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Create 3D Animation
- Thread starter mac pro
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Xander562 said:
Maya is a very powerful program for 3D animation, but based on my personal experience (as well as what I've heard from others) it's got a very, VERY steep learning curve.
I use Cinema 3D from Maxon --http://www.maxon.net/pages/products/c4d/cinema4d_e.html -- there's a free demo on their site. It does just about everything Maya does, and I've found it's much easier to use.
Hope this is of some help! =)
hotwire132002 said:
Yes, Maya is a complex program with a very very steep learning curve, it took me years hard work to get a good handle on it. The reason for that is Maya gives the user an insane amount of control and it's a very solid program, much more than most of the other programs. When you are looking at these programs, keep in mind that the feature list has little to do with how good the program is. Many of these programs will try to list everything under the sun. It's how well the program does it, not what it claims that makes all the difference.
mac pro, if you can tell us more about what you want to do with the program maybe the choices can get narrowed down.
mac pro said:
A few ideas about some programs
Maya
A powerful, rich and very deep program. If you are talking about 3D character animation, Maya is the one most gravitate to. The FX and animation you see in many of the big effects movies is done in Maya. None of the features in the program are 2nd rate.
Cinema 4D
I have not used it but many people really really like this app. My understanding is that it's a great all around app and pretty easy to use (easy for a 3D app anyway).
Blender
Free, what more do I need to say!
Lightwave
Like Cinema 4D it has a lot of people that really like this app. I have seen some great work in this app. Personally, I used it for about a year and I can't stand it. The interface is one big mess and it renders very slowly.
3D Studio Max
Maya and Max have the big market share in the 3D field, Max is PC only at this point.
Electric Image
Fast and beautiful renders, easy to understand. It was a major player many years ago but has been passed up by other apps. No native modeler, no native dynamics, no HDRI.
I would pick up the demo version of Maya and Cinema 4D and play around with both of them. 3D takes a long while to learn and the apps are not cheap. After all is said and done, it's about which app works best for you.
Hope that helps.
ATD said:
Lightwave isn't bad at all - I use it and its just a matter of getting use to the way it works. They separate the modeler and layout/animation part as two separate apps that are connected via another background app so you can modify the models in modeler and update them immediately in layout.
And the rendering isn't that slow, its all a matter of what you're rendering and what the settings are - radiosity is going to be slow no matter what app
As for a noob - go for the Cinema4D - its easier to learn.
D
Mr. Anderson said:
LOL, I never got used to it.
I felt they designed that interface for the sake of "being different". 3D is hard enough to learn, one should not have to fight the program as well. Personally, I found Maya to be much more straight forward, insanely more complex but tool for tool, more straight forward. Rendering may not seem slow but compared to other apps it's sluggish, Radiosity/GI/Final Gather in Mental Ray (Maya) and Camera (Electric Image) are much faster.
I play around with 3D stuff as a hobby. I've found a combination of Blender and Wings to be quite powerful. Wings is a nice modeling app and Blender as of late has gotten some quite powerful features (including things like softbody modeling and fluid modeling)... and you can't beat the price!
They take a tad bit of practice, especially Blender, but they're loads of fun. Plus Blender can handle animation and there are tons of tutorials on it.
For all the naysayers that say open source software is underpowered, watch this short movie Elephants Dream... I believe all the 3D animation was done using Blender.
They take a tad bit of practice, especially Blender, but they're loads of fun. Plus Blender can handle animation and there are tons of tutorials on it.
For all the naysayers that say open source software is underpowered, watch this short movie Elephants Dream... I believe all the 3D animation was done using Blender.