Preserved Topic: getting my feet wet (Page 1 of 1)

Hey guys, I haven't really frequented this topic much but I'm really interested in getting into 3d modelling (ahh, memories of my early photoshop days come to mind).

Since I don't have the wads of cash that I used to, and even just buying photoshop put me back a pretty penny, I was wondering if there were any decent freeware or shareware modeling programs I could cut my teeth on.

However, I realize that you always get what you pay for.

you may check out that thread http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum11/HTML/000134.html

after all i use POV-Ray (freeware). you have to learn it a bit before you can do really great images, but after a week or so you are really mighty!

Someone else has mentioned this in a previous post .. but Blender (www.blender.nl) really is a cool program. It does modelling, animation, game creation, and even post production.
And it is free.
There is alot of help and tutorials on the site and on many other sites around the world.
There is a great community of help with the program, and the download is only about 1.3Mb

Try it ... you've nothing to lose .. :-)

Another one is Nendo, fully functional demo is free (just only saves in a proprietary format) and the full version is only $99. Some really cool stuff done in Nendo at Spiraloid if you're interested, it's a great little program...

Chris

KAIROSinteractive

Actually, I've tried blender and it is very good, but I had problems creating animations. That was a while ago with my old computer, so I'll check it out again. Thanks for your other suggestions as well. I've heard good things about POV-ray, but I didn't know it was freeware.

Well, hang on there, you've just started a different question, modeling and animation are two different animals (especially in this price range).

If you're looking for a good overall low-cost solution I'd strongly recommend Inspire 3D from Newtek. You can buy it online for like $350 and it'a a great deal (same modeling and rendering tools as the LightWave 5.5 for the msot part).

Chris

KAIROSinteractive

It seems to me that $350 is a bit much, at least it would be for me (heh). I say, if you're new to 3D modelling and stuff, and you're just interested in playing around a bit, go ahead and download POV-Ray. It's free and there really is a lot of stuff you can do with it once you learn. Lots of people here say it's slow, and therefore it's not that good, but don't listen to them, hah, it'll do the trick for now at least. Give it a shot.

If you are a student, you can get rather large discounts on highend 3d applications. I personally started my 3D animation knoledge using POV-Ray in conjunction with the MORay modeler. These tools are still nice, and I GUESS you could consider them a start. I however wouldn't reccomend it. Most commonly, people I deal with everyday say they started off using a student version of Lightwave (the good), or even 3D Studio MAX(the bad). I personally use Maya and Softimage

*Fig has violent reaction to truespace*

To each their own, but I tried playing with TrueSpace after using Max and LW a bit and could not do a thing in it, simply hated the interface. To each their own tho, there are some guys that just love it.

And no, $350 still isn't that cheap. It is, however, a lot less than $2000 or $3000, and if you really want to do this stuff professionally at some point you need make an investment in it...just my two cents...

Chris

KAIROSinteractive

[This message has been edited by Fig (edited 04-09-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Fig (edited 04-09-2001).]

Well..I used truespace before I used MAX and Lightwave. It was my first windows based 3D app, so I find less things to be faulty then most peolpe do with it. I still say however that with academic pricing, Lightwave or MAX (sadly even with student licences Maya and Softimage still aren't too affordable) are the way to go. They are both good starting points for an aspiring 3D Artist. You could also go for Strata. It is free, and has been around for a while.

I would love to be able to suggest Blender, but it is just too different. I love where It is going tho, and you can't beat the price.

--now inc


www.now-incorporated.com