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Ryan Fox · Guest

It really depends on what you want to do with it at the end of the day.
What you want to achieve, and how you want to go about it,
decides what you spend your time and money on. Some say that Maya is
easy to model in, perhaps that is so, with the use SUB-Ds.
Personally I think since Maya is the only mainstream 3D modeling
application that spans across all major platforms, makes it very attractive.
3D Studio is a close second in terms of it's functionality, it's user-friendly
layout and the sheer ease to get at crucial tools quickly.
Tools that are required to shape, deform and create your mesh. Mesh that
could make up a city, or a part of a car, tree, or character. I used to play
around with Lightwave back in my Amiga days, since version 3.1 or since
1995/96. Believe me LW is powerful, but not in customization and in
animation.

Look. If it works for you, if it meets your needs, it's fine, you don't have to
change, even if others tell you to do so. Find a program that works for
you, and bloody well stick to it.

polaris fox · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 12:40 pm Post subject:

Yea, that's realy what it comes down to.

All them icons would be realy hard for me to get used to.

Lightwave has changed greatly sence then.
I don't know all the changes they've made in 8, but 7 is quite customizable.
It's almost completely modular in design.
Just a few tools and functions require a responce befor some things can happen. You can move, rename, and even creat your own tools.

Not that I know anything about programing or even scripts.

For me price and capability would be the main factors for chooseing a program. If I can just pick up lightwave and start useing it like I always knew what I was doing then learning curves wouldn't be much of a factor for me.

Other than that just how serious you are about getting into the whole thing
would be the next factor to me. I hardly use the programs I have so spendig a few thousand dollars wouldn't make sence to me.
Plus I'm not going to buy a new PC for a long time.

Just for records I have free, trial, and handicaped versions.

I have ways to get around polygon saveing limits and water marks.
But then again I do own photoshop and various other programs to help with water marks.

I sure wish I did own a fully activated version of lightwave.
Then I could sell the stuff that I make.

Vee Are Are Schee · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 4:27 pm Post subject:

Oo, Lightwave! I spent two years in there. Still have the full version... provided at the school's expense and stuff... yeah. We're still not on speaking terms since what happened the last time I opened it.

Daye · Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:40 pm Post subject: 3D Software

Heh-

It really boils down to what your comfortable working with. Lighwave has it's strengths and weaknesses ( only thing I hate is the modeler and layout are two seperate applications ) but if you're comfortable with it, it's more than capable of producing very nice output.

If you don't plan on animating ( just doing stills ) you may also consider Rhino3D. It's nurbs based and runs great even on a laptop.

Maya. What can be said about it? It's in the top tier. But it comes with a top tier learning curve and a pricetag to boot. Softimage XSI is in the same boat. I think XSI has a free version as well. ( ModTool I believe )

The prices on all this stuff is coming down rapidly. XSI advanced used to run around $15k ( usd ) a few years ago, it's now down to $7k ( pricey still I agree, but it's now less than 1/2 of what it was. Guess they figured out they could sell a few more if they dropped the price a bit )

Drawback to many of these however, are system requirements. Usually pretty hefty ones in the CPU / RAM / Video Card departmets. So make sure your system can handle it before you jump into one feet first Smile

-Daye

Ryan Fox · Guest

OH CPU and RAM requirements... I've just sold my left nut for more of that Razz

4GB RAM ECC DDR is not enough.. 6GB ought to do.. for now

polaris fox · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 10:26 am Post subject:

My video card has less, but better ram than my mother board.
I have a radion 9700 pro with 128 megs of ddr ram.
I only have 256 megs of pc100 ram on a mother board that only has 2x agp.
I feel so inadiquate...or poor, I can't remember which.

It's enough though to mess around with the basics.
Not unless I'm lucky or efficiant.
I have ran lightwave on win98 on a 128 Mhrtz processor with only 16 megs of ram and a voodoo 3000(?). I just didn't have much color and couldn't use thousands and thousands of polygons.

Guest · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2005 3:23 pm Post subject:

The video card will determine how many poly's you can push around in real time while modeling. RAM is everybody's buddy when it comes to 3D apps. Smile

If you plan on doing animation, ( ergo frame rendering ) it's nice to have
applications that can share that load across as many processors as you can find to speed things up. Bear in mind these don't have to be in the same system, they can be networked as well. Though some applications limit the number of processors you can use unless you have licenses for the render engines ( Maya and Softimage fall into this category ) while others ( such as Lightwave ) will let you use as many processors as you can find.

If you're a student, there are a lot of options for discounted 3D software. My favorite is journeyed.com Only stipulations are the software cannot be used professionally ( ergo, you can't get paid for work you create on educational software ) but other than that, they are full blown versions with no limitations on the software at all.

-Daye

Ryan Fox · Guest

Guest · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:09 am Post subject:

beno · Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 8:12 am Post subject:

Oh, god. It didn't log me in. That last post was from me. Smile