Planetfurry BBS

[bonehead54321]

Yo all I was wondering what program is best for doing 3D rendering of a furry char and or a human char.

[Ryan Fox]

[Mapper]

PREP BUILD PREP BUILD WOOT!!!!
Ok its cheatin a little. heheh

[Bug Jonsin]

Never worked with softimage. But,,,, after evaluation of 5 different 3D programs and several college courses on the subject, I will offer this advice.

First this disclaimer. I have to assume you have some sort of project or
idea you want to make reality. Cool. But really without knowing exactly what your up to, there are several options available.

If you need characters fast for a short film or something, then poser will
crank them out in a hurry. However Poser is a $150 dollar (U.S.), program
and really once you take the glamour out of it,,, sucks really really #$@$
bad. I can't swear here but if I could, Poser owes me a about $24,752 in
lost time and damages as far as I'm concerned. But who's counting anyway on a $150.00 program. Poser can not animate logistically and cost
effectively to create a profit margin. That's pretty blunt. So if some one wants to argue this point with me, try rendering 3 animated humans on your screen with standard lighting, lets say only 30 seconds. See what happens.

As a character generator, it's great. And actually that's all they claim to be. So use as directed and as such. Also it claimed somewhere in an old manual, It is not a stand alone product.

Now to modeling programs. If you want to build characters from the ground up, then you have 3 main choices,(my opinion).

They are 3D Max, Maya, and Light Wave. Current versions expected when considering. Bottom industrial line is that Light Wave has the best
renderer in the business. 3D Max is the choice for game designers. Finally
Maya is the most popular and highly used in the industry. All are pretty much the same as far as layout. 3D Max is like the PC of 3D programs, lots of 3rd party software add ons or Plugins you can get. One other note.
The parent company of 3D Max, Autodesk, the owners of AutoCad, recently purchased Alias, the parent company of Maya. So now really
Autodesk rules the entire 3D design world. I could go on about the other
file swapping ramifications of this for quite some time, but I'll save that for
private email info if anyone cares.

All of these three are hard to learn. I had to go back to college to get the
real deal on it.

Finally, I don't know what your application will be so,,, It's hard to say
what app. will suit you. However, if your a beginner and think that your going to get a human to do a dance with hair flapping in the wind, you need
to consider your hardware resources. Hair and liquids in any of the programs I have mentioned or others I did not, will slaughter your run of
the mill home PC.

Hope this helps, and please explore everything regardless of opinions lilke this. Every ones dreams are different.

Regards,

Bug.

[Ryan Fox]

I don’t think it was necessary to shoot Poser down completely. The
software is still pretty powerful compared to some of the packages out
there. It’s not really the tools that make the artist, it’s the skill he or she
posses in the end. I have to add that I've seen some really impressive
works done in Poser and most popular of all Cinema 4D. I myself
originally started out with Lightwave, version 3.1 back in 1995/1996, on
an accelerated Amiga A1200.
I am an avid Maya user, previously I found myself hooked on 3D Studio
Max, but sadly they haven’t realized the potential of other platforms that
offer better resource management, and higher stability. Thus I recently
moved onto Maya.
As a second year animation student at Universal Computer Arts Academy
in Cape Town South Africa, I have to admit that Maya is not something
that you can pick up in a few weeks like PhotoShop or Macromedia Flash.
For example… It entails an extreme learning curve, demands creativity at
all times, and requires constant problem solving and the application of
experience when dealing with Mel scripting.

That's all I have for now...
Ugh.. bed... 24hrs without sleep kills a Fox..
Below random snasp from an unlisted project

Fox

[Howitzer]

Assuming you're not hemoraging money, Blender would be your best bet.

Why? Because it is free.

But, if you happen to have hundreds and hundreds of dollars, than I would recommend Lightwave or Maya. 3dsmax some how makes it more difficult than it should be to create organic characters.

Good luck!

(btw, you will eventually spend money on your 3d stuff if you are truely interested in 3d modeling and animation. Your best purchase will only put you back 40 dollars, and it is Inspired 3d Short Film Production

[bonehead54321]

I had already Downloaded Poser 9 from bear share already with a key to make it a Registerd vertion. Anyway I don't thing getting the programs will be a problem since I already have flash and a whole bunch of other high end programs on my comp. I am wanting to know about these cuz I want to make things for Second life.

A few of the programs I was told that work well for that program Are poser and maya among a few others. I can most likely find out how you animate things but what Id really like to do is make something in 3Ds max or something like that, like a sword or something then bring it to SL and script it and stuff... once I learn how.. witch is my other question. How in al of thos good earth do I script >.<; I beleive Its based on Java.

If anyone has any know how about scripting please help me out.. but I will warn you.. I am an utmost beginner. I will have to be told what each thing does.

[Asalis]

Maxx and tex both know about scriptin in SL I believe but its best you ask them to make sure. so far i've heard that its based more on C++