Looking for cheap, but good, 3D rendering programs, help please?

[Incubus831]

Hello my name is travis and i am of the age of 15going on 16. I have a careeer in mind and it is 3D art rendering and animation. What programs could be purchased or downloaded off the internet can be used on every day hame computers with good graphix cards and athalon xp 3200+ processor. please reply in the forum or at my e-mail at incubus831@msn.com

 

[toyomatt84]

Well, you could try 3dsmax (the "s" stands for studio). Discreet just came out with version 7 of it. Or there's Terragen, which is designed for making planetscapes (Download Terragen Terrasource (Terragen Resource site)). There's also Bryce 5 which is an all around 3d renderer.

Take your pick, there's more out there.

 

[Event]

There is also a free program called Blender. I haven't tried it yet, but it it is free. 3Ds Max is expensive. The Plug-ins are expensive, too...

 

[Shannon]

There are thousands of free 3D tools than should be fine for learning. Wings3D is said to be a fairly easy renderer to get started on. There's there's Blender which even a lot of pros use apparently. And finally there's Zmodeler, which I've seen a lot of people use for putting extra cars into games like GTA, etc.

 

[Sprite]

well here goes,

^^^^
all of the above and

xsi <<<
maya
z-brush
render man
alias studio
shake

I do 3d animation at uni, and boy do they stress using maya for animation im currently using the latest version of maya which is 6, ive also been using bryce 5, Z-brush and 3ds max. If you want to model stuff realistically try a CAD package like alias studio or autocad 200* , pro engenieer but these packages arnt for stuff like you see in FMV in games, these are for real models like to the millimeter. depends how you want to model.

[edit]

I didnt make these images i got them from a 3d site for pro's and amatures alike

This was made with maya

This was made with 3ds max and photoshop

This was made with 3ds max 6.0 VRay Photoshop

This was made with Softimage/3D 3.9

If ya need more info then just PM me, but if i was to sugest a programme i would sugest Maya, its by far not cheap, but you can get a free version from their site.

Maya personal learning edition here

 

[Event]

Maya Learning edition? Awsome. i always wanted to try Maya. D/l'ing it now! 👍

 

[CDailey]

What the difference between MAYA PLE and the retail version?

 

[Event]

I'm not sure, you probably can only use one machine to render, no server rendering. I'm trying to install it now, but it's responding very slowly...

 

[Shannon]

What the difference between MAYA PLE and the retail version?

The Personal Learning Edition is a cut-back freebe to get you introduced to 3D rendering. The retail version contains all the pro features.

 

[Event]

I found this:
This is a restricted mental ray demo version. Disabled features:
- thread and host parallelism,
- loading and saving of shadow, photon, and final gather map files,
- hardware rendering,
- light mapping, and
- resolutions greater than 512 * 512 (even numbers only).
- A mental ray stamp is overlaid.

Also, I have no Idea what I am doing! I cant even figure out how to rotate the camera!

 

[Sprite]

well to move the camera around press "Alt + the left mouse" to zoom press "Alt + left mouse and middle mouse at the same time"and t odrag the screen around like a statik view it "Alt + right mouse button" hope that gets you started

 

[Gen.]

Sprite You are uber cool.. i could never draw in 3d programs... they were too complicated... your images just leave me in awe...

 

[Event]

Crap. There is a stupid watermark on the renders... plus, you can only go up to 512x512. Meh...

 

[CDailey]

Sprite You are uber cool.. i could never draw in 3d programs... they were too complicated... your images just leave me in awe...

He didn't make those. Read the post like a good newbee.

 

[Sprite]

yeh Integra Type R is right, I didnt make those images , I wish i had the time and modeling skill to achive such quality images, 3D isnt my study area its just a part of my uni course the part which is my main area is games design , which dose include some modeling , but at low polly's, nothing to the scale of things like the images i posted above. Im still learning Maya myself, although my flatmate Tom is v-good at it, for his animation project he made an advert for jag based on a big cat made of like water and light it looked awsome but if he was to render it out on everything full and HDTV size then it was taking 6 to 7 hours per frame and his animation was around 3 mins at 25fps .

 

[Incubus831]

yo thanks a bunch, now all i have to do is convince my parents to let me get a worthy pc to hold these programs. lol

 

[DJM PRODUCTIONS]

If you want to try max or get used to the interface if you go to discreet's website and download G-max. It's the basic 3ds max with out all the special features, and no rendering. Its good if you just want to model for games/get used to 3ds if you plan to purchase it in the future.

 

[donbenni]

Ok weird stuff. Everytime i try to install gmax from the official site http://www4.discreet.com/gmax/, it installs Hitman: Contracts the demo. The installer is Hitman:Contracts demo. Anyone know where i can get another installer from, that actually works?

 

[donbenni]

Solved. Damn Hitman:Contracts setup file was getting loaded instead of the Gmax one. Pretty dumb really... just extracted Gmax to a different folder other than the temp dir.

 

[tait]

I've used abit of 3dmax, which seemed too complicated for me. I always wanted to try maya but never got around to it. Byrce sucks imo. I don't consider it a 3d modelling program, just a novelty for making scenery. Currently i'm taking a highschool course on rhinoceros 3d, which sucks because it's an open course. Kids come in thinking it will be "cool", but just hold the class back due to lack of motivation and learning abilities in 3d and computers in general. It's a fun program, somewhat of an easy learning curve - probably because so far it seems like a basic modeller instead of a complicated program like 3dmax.

Game design sounds like fun Sprite, what were the prerequisites to get in? Last year of highschool and I need to decide what I want to do.

 

[toyomatt84]

Well, first off Welcome to GTPlanet antihero.

But, now for the bad news. In the top left corner of your post (if you're using GTP Lite), you'll see when the latest post was in this thread. Seeing as it was over a month ago, this thread is fairly dead by now, meaning no one chats on it much anymore.

Just a hint of advice, try not to revive dead threads.

 

[tait]

Thanks matt, I'm still trying to get use to how thinks work around here. Mistakes will be made but i'll learn in time.

 

[skip0110]

Can anyone point me toward a really basic blender tutorial? I can't even get it to render a sphere.

 

[Sprite]

antihero, happy to answer questions.

well i left school with no grades above a C, lol but i managed to get myself on a basic art course at collage and did very well, 1 mark of the top grade
but i went on to a different collage and did graphic design, like designing logos and that sort of thing, then i decided it was time for university and whent to De montfort University in Leicester England, the course im doing is Multimedia design and its ok they teach quite a lot of cool stuff but the tutors havent got a clue half the time and are doing the lectures based on books the are reading.

Im curently just about to start on a operation flashpoint mod as one of my projects for the games module so it good. hope you make it, best off getting used to the software now tho so you have a head start

try here for blender tutorials.

http://www.blender3d.org/Education/index_old.php?sub=