[ChrisDesign]

Hi everyone. I am looking into a good 3D rendering program for either the Mac or PC. I've looked around online and I've come across a lot of packages, but they all seem to be pretty much the same and they're all expensive.

I'm new to 3D, so I have only a basic idea of what I'm looking for. Animation capabilities would be nice, but I'm mainly interested in something more versatile than Bryce or Poser. A reasonably priced program (assuming there is one) that would allow me to create my own models would be ideal.

Any suggestions or testimonials on good software packages?

Thanks! - Chris

[Frog]

I think that this topic can be as controversial as Mac vs PC, people have very strong feelings on this.

First you need to indentify your needs, are looking to learn this for yourself or are you looking to get experience to get into games or film?

If you are going to work alone and produce stuff for yourself my recommendation would be Lightwave, it's the cheapest of the high-end packages and has an excellent out-of-the-box toolset with a particularly good renderer. It's only real weakness is that it's animation toolset isn't as good as the other packages it competes with.

If you want to work in games you should probably learn 3ds Max, as it is still the industry standard. With meshtools it has excellent modelling abilities. You can download the free Gmax from discreet to get a feel for it.

For film Maya is probably the leader, although softimage XSI may well take over some day. Maya is very powerful, particularly for animation/character rigging, is highly scriptable and customisable but has a very poorly regarded renderer. This doesn't matter to movie studios which all use Renderman for their output anyway but the Maya-->Renderman workflow is very technically demanding and more suited to dedicated teams rather than one individual.

These generalisations are somewhat loose, since all these products have been used accross all markets but nonetheless it is a useful guideline. As a sole operator I use Max, but if I was starting from scratch now I would probably choose Lightwave.

[Catfish]

The free version of Maya is a pretty good deal - watermarks all over the place, but apart from that it's fully functional.

Apart from that...Blender & POVRay spring to mind.


[EDIT:

quote:

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If you want to work in games you should probably learn 3ds Max, as it is still the industry standard. With meshtools it has excellent modelling abilities. You can download the free Gmax from discreet to get a feel for it.

---

Note that as graphics cards increase in power, companies are starting to shift to Maya for modelling. 3ds Max has some extremely good polygon modelling tools, which are well suited to the low-poly models traditionally used in games. We're starting to see games with high-poly models, which Maya is extremely good at.
I'm not entirely sure what 3ds is doing at the moment. Given Maya Complete costs about the same price, I know which one I'd buy if I had $1000 to spare.

[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: Catfish ]

[edraket]

Hash Animation Master.
I'd go for that. Dirt cheap yet pretty functional.

[elam]

I'm with edraket.

Animation Master can be had for around $300.00, or $200.00 educational version.
Upgrades are $100.00.

I've just upgraded to the newest version, 9.5, and it sports many improvements.

It's animation features are as powerful as any out there, and are certainly better than Lightwave's and 3d Max.

On the downside it's buggy and it's has no polygons, but it's very easy to use.

[J Bradford]

This is a breakdown taken from the Spicey Cricket Animation website, it is fairly accurate.

Hash Animation Master
for under 300 bucks this is a powerful program

well rounded tools for the price

you'll grow out of it's tools though

great starting program for hobbyists

can model, light, texture, animate characters and cameras with this program

Available for both Mac and PC platforms
$259.00


Lightwave
the next step up in price AND tools

not my first choice for animation

tetxuring and animation toolset are pretty weak

missing some of the most basic tools

it is a strong modeler though

Available for both Mac and PC platforms
$2495.00


3D Studio Max
the most well rounded product for the price

animation toolset is the weakest though

every single module from modeling to lighting is on par with high-end programs

even has a few more tools than highend products

also has an enormous plug-in audience including ability to render in Mental Ray, PRMan, Entropy and Arnold

Max scanline renderer is strong with over a dozen aliasing options...

a complex compositor that comes with the package...

