Serious 3Ds MAX alternatives.

Garry's Mod modelling
#1

Ok, I tried 3Ds MAX at our school, and it was absolutely stunning. I was already kidding around with modeling, but I never got my hands on real modeler. I was always disappointed with results, and I thought that it was just because I sucked at it. Now, when I have tried 3Ds Max for around 4 hours, I know it wasn’t me what sucked. It’s totally incredible tool. It was my first experience with it, and I already got into it, and possibilities started flowing through my head.

Problem is - I can’t get it.

  1. It’s expensive as hell
  2. It doesn’t run under Wine, and I can’t get Windows right now.
    Please let’s not discuss how I could and how I should get 3Ds MAX. I want to look know about alternatives.

I don’t really care about how simple is learning of it, nor how intuitive it is. I have already mastered few obscure interfaces, and I say -bring it on.
Only thing I really want, is as powerful and useful tool I can get my hands on. Please list everything good, and what you use for modeling.

#2

Personally, I use blender. It seems to be the most powerful free alternative. It supports all popular Operating Systems.

I also suggest these for rendering in conjunction with it. (Also free)
http://www.yafaray.org/

#3

What about Maya I heard about earlier?

The cost is not that much of a concern, as long there is some possibility to get some learning version, but I wan’t to see everything out there.

#4

Maya:

3DS Max:

Same Company/Same Price

Maya caters more to artists while 3DS Max caters to Game developers and television/movies

#5

I can’t see Maya working any better under Wine than 3DS Max, I’m fairly sure that on Linux, Blender is your only option.

#6

Ok, thanks for your help. I will start my fight with Blender.

#7

There’s Maya PLE which is like the standard maya only free. It’s a great tool to start with.

#8

Are you sure you can still get that? I’ve not been able to find any links to an actual download, the only place i can think of where i’ve seen it is hidden in the files on the UT3 disk.

#9

Totally agree. I started off with Maya PLE and went to Max when my college provided it. It gave me a great head-start and got a great program to me earlier.

#10

I thought HL2 SDK had a special version of XSI available?

#11

B L E N D E R

Easy to use program, just as powerful as maya or 3ds max. and its free!1

#12

No, XSI Mod Tool just has HL2 SMD support inbuilt or something.

#13

Well it sorta does, they give you the addon file for the SMD import/export but its not actually installed when you get it and they don’t tell you where they’ve hidden it in the installation files either ¬.¬

#14

wings 3d makes modeling easy and fun

#15

Blender is pretty great and it’s free.
If you ever get the money though, 3ds max is probably the best option, I like it more than Maya.