant. You have to make your models with scripts. A good way to learn 3D concepts, though.
Renderer - very good. Pure raytracer (high quality but slooooow).
Animation - poor. You have to manually script keyframes, which makes it very difficult to do complex moves smoothly.

Blue Moon Rendering Tools (BMRT) -
Notes: This is a RenderMan compliant renderer. It's freeware, and generates some really top notch images, albeit very slowly. It's often used as a companion to RenderMan in movie special effects, for features that it supports and RenderMan doesn't (i.e. Cuastics, Radiosity).
Modeller - nonexistant. Many modellers can output RenderMan rib files, however, which are BMRT's native format.
Renderer - top notch, but extremely slow. Includes Radiosity, Global Illumination, Cuastics, etc.
Animation - nonexistant. You can animate in your modeller, and render each frame in BMRT, though.

Blender -
Notes: Blender is about as nonstandard an app as I have ever seen (even more so than Bryce). If you learn on this app, you'll probably hate every other app out there because it "doesn't work right" (similar to the way LW users aren't fond of Max and vice versa). It is free, but you'll probably want to buy a book to get past its very non-intuitive interface.
Modeller - fair. It does poly modelling and NURBS, but doesn't have subdivision surfaces. It doesn't support a modifier stack or similar feature.
Renderer - fair. This is odd, because it's feature strong (it supports radiosity and has a sort of hack for global illumination), but the actual renders are not very photo-realistic.
Animation - good. IK is supported, and there are features for exporting to games


If price is no object, I'd recommend Maya with RenderMan. You're looking at US$10000 or more, but you get the same setup that motion picture special effects houses prefer. SoftImage with Mental Ray comes close both in price and quality. Lots of movies have used this combo (including Godzilla, which had a lousy plot but nice effects).

If you don't want to spend quite as much, go with Max if you're more interested in a strong modeller, or Lightwave if image quality is your paramount concern. Both are very good and very popular. I have Max and am planning to buy Lighwave in a few months. Max runs about US$3500, and Lightwave will set you back about US$2500.

If you're going for cheap, Rhino as a modeller and Bryce as a renderer is a popular solution. Rhino also outputs to POV-Ray and *.rib (for BMRT), so you can just buy Rhino and have an adequate starting setup. Hash is cheaper than Rhino, and better at characters, so it makes a good choice for those primarily interested in character modelling/animation.

POV-Ray, Blender, and BMRT are free



[This message has been edited by Das (edited 04-06-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Das (edited 04-06-2001).]

Hey... Pov-Ray's animation isn't *that* bad! You've got the clock variable and all. Eh.

das, bryce has it's positive points :: you can create grayscaled bump maps to create objects, rather than just the primitives...

Thanks! I think I will go with Max, but i might change over to LightWave later on. Only time can tell!

-= Micky =-

wow! they still mke lightwave??? I used to have my hands on it back in the day when i had no idea how to export stuff..
i found lightwave rather hard to model with. I have 3Dstudio MAX 3.1, and it works pretty well, I just got 4.0 (havnt installed it yet) and it is definately better. Most things modeled with MAX start from boxes, so they look sort of funny. If you want some *prime* examples of what maya can do, look at the mummy, or the matrix. If you want to see MAX in action, you can catch the F.I.R.S.T. team competitions April 14th on the NASA channel. (I'm on team 435!! )
But yeah, I'monly familiar with MAX, Maya, Rhino, and Lightwave. I recommend Lightwave cuz it looks better, but learning with MAx *is* a lot easier.. *shrug* wahtever floats your boat.


» THOAN.net (..soon to come..I hope)

I'll come from the complete opposite perspective, I find LightWave far more intuitive than Max's "search for the right button to click on the third pulldown menu from the left" interface It is a bit different, but it was designed in a production environment so the workflow is amazing once you get the hang of it. Modeling is actually extremely easy IMO, just pushing and pulling points. Just demonstrates the point that software, especially 3D, is a rather personal choice and everyone's got their own opinions

Chris

KAIROSinteractive

Yes, that's why I tried to avoid using subjective opinions in my mini-reviews above (i.e. 'easy'). The ratings I gave ('good', 'top-notch') were based on features, since that makes up a lot of the bang-for-the-buck.

The only place I was forced to incorporate subjective opinions was in the render quality. Those have been rated by the industry at large enough, though, for me to confidently say RenderMan > LightWave > Max, etc. While the better ranked packages do tend to have more features (LW has radiosity and caustics, Max doesn't), there's also a visual quality involved (RenderMan just looks better than LW, which looks better than Max).


I, personally, find Max easier to model in, but people who use both seem to be split about 50-50 on the subject. I know a lot of people who say SoftImage is a dream to work with, and I hate working with it.

A lot of the perceived ease-of-use is dependant on what you learn with, I suspect. You form a way of thinking about the tasks that mirrors the tools you use during the learning process. Max was the first package I worked with in depth.

Hey what about Ray Dream Studio and Alice

-D