3D Modeling
- Thread starter josefdoc
- Start date
You may want to consider the price too.
Blender = Free
3ds Max = $$$$$ and more if you start adding in plug-ins.
Maya is actually easier to use than 3Ds Max. However the program is a memory hog and will try to claim all of the computing power you can spare. From 2002 I learned to use Gmax (very steep learning curve for a beginner) and after about ten years of modeling with that program I bit the bullet and decided to enroll in college to learn to model as a professional. Took me seven years as an online student and I now have a degree in media arts and animation. I now have basic knowledge in how to make movies and animated videos. Maya is actually the preferred program for modeling organics vs 3Ds Max. My experience with Gmax helped me very much in the 3d modeling classes. It is very rewarding to upload a model to the DLS an watch others use it in their version of Trainz.
Jacob
Jacob
As Architect, I started with AutoCad 1.0 on these huge flimsy floppies
later on my Atari 1040ST, dutch CAD program Arkey and a predecessor of 3dsmax (all in black/white)
When I started Trainz in 2003, gmax was the only choice, learned from AmazingMike back in the days
Also can model in Autodesk Maya but don't use it in Trainz
tried Blender, but it does not do what I want, so gmax is still the easiest/fastest for me
and after all these years, still learn everyday
oops I saw it was only bumped cause spam, well now you know the story here
later on my Atari 1040ST, dutch CAD program Arkey and a predecessor of 3dsmax (all in black/white)
When I started Trainz in 2003, gmax was the only choice, learned from AmazingMike back in the days
Also can model in Autodesk Maya but don't use it in Trainz
tried Blender, but it does not do what I want, so gmax is still the easiest/fastest for me
and after all these years, still learn everyday
oops I saw it was only bumped cause spam, well now you know the story here
As Architect, I started with AutoCad 1.0 on these huge flimsy floppies
later on my Atari 1040ST, dutch CAD program Arkey and a predecessor of 3dsmax (all in black/white)
When I started Trainz in 2003, gmax was the only choice, learned from AmazingMike back in the days
Also can model in Autodesk Maya but don't use it in Trainz
tried Blender, but it does not do what I want, so gmax is still the easiest/fastest for me
and after all these years, still learn everyday
oops I saw it was only bumped cause spam, well now you know the story here
LOL... I've done the same in the past.
My early foray into CAD and 3d stuff was with a program called Drafix CAD and Drafix CAD 3d. The "3d" part would build wireframe models quickly, well sort of quickly on my 8088 computer. Sort of quickly meant 45 minutes a scene of simple cubes and shapes in wireframe. If I did a simple solid-filled rendering, which used Phong texturing, that simple scene of simple shapes used to take 2 hours or more. I upgraded to a 80386, and the same program did a phone-rendering in 45 minutes! I was happy!
Fast forward to 1995 and I was learning and using 3ds R4 for DOS. A company I worked for used it and I was able to obtain a dongle and a pile of floppies, yes a stack of 3-1/2 in floppies to install the program with prayers that none were corrupt. When 3ds Max came along, I found it to have a stupid and confusing interface because R4 worked so much better and much more stable. Using a Pentium 100, the fastest computer in the company, we could render a full animation overnight for the training programs we created. During this time, a consultant and 3ds trainer, who worked for Autodesk, came in and did some modeling and introduced Animatek's World Builder. She had traveled to Russia to interview the owners and brought back a copy. I used her copy, with a dongle for a number of years, and then purchased my own.
World Builder, now owned by Digital Element located in the US, (if they still exist) added on to the program and I became a beta tester for them. The program was quite powerful and allowed for a parametric-like modeling interface for real-world environments, meaning if one needed to remove an object, or undo a step, that could be done without having to reconstruct everything again. There were ready-made interfaces for direct links to 3ds R4 and Max as well as other 3d programs. This meant that models created in 3ds, for example, could be live-loaded into a scene and manipulated in the 3d world environment.
The program also allowed for objects to exist within an environment and displace others so that grass for example would be displaced by rocks that were placed rather than the grass being squished if the rocks were moved about. Trees were generated using libraries like Speed Trees, except mathematically using an L-System to generate the geometry. They developed a plant and tree generator that allowed for "cross-breeding" of species so that odd things could be created such as bamboo trees, or alien plant-forms. The best however was the ability to define areas for foliage and textures. Using simple marquees and lasso areas, a terrain area could easily be selected so that grass would only appear in that area easily. In addition to just that area, altitude and landscape angle, would determine if the grass grew in that location. Rock ledges could be defined the same way, and so could trees. The placed grass, trees, and water areas were all fully animated and full animated movies, up to IMax rendering were possible using a render farm to ease the workload for a single computer. Yes, as you can imagine, even an early dual P3, by this time, still struggled and it took about 20 minutes per frame to generate a complex image on a single workstation. Since I was working for my brother's graphics firm at the time, I used the program to generate various landscapes more than once for advertisements for various companies.
In some ways, I wish some of these capabilities were available in Surveyor, such as the lasso selecting, the displacement of objects, and the texture and object areas. The latter item would be very useful when texturing and placing objects in complex areas.