Available for PC/NT platforms, linux to come
$3000.00 + $1,000 for Char Studio


Maya
the animator's preference, optimum anim toolset

weak deformation tools, renderer is total crap!

most companies use PRenderman with Maya because of this

the upgrade from Alias to Maya also didnt help the modeling toolset

they threw out the baby wiht the bathwater, but the modleing tools are improving

decent program - almost double what Max costs

as an animator, I would choose it over Max

Available for both Mac, PC/NT and UNIX platforms, linux to come
$12,000.00 with the compositing package


Softimage
kind of a scary company lately

most companies have not really cared about this product itself, as they aquired it over the years

gates just wanted to port it to NT to make his platform a player

and Avid just wanted to hook into a 3D program

have heard good things about XSI though

and if the company hasn't totally lost its following, they might do okay

R & D was ignored for a long time and they got behind in their toolset, so less companies are using it now

Available for PC/NT and UNIX platforms
$12,000.00 with the compositing package


Houdini
best known for its dynamics and particles systems

has a pretty good deformation toolset

highly used in big special efx houses because it is very technical, hard interface to wrap your head around

but it is also very powerful...the animation toolset was unimpressive to me though

Available for PC/NT and UNIX platforms
$17,000.00

[edit] I should also point out there is about to be a new version of 3D Studio MAX 5 released after Siggraph has ended (July 26th). There is a lot of new features in every category, it looks good. Visit www.discreet.com for a list.

[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: J Bradford ]

[Catfish]

That information is somewhat out of date. For one thing, Maya underwent massive price cuts a few months ago.

And its renderer is by no means total shit. It is capable of creating very natural looking renders with the appropriate lighting conditions, easily as good as any other non-GI renderer. It's a shame that they still haven't got a GI renderer in there, and that the Mental Ray plugin for it is hideously expensive, but I've been getting some very nice results with the free VirtuaLight.


Hmmm...looking at my posts over the past few days, anyone would think I'm a total Maya fanboy
Meh. It's what we used at university, and despite a number of attempts to get into 3DS and Lightwave, I've never found either of them as natural as Maya, so have stuck with what I know.

I've never heard of Hash Animation Master...I'll have to go check it out.

[zak]

*makes note. need to give maya a very thourough look once the super mega kickass computer is installed.

[Anthony]

Maya's renderer takes work, its slow and doesn't look good by default, which is why people say its no good. Sure, it can produce good images, but its a lot more effort.

Lightwave's texturing toolset is one of the best around, guess they haven't checked it out since 6.0 or so...

In general that list seems to be written by someone without much real experience with most of the packages, preferring to go by the industry stereotypes of each package.

[ChrisDesign]

In answer to Frog's question, I am not planning on getting into films or gaming at this time, although I would eventually like to do that. For now, I am looking for something primarily good at rendering still scenes.

My one problem here is budget. Although I've seen a lot of good stuff done in Lightwave and Maya - and 3DS, too - they're also lightyears beyond my college-student price range, so I'm giving some serious thought to Hash Animation Master. Does anyone have any links to work created in this program?

Thanks for the input by the way, it's been very helpful.

- Chris

[elam]

Victor Navone
Den Beauvais
Brian Prince
Egginton Productions
Avalanche Software
Check out Alien Parade on Beauvais' site. It's the coolest.

These were taken from the Gallery page at Hash.com.

If you're seriously gonna think about buying Animation Master, be warned, the program is quite buggy at times, especially during a new release version. But not nearly enough to make it counterproductive. Maya crashes a lot too.

The main source of support is the AM mailing list, which is moderated by Hash and can feel like a dictatorship at times.

But the positives are it's a blast to do 3d and animation with. I've used literally every 3d program there is. I know about 3 pretty well(Lightwave, Animation Master and 3d Studio Max) and Maya I'm familiar with and I'm always using AM.
Probably cause it's the only 3d software I legally own.



[ July 24, 2002: Message edited by: elam ]

[Bilbo]

About creating your own models- you should try out Wings3d , a completely free modeller not only based on the excellent Nendo, but actually improves on it.
It has no rendering/animation capabilities, only poly-based modeling, but it's extremely comfortable and intuitive to use.
get it from www.wings3d.com (note that you should download the 1mb program file as well as the 20 mb Erlang environment for it to work.)

[jbirn]

For the needs that ChrisDesign first asked about, Hash Animation Master could be a good choice, so could Truespace from Caligari, or Rhinoceros, or any of the other sub-$1000 packages - they each have different features and focuses, so it depends on what your priorities are.

I just got back from the SIGGRAPH conference in San Antonio - if you're interested you can see my write-up on what's new at: http://3drender.com/updates/sig02/index.htm

-jeremy