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What's your favourite 3D app?

The best suggestion in this thread so far was 'try yourself'. Most of the major apps offer trial versions, so it can be done at no risk.

It's like shoes or clothing, some fit you, some don't. The closest to 'industry standard' is definitely Maya, but it is also the most expensive and has one of the steepest learning curves. But then no matter to which app you go, 'easy' and '3D' do not really match, the apps offer way too many tools to be mastered quickly.

In the end you'll likely end up using different tools for different tasks anyway ;)

I personally prefer Lightwave. Why? Because it simply 'fits me', that's all. And Newtek is showing massive interest into the Mac platform on their forum lately :cool:

And somebody mentioned name-dropping: Anybody pointed to Carrara already? It's a nice and affordable all-in-one app. Pretty approachable too imho, so it may be worth a look for a beginner :)
 
dogbone said:
Let's not forget mudbox just because it hasn't been released yet. :) It looks very ZBrushy.
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Haven't tried ZBrush but heard really good things about it from The VFX Show (Alex Lindsay, Ron Brinkman). So they also mentioned MudBox, but their website is still under construction, from what it appears.

I'm going to stay away from Maya for now because it's too complex and I've heard rumblings that Autodesk is about to move over to a more modern codebase. It's about time, too, since Maya has been around for over a decade, and it's showing it's age. Cinema 4D looks interesting, I hear it is very fast.
 
spicyapple said:
Haven't tried ZBrush...
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That is terribly remiss of you. It's the most fun you can have with your pants on. (apart from fanging it down the Great Ocean Road scaping the footpegs).

The demo is basically the full app with some limitations on saving and screen size and it can be renewed indefinitely. It really does have some ground breaking ways of working and I would put it in a different category to all the other 3d apps mentioned.
 
Im quite new to 3D modelling and i find POV-ray powerful and easy to learn, after two days of download i have this, i hope its a good beginning
cathedral50da.jpg

also its free, it came as bundled software with my suse linux :p
 
I use Maya myself and have used Cinema 4d as well as FormZ. It all depends on you and what you like to work in. I prefer polygon modeling and cant stand NURBS or Subdivisions.

Assuming you are a beginner (although its hard to tell from your posts), I suggest taking a stab at the free and trial software mentioned already to see if you really like 3D. They are all pretty pricey and have a learning curve that scares away most people who are just looking do dabble.

Are you looking to use this for illustrations?

If you are definately going to go balls out and are commited to doing 3D then id jump right into Maya. Its not really easier to learn if you used another 3D app before.
 
My favorite at the moment is Carrara Pro. It is an all in one solution that seems fairly easy to get the hang of. I have tried Hash, Bryce, Daz 3D and like Carrara. I use the educational version so it was affordable. If money were not an issue I would probably go with Strata 3D or Cinema 4D. If you watch the Daz3d web site you can pick up deals if you join their monthly club. I got Hexagon 2.1 for $30 and Bryce 5 for next to nothing.
 
I'm an Architecture student so Autodesk kind of have me by the balls. That said, I've tried all the other modeling suites, and still prefer the mix of AutoCAD and 3ds Max... I just wish Autodesk would port them to OSX now that it's running on intel, so I could bin Windows.

I've just recently started to learn zbrush though after hearing people rave about it for a few years.
 
Am I the only one who find the Blender interface a ridiculous pain in the ass? I tried using it about three years ago but just remember getting fed up.
 
jrea said:
Am I the only one who find the Blender interface a ridiculous pain in the ass? I tried using it about three years ago but just remember getting fed up.
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I guess you could be right? but it's pretty easy, especially when you split the screen for wireframe and colour model. And all of the tools ar elocated when you hit speacbar, makes it simple.
 
I recently worked on a site for Cheetah3D http://www.mac3dsoftware.com, for the money it's a great little app (created on a mac too, which helps) and fairly easy to get into. Anyone out there tried Cheetah3D? I'd be interested to hear their thoughts.
 
Carrara Rocks!

I have used Carrara for a while & it is very intuitive, I have;
Carrara 5 pro
Hexagon 2
Bryce 6
Poser 6
Have used all to a certain degree, but Carrara seems smoothest.
Nice Package for the money & New plugs are coming all the time.
 
Personally I prefer 3D Studio MAX, I think that out out all the 3D application out there it's the most intuitive, best features and it also has some very nice rendering options. The only bad thing is that it's for Windows only....

Blender is also very good however the interfance can be clunky at times and it is tedious to learn.
 
Jasonbot said:
Blender, it's freeware with awesome power! 1t's too 1337 for joo!
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There's a specific restriction in Blender that might preclude it from Spicy's intention of producing photo-realistic images ... as I understand it, Blender's global illumination sources don't cast shadows, meaning that you have to place additional spotlights in your scene on every object you want a shadow for ...

Put me down in the "Big Love for Cinema 4D" column, too. Also, don't underestimate Bryce - although it lacks sophisticated modelling tools, its ray-tracer is the equal of many more expensive packages, and the under-used G2H mesh feature is capable of producing surprisingly complex structures with relative ease.

Based on some of the comments here, I've just popped over to the ZBrush site and notice that the system requirements are listed as OSX plus Boot Camp or Parallels. Is that their way of telling us it only runs in Windows?

Cheers

Jim
 
I used to be a Blender guy, followed by a Lightwave guy.
At this point, I wish I would have invested the time to learn ZBrush.

At this point, if I were to start learning 3d again (I've been on a really long hiatus,) I'd start with Cinema4D, then Z-Brush, and then Maya.

Also, Blender and Wings3D offer a lot. Blender is getting especially powerful (it just got some updates, including subsurface scattering)
 
milky23 said:
Also, Blender and Wings3D offer a lot. Blender is getting especially powerful (it just got some updates, including subsurface scattering)
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Again, I have to point out that Spicy (forgive me being so familiar!) specifically mentions photo-realistic renders and global illumination.

Unless I'm mistaken (please correct me if I am), Blender's global light sources don't cast shadows meaning that achieving a realistic sense of light and shadow can involve manually placing an awful lot of spotlights!

Whilst I'm repeating myself, can I also ask again whether ZBrush is Windows-only, as their website appears to imply?

Thanks!

Jim
 
babyjenniferLB said:
witch of these applications for mac do you recommend for game modeling, the seances and characters
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From what I gather 3DS Max is the 3D app of choice for game makers. If you're looking to get into the gaming industry then that is probably the way to go. Of course Max is a PC only app, so if you're looking for a Mac app, you'll have to use Maya, Lightwave, Cinema4D or one of the other 3D apps.

There's a really comprehensive comparison of 3D programs here. Wikipedia also has a decent comparison (though the descriptions of some of the smaller ones like Vue are sorely lacking).

As for séances... I think you should ask over at a paranormal site. You might find more info there ;)
 
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