🚀 go-pugleaf

Ben wrote:
> 
> Jon E. Schultz II wrote:
> >
> > Hey, I'd like some advice.  I want to buy a 3D modeling program,
> > and I would like to know which programs are good.  In looking through
> > the catalog I will purchase from, I see:
> >
> >         1.) Fractal Design Stuff
> >         2.) Quark Stuff
> >         3.) Ray Dream Designer 4
> >         4.) Alias Sketch! 2.0
> >         5.) Autodesk 3d Studio
> >         6.) 4 Division Animator's pack (A $3,000 value for only $275!

This is all good stuff.  Alias Sketch will not work on a PC.  And I'm 
virtually certain that 4D Vision's Animator's pack will be usless to you 
because it's all 3D Studio R4 plug-in...I'm pretty sure of that.  Get Ray 
Dream Studio and not the 3D Studio...it's way out dated.  RayDream Studio 
has all the animation stuff.  Media Studio is a cheap way to get all the 
Audio, video and image tools you'll need and it's an award winnig package 
that I highly recommend.
> >                                         Wow wee!...)
> >         I hear Autodesk is good, but who knows.  Any suggestions on
> > brands and individual programs?
>

John, It depends on your bent.  The best, most intuitive interface, bar 
none is trueSpace2. It's an excellent program with more depth than you 
might expect. It lacks some of the super advanced features of LW and MAX, 
but makes up for it in being more productive for 95% of what you are 
likely to be doing. IMHO tS2 is the best way to get started in 3D. 

Nearly every tool is interactive in tS2 with up to four real time fully 
rendered and textured windows to work in.  By interactive, I mean for 
example that when you build a texture, you have a material window that 
updates automatically as you add texture maps and change parameters for 
such things as transparency, shininess, roughness etc.  Your creating 
really beautiful things very quickly

For character animation there is no choice but Martin Hash's 3D 
Animation.  It's only $199.00 and includes IK, motion capture and 
editing, spline modeling and other advanced features.

LW5 is fabulous and has great new depth, can do much of what you can do 
in Softimage ($14,999.00) it even has it's own version of Q stretch 
dynamics. But it's not very interactive.  You have to guess at settings, 
input them and render to see the results...clunky interface.  It comes 
with a hundred or so plug-ins to help with fancy modeling, texturing and 
animation (and there are lots of great free ones like bubbles etc.)  It 
takes a long time to lean LW and even takes some time to get your things 
to look the way you want them to, but in the end it' s the best value on 
the market ($1500.00) with a great render engine (no volumetric lighting 
though...shame.)

MAX, is a big package.  I's very unwieldy and looks much easier than it 
is.  The three tomes of instructions are very poorly written, theres no 
index in the huge tutorial book and the other indexes are wofully 
incomplete.   Max's user interface remindes me of the WW2 bombsite that 
had two knobs that needed to be adjusted simultaneously...but the 
engineer put them six feet appart.   There are so many places where it 
should be easy to do something and it's not.  Don't look to the books for 
much help. The descriptions are a serpintine as I've ever seen.  Also, 
MAX has way too many bugs for a realease version.  It has a lovely 
renderer with volumetric light effects, but it doesn't know how to 
raytrace...something I often find useful.  

Wait until the next version.  HOpefully by then they'll get a clue.  I 
have to congradulate them on the amazing variety of tools and neat 
touches in MAX.  It will be a fabulous product someday, just not today.  
Keep your eye on it, it's a comer.

Softimage Extreme 3.5 is the truly amazing choice that puts you at the 
top of the I can animate anything category, but the documentaion is 
inadequate for teaching you how to use it and classes are 
expensive.  It's great depth will take years to master, but MentalRAy is 
awesome and the NT version is threaded...very fast.
-P-
Peter Plantec
DreamScape Productions
Beverly Hills, CA