I'm wondering what would be the best modeling program I should use to start modeling. The only modeling program I used was SketchUp, but I only had a little bit of experience with so it wouldn't be a problem to switch to another one.
Maya
3DS Max
I will second 3DS Max.
3DS Max here too
Mmm, maybe I should have made this a poll… oh well 3 for 3DS Max and 1 or Maya. Does anyone else have other opinions? I would also like to know why you like one program over another.
Blender maybe...? Idk. I say 3DS max is best as well.
Milkshape 3D as well. It's the cheapest, if price is what you're looking for.
If you're looking for quality, I feel 3DS Max is the best, but there's alternatives such as Maya, Blender, Milkshape 3D, XSI Softimage. I'm probably missing something here.
Blender. It beats everything on price, it will run on damn near everything (ran it once on an original 800mHz Athlon, 384mb of RAM and a GeForce 2), and (in 2.5 and above) will work just fine for Source.
In my opinion, it's also far easier to use, far easier than 3DS or Maya. However, that's a matter of opinion, not a solid fact.
Blender and Max is a curious subject. I know a couple of people who can use blender and not max, and vice versa. I personally always hated blender. I didn't like the UI, didn't like the developing models. I think max is easy as balls, but I'm used to it.
You can try both if you want, or all of them, but don't try learning all of this shit at once. It's personal preference.
I think the problem was I was trying to learn Blender when I already had experience with Max and was used to the layout and how it worked.
3DS Max for modelling (and ocasional compiling), Blender for final touches/compiling.
Mainly 3DS Max.
[editline]19th April 2011[/editline]
Not XSI. Ever. That shit fucked with my head.
Honestly, download the trial versions and try them out. I think all the big apps have trial versions you can use for 30 days, and some let you use limited versions as long as you want. Last I knew, you could use Maya for free, you just couldn't render to higher resolutions or export to most file types.
Here's the thing: Modern 3D programs are extraordinarily complex, and each application has its own way of organizing that complexity. What one person likes, another hates. For a lot of us, we're partial to the app we started on, or spent the most time with, but others of us had to keep trying different apps until something clicked.
3DS Max and Maya are the two biggies in the commercial world right now. Both are powerful and relatively full-featured. And personally, I hate them both. But that's me - I've seen absolutely incredible mind-blowing models created with both, but I find them frustratingly slow to work with.
I've used several packages over the years (including some that are no longer around). A few years back, when was between jobs and didn't have access to commercial 3D apps through my employer any more, I started with Blender because it was free.
After a bit, it kinda clicked for me, and with the 2.5 update, I'm really in love with it. Blender has a really steep learning curve with all the context-dependent key combinations, but once you learn them, it's FAST. I can quite literally model 2-3x as fast in Blender than I can in 3DS Max or Maya using Blender's "one hand on the mouse, one hand on the keyboard" workflow. Plus, every aspect of the program is scriptable, so it's easy to write import or export scripts, or to automate tasks you do a lot. Most 3D apps have scripting support, but none expose as much functionality as Blender does.
But, if you're a more visual person, Blender's approach could be your worst nightmare. Go try a few out, watch some tutorial videos on Vimeo, and figure out what works best for you. If you know somebody IRL who works in 3D, try using what they use - there's nothing like a more experienced person you can lean on for help.
3dsmax and lightwave are imho the easiest to get into, with both seemingly using pretty standard shortcuts, views etc. They're essentially both powerful and they share a lot with non-3d applications which just makes them familiar to use.
While Blender is also powerful, I just sometimes get the impression that a lot of open source applications just hate standard metaphors and as a result are a lot harder to use with no prior knowledge. Though I think lightwave is being redeveloped as mono these days.
Honestly don't know much about maya. Rhino3d is also pretty decent to work with though.
As price goes, nothing else in question Blender<lightwave<maya+3dsmax
But you can get max for free as long as you have a student email.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;29297586]While Blender is also powerful, I just sometimes get the impression that a lot of open source applications just hate standard metaphors and as a result are a lot harder to use with no prior knowledge.[/QUOTE]
While you're pretty much right on that point, that's not necessarily a bad thing. My experience with 3DS Max was with a personal instructor who seriously knew what he was doing. I hated the interface. Absolutely hated. It was slow, and complicated, and I had about 2 inches of screenspace for the actual model.
I later picked up how to use Blender, mainly by trial-and-error. Easy and intuitive.
I realize that won't be the case for everyone, but I recommend that, if Max doesn't work out for you, give Blender a shot. The fact that it's completely different can in some cases be an advantage.
Thanks everybody for all the replies! It gave me a lot of insight on what the good and bad aspects of 3DS Max and Blender. I would like more opinions about other programs to see if I might like those better, but I'm probably going to try out 3DS Max first.
[QUOTE=gman003-main;29301768]While you're pretty much right on that point, that's not necessarily a bad thing. My experience with 3DS Max was with a personal instructor who seriously knew what he was doing. I hated the interface. Absolutely hated. It was slow, and complicated, and I had about 2 inches of screenspace for the actual model.
I later picked up how to use Blender, mainly by trial-and-error. Easy and intuitive.
I realize that won't be the case for everyone, but I recommend that, if Max doesn't work out for you, give Blender a shot. The fact that it's completely different can in some cases be an advantage.[/QUOTE]
ctrl-x :)
The basic interface works fine for a beginner. When you aren't you can easily switch over to more complex methods. I just don't have this stepping stone in blender which completely put me off. And I know it happened to a number of other folks as well. It wouldn't be so bad if they at least had standardised hotkeys.
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