3D program question?

I know this has probably been asked, but...

I was wondering what would be (in your opinions) the best 3D program to use. (especially for a noobie like me?).

I am curious to try. My work is paying for me to attend a Photoshop course, and a friend loaned me a tablet, so I would love to try them out.

About a 7535908583 years ago, I had a fraction of talent and would just like to give it a try.

Anyone? *looking towards Doug*

Well.. that really, really depends. What do you want to be able to do with the 3D program?

Pics of my toons, like the 3D's I see in here.

You'd need Maya for that, and a supercomputer, for that kind of detail. I don't know all that much about it, I think there's lower budget and not as advanced 3D programs.. I hope, lol

Just a nice, basic 3D program. I am not expecting to have work like Doug's.

MarDun, for starting out you can't beat the free one from DAZ with other freebies to work from. Between that and Photoshop you should be able to do quite a bit, hand on while I get the link:

http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/studio/-/?

DarkJedi is the master of this, and whatever failings it has, so a PM that way would probably help a great deal.

Also notice the Download DAZStudio for free--you'll also want poser and a few other freebies they have around there, just look around for it.

Great way to get your feet wet and learn about these programs.

Dirk

Thanks for posting that link!!

I hear Poser is good. I have that and Maya on my computer, but Maya is way too freakin' confusing.

Thanks! I will look those up!

Daz|Stuido is nice and free, Poser is quite expensive unless you can pick up an older version that is sometimes offered free (Poser 5 was free for a while).

There are lots of sites dedicating to providing material for both programmes, either free or for a price. I've started learning to use Poser and find that you can easily chew up money buying outfits, props, and figures to use with it.

Good luck with your endeavours.

Ok, here's the deal,

If you want to make quick 3D images of your heroes and villains, you can't beat Poser. There's a lot of 'serious' 3D people who think Poser is crap because of a hundred different reasons, but for a newcomer to the 3D field, it's the easiest to learn, hands down. Older versions like Poser 4 and 5 will only cost you $199 - $299 if you shop around and find deals... and you can be making heroes in a few days or weeks.

Poser allows you to load premade human figures, slap clothing on them, add textures, add hair, pose the figure, hit the render button and you start geting results in very little time.

To do the same in Maya would take months, if not years. I know Maya well and I still can't do the same stuff I can with Poser. In my case, I devoted my time to mastering the parts of Maya that Poser can't actually accomplish and have learned to blend the two.

Anoher of Poser's advantages is the VAST amount of free support available. By that, I mean tutorials and free models. I have somewhere in the order of 30 gigs of free stuff I've downloaded over the last 10 years and I've only touched the surface.

Lastly, Poser is a good introduction to 3D. It's friendly, it's fairly intuitive, and it gives quick results. If you find you want more (like making your own models), then you take the next step... but buying Maya or Max without any 3D expertise isn't something I'd recommend.

Thanks Doug!

On a slightly different note: You didn't really specify in your question if you were looking for just information on pre-existing models such as are used in Poser or if you want to test your hand at modeling your own objects. If the latter, there are some cheaper alternatives to Max and Maya (or even Lightwave). These include, but are not limited to:

Animation Master
Milkshape 3D
Blender <- open source (aka free), but has an odd interface
trueSpace

I've used each of the above to some degree (though I only tested a trial of trueSpace and didn't like it much).

I loved Animation Master, but eventually upgraded to Max.

Blender is free and powerful, but the interface is uses is completely unlike any other 3D modeling application and can cause later confusion if you ever decide to upgrade to the more mainstream applications.

Milkshape is less than $30 and very easy to use, but can not handle the polygon count of Poser figures (but it's good for clothing and scene objects). Also, Milkshape includes the added bonus of a ton of built-in importers for models from various games (sorry, there's no CoH importer).

Argggg, DJ beat me to it, lol. Yah, what he said.

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Ok, here's the deal,

If you want to make quick 3D images of your heroes and villains, you can't beat Poser. There's a lot of 'serious' 3D people who think Poser is crap because of a hundred different reasons, but for a newcomer to the 3D field, it's the easiest to learn, hands down. Older versions like Poser 4 and 5 will only cost you $199 - $299 if you shop around and find deals... and you can be making heroes in a few days or weeks.

Poser allows you to load premade human figures, slap clothing on them, add textures, add hair, pose the figure, hit the render button and you start geting results in very little time.

To do the same in Maya would take months, if not years. I know Maya well and I still can't do the same stuff I can with Poser. In my case, I devoted my time to mastering the parts of Maya that Poser can't actually accomplish and have learned to blend the two.

Anoher of Poser's advantages is the VAST amount of free support available. By that, I mean tutorials and free models. I have somewhere in the order of 30 gigs of free stuff I've downloaded over the last 10 years and I've only touched the surface.

Lastly, Poser is a good introduction to 3D. It's friendly, it's fairly intuitive, and it gives quick results. If you find you want more (like making your own models), then you take the next step... but buying Maya or Max without any 3D expertise isn't something I'd recommend.

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30 gigs! Jeepers. You just gave me a computer heart attack.

Poser costs around 200 maybe a little more but it is less than 300 another 3d program you can get that is affordable compared to the others is hash animation master. wich is less than 300 as well

in addition to the other programs mentioned, you might also consider these:

DAZ Carrara 3D Basics 2 (or the more complete Carrara Pro)
http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/carrara_basics/-/?

Silo from Nevercenter - simple, very inexpensive, yet powerful - but doesn't yet have much of a rendered
http://www.nevercenter.com/

I personally prefer 3dStudio Max, but its a big gun like Maya. (I find it much more intuitive than Maya - but some people feel exactly the opposite) ...and we're talking big, big bucks for it.

I suppose, given that you've stated that you want to create 3d characters like those in City Of Heroes, and that you're completely new to the realm of 3d modeling - yeah, Doug's advice is a pretty good start. Poser would get you into creating characters and cloting them and rendering them pretty fast & there's tons of free and low-cost content available.

The caveat that I would add here is that you are basically loading a prebuilt human model, and prebuilt props and prebuilt clothes and "posing" them, lighting them, and rendering them. THere are sliders and controls to do some modifying of the various bits of anatomy and such - and for the most part, that'll probably be all you need to do to get your desired end result.

But, if you ever want to get down into the more nitty gritty, if you want to build something from scratch, something of a form that does not exist as an available prebuilt model - then you'll need to look to one of the other tools mentioned (such as TrueSpace, Blender, etc).

Kind of the difference between loading in a a photo and being able to only use filters or a smudge-tool to push stuff around - vs drawing from scratch. ...well, okay analogies are always pretty flawed so ignore that.

You can do quite a lot with Poser - but it does have its limits. ...and many people will start with Poser and then export out to a more complete 3d tool (like Maya or Max or any of the others) to "finish it off." So Poser is probably a good place to start.

Later, if you get to the point where you want to start pushing individual verticies around and cutting, splitting, or turning edges - well, then you can look to add one of the other tools to your arsenal. With all the web available tutorials, purchasable 3d modeling DVDs (like those at:

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/

http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/home.php

and many schools now teach it (probably at a community college or adult education center near you) - I'm sure that if you caught the 3d Bug, you'd be able to get up and modeling a relatively short time. Mastering it, now that could take the rest of your life... (grin)

DAZ studio (very similar to Poser, can load many of its file formats) free from Daz

Carrara 3d Basic 2 is about $99 from DAZ

Carrara 5 is $249

Carrara Pro is $549

TrueSpace 5.2 is $199

TrueSpace 6.6 is $395

TrueSpace 7.0 is $595

Silo 1.4 is $109

Autodesk Maya Complete 8 is $1,999

...adn then, there's the more recent trend in 3d modeling - which is more like sculpting, with programs like:

Zbrush
http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/home/home.php

MudBox
http://www.mudbox3d.com/

Cool, and used to make ultra-detailed models (and generate "normal maps") - but a very different way to work.

[ QUOTE ]
On a slightly different note: You didn't really specify in your question if you were looking for just information on pre-existing models such as are used in Poser or if you want to test your hand at modeling your own objects. If the latter, there are some cheaper alternatives to Max and Maya (or even Lightwave). These include, but are not limited to:

Animation Master
Milkshape 3D
Blender <- open source (aka free), but has an odd interface
trueSpace

I've used each of the above to some degree (though I only tested a trial of trueSpace and didn't like it much).

I loved Animation Master, but eventually upgraded to Max.

Blender is free and powerful, but the interface is uses is completely unlike any other 3D modeling application and can cause later confusion if you ever decide to upgrade to the more mainstream applications.

Milkshape is less than $30 and very easy to use, but can not handle the polygon count of Poser figures (but it's good for clothing and scene objects). Also, Milkshape includes the added bonus of a ton of built-in importers for models from various games (sorry, there's no CoH importer).

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I would like to see what you've made.

I've been using Poser a lot lately for ... my poses.

Even though I use Daz, I would'nt let the fact that it's free be too much of a factor. You can spend far more than the cost of Poser on figures and props even with all the freebies out there. The beneift of Daz being free is that you can try it and see it it's something you like. There's a lot of things that Poser does that I wish Daz could do so the cost is definately worth it.

As a refrence or do you actually work over the image?

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As a refrence or do you actually work over the image?

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Partially sometimes, yes.

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I would like to see what you've made.

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Nothing really all that impressive, I assure you. As I've noted elsewhere before, I'm more a hobbyist than an artist. I like to play around with the tools and see what I can do with them, but rarely end up with a completely finished product. Mostly I use the 3D apps for playing around with ideas and then throw my hands up in frustration when I can't quite get what I want done the way I want to do it and then run off to find a tutorial on how it really is 'supposed' to be done. I also play around with the Torque game engine (another hobby, not really making a game) and use 3DS Max and Milkshape to animate and export my tests to Torque.

I have been working off and on, as time allows, on modifying some existing Poser items to work for my Davion and Ruby Blaize character costumes (modifying a flight jacket currently for Davion and a jumpsuit for Ruby). Mostly, the only items I build from scratch tend to be architectural.