StarDestroyer.Net BBS

So I have browsed through the stickified Graphics Resources thread above and have tried/struggled with a few of the programs like Blender. I would like to use a program that allows me to draw a 3-D box and various 3D cones. I would like to be able to place the cones anywhere in the scene and rotate them about at least one axis. Ideally, these rotations would be entered in terms of degrees rather than requiring me to judge the rotation by eye. Yes, my scene requirements are that embarrasingly simple.

What program would you wonderful SDN artists recommend? I am used to Photoshop and have found it hard so far to make the transition to a program like Blender. Ease of use or hold my hand and walk me through the program slowly tutorials are highly desirable features. We got off on the wrong foot and now Blender makes my head spin a little! Bad Blender Bad! I have lived too long in the 2D world I guess.

Erm, hit the n-key in blender to type degrees?

Autocad could do it easily, but is overkill.

Pu-239 wrote:Erm, hit the n-key in blender to type degrees?

Autocad could do it easily, but is overkill.

Thanks! I will test out that feature.

I guess I could give it another try and spend more time walking though examples. Do you have any recommendations for easy to follow how to sites? Blender was not very nice to me during our first day together.

Blender is probably the best, since it's free. Try looking for a better tutorial.

There are plenty of other programs out there, but there's no real point in paying for something when you'll never take advantage of its benefits.

Dangermouse wrote:

Pu-239 wrote:Erm, hit the n-key in blender to type degrees?

Autocad could do it easily, but is overkill.

Thanks! I will test out that feature.

I guess I could give it another try and spend more time walking though examples. Do you have any recommendations for easy to follow how to sites? Blender was not very nice to me during our first day together.

Blender3d.org
http://www.blender.org/modules/documentation/htmlI/

Hmmm, if your requirements are that simple, then probably Blender would be fine.

You'll be rendering?

You can also try Autodesks gmax and Alias Maya PLE which are free.

salm wrote:You can also try Autodesks gmax and Alias Maya PLE which are free.

Have these changed lately? If not, they probably wouldn't be the best idea. Gmax has the rendering part removed, so he'll be stuck taking viewport screenshots. And Maya PLE leaves huge ugly watermarks covering the entire image, unless they've removed that "feature" recently.

lPeregrine wrote:

salm wrote:You can also try Autodesks gmax and Alias Maya PLE which are free.

Have these changed lately? If not, they probably wouldn't be the best idea. Gmax has the rendering part removed, so he'll be stuck taking viewport screenshots. And Maya PLE leaves huge ugly watermarks covering the entire image, unless they've removed that "feature" recently.

Gmax doesn´t have an own renderer but you can download a plugin "gmax render suite" and render images.

Maya(From alias) has a free download,
XSI (from softimage) has a free trial
Lightwave (not recommened it's dying)
3DS Max, Has a free trial
Zbrush you have to buy, it's free trial doesn' let you really save work. (Grrr....)
There are more, but the ones with links have free trials.

If Gmax can ultimately render well, then I'd recommend that over Blender.

There's also Wings3d < http://www.wings3d.org >.

Then again, his requirements aren't really that much, and Blender is a pretty lightweight program w/ low sysreqs.

Blender works pretty well for what I do, my main problem is that I am still using a TNT2 graphics card. It's main problem is that many operations can only be done via keyboard shortcuts.

Shinova wrote:If Gmax can ultimately render well, then I'd recommend that over Blender.

Doesn't Gmax save to it's own proprietary file format nothing else can read?

Pu-239 wrote:

Shinova wrote:If Gmax can ultimately render well, then I'd recommend that over Blender.

Doesn't Gmax save to it's own proprietary file format nothing else can read?

A lot of 3D programs save to proprietary file formats. If you're talking about exporting and importing, that's a different story.

But considering dangermouse's needs, it's not a problem.

Pu-239 wrote:

Shinova wrote:If Gmax can ultimately render well, then I'd recommend that over Blender.

Doesn't Gmax save to it's own proprietary file format nothing else can read?

Gmax is a game development tool. It can export files to 3ds and other formats which is necessary to, well, be a reasonable game development tool.

Also note that the Gmax user interface is pretty much the same as the 3DS Max UI, so if you learn Gmax you learn how to use a professional 3D program at the same time